War At The End Of The World : Douglas MacArthur and the Forgotten Fight For New Guinea, 1942-1945 Paperback / softback

One American soldier called it 'a green hell on earth.' Monsoon-soaked wilderness, debilitating heat, impassable mountains, torrential rivers, and disease-infested swamps - New Guinea was a battleground far more deadly than the most fanatical of enemy troops.

Japanese forces numbering some 600,000 men began landing in January 1942, determined to seize the island as a cornerstone of the Empire's strategy to knock Australia out of the war.

Allied Commander-in-Chief General Douglas MacArthur committed 340,000 Americans, as well as tens of thousands of Australian, Dutch, and New Guinea troops, to retake New Guinea at all costs.

What followed was a four-year campaign that involved some of the most horrific warfare in history.

At first emboldened by easy victories throughout the Pacific, the Japanese soon encountered in New Guinea a roadblock akin to the Germans' disastrous attempt to take Moscow, a catastrophic setback to their war machine.

For the Americans, victory in New Guinea was the