Sanananda: A Bastard of a Place

The Battle for the Beachhead New Guinea 1942-43

By David W Cameron
Published by Big Sky Publishing
RRP $36.99 in paperback | ISBN 9781923144750

David W Cameron is a name well known to readers of Australian military history. By my calculations, this is his third ‘Battle for the Beachhead New Guinea 1942-43’ book, having written about Gona (Gona’s Gone (2023)) and Buna (Bloody Buna (2023)).

After pushing the Japanese back along the Kokoda Track to the north coast of Papua New Guinea, it was time to face the entrenched Japanese at their beachheads at Gona, Buna and Sanananda.

The fighting for the Japanese beachheads was among the fiercest of the whole Pacific War and the first combined large-scale operation between Australian and American troops against the Japanese.

By the 3rd January 1943 the Japanese beachheads at Gona and Buna were finally in Australian and American hands after almost two months of desperate fighting.

One beachhead, however, remained to be taken, the best defended, not only in terms of its deep defence and network of supporting bunkers and slit trenches, but also by its large deep swamps and jungle, giving rise to the description, ‘a bastard of a place’.

It would be another three weeks before Sanananda fell to the Australian and American forces.

With his characteristic use of the diaries and letters of those who were there to tell the intimate story, Cameron has once again succeeded in producing a narrative that takes the reader into the heart of the action. He has an admirable ability to be able to distil complex situations into an engaging and rewarding narrative.