Battle of Scarlet Beach
1943 CE.
Shown on the map at -6.483°, 147.850°.
The Landing at Scarlet Beach (Operation Diminish) took place in New Guinea in September 1943, during the Huon Peninsula campaign of the Second World War. Allied forces landed at Scarlet Beach, north of Siki Cove and south of the Song River, to the east of Katika and about 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) north of Finschhafen. The capture of Finschhafen allowed the construction of air bases and naval facilities to assist Allied forces to conduct operations against Japanese bases in New Guinea and New Britain. After Lae had fallen sooner than the Allies had anticipated, they exploited the advantage. As a result of faulty intelligence, which underestimated the size of the Japanese force in the area, the assault force chosen consisted of only Brigadier Victor Windeyer's 20th Infantry Brigade. The landing at Scarlet Beach that took place on 22 September 1943 was the first opposed amphibious landing that Australian forces had made since the Landing at Anzac Cove in the Gallipoli Campaign of 1915. Navigational errors resulted in the troops being landed on the wrong beach, with some of them coming ashore at Siki Cove and taking heavy fire from the strong Japanese defences in pillboxes.
Text from the Wikipedia article Landing at Scarlet Beach, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.