Salamaua Airfield (Site)

 airport, Second World War 1939-1945, military, abandoned / shut down, historical layer / disappeared object

Originally built as a support airstrip for mining operations, Salamaua airfield was captured by Imperial Japanese Army forces in March of 1942 after a series of airstrikes forced the small garrison of Australian troops to evacuate. Used thereafter as a ancillary airfield to the larger facilities at Lae and Nadzab, Salamaua and its mountainous isthmus saw heavy use as a seaport during Japanese occupation.

Well-equipped with anti-aircraft batteries by the time both US and Australian forces began conducting regular airstrikes as a diversion to the planned assaults on Nadzab and Lae, Salamaua came under harassment ground attacks by Australian Forces in the Summer of 1943. With its Army Garrison deployed into the jungle along the Black Cat Trail to hunt down the Australians, reinforcements were drawn from reserves at Lae which itself came under heavy Allied attack starting in September 1943. Orders were soon dispatched for all IJA forces to fall back to Lae and the airfield was quickly secured by elements of the Australian Army's 5 Division on September 11th, 1943. Though repaired and briefly used to support the Allied Huon Peninsula Campaign, Salamaua Airfield saw little use after March 1944 and was abandoned postwar.

Largely overtaken by both the San Francisco River's delta and jungle postwar, today much of the former airfield site is now swampland.

www.pacificwrecks.com/airfields/png/salamaua/index.html