Movers & Moved

The man moving was the man likeliest to be killed. Those who were motionless in the New Guinea jungle were Japanese. Those who moved were Americans and Australians. The Japanese had cut down coconut palms, roofed their pillboxes with tree trunks, piled the roofs high with sand-filled rice bags. Machine-gun slits and gun bays gave out from cleverly constructed trenches radiating from the pillboxes.

In the shadow-barred jungle the motionless men said: "You must come in to kill us." Since September U.S. and Australian troops had been moving in to do it. Not until light tanks, 13-ton General Stuarts, were brought into action Dec. 8 did the tide begin to run decisively for the United Nations (TIME, Dec. 28). Even then it was a slow, bunker-by-bunker ad vance. Thrice General MacArthur announced that victory was near. Buna village and Gona, farther north, fell by mid-December, but not Buna Mission, a mile from the village, or other regions along the coast.

On New Year's Day Australians put the final squeeze on Giropa Point, while Americans closed in on the Government Station area. That day saw the first break in Jap do-or-die morale: 23 surrendered without trying to betray their conquerors. Others, clutching logs and lifebelts, tried to swim away, were picked off by sharks and sharpshooters. Next day the station area was occupied. Low-flying planes strafed the last refugees paddling through the sea.

General MacArthur announced that the Buna area had been cleaned up. Between Buna and Gona a pocket of Jap jungle fighters remained on Sanananda Point, their number unknown, their lives a poor risk, even though victory in New Guinea is as elusive as Tojo's motionless men.

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