Markham Valley, Nadzab Airfield, near Lae, New Guinea: An Australian Digger and a U.S. Army Paratrooper link up on 6 September 1943. The day before, the paratroops had taken the valley in a surprise assault by air in conjunction with Allied landings at Lae, about a dozen miles to the East.
U.S. Army Signal Corps image SC 185994 via NARA
Note the Digger’s distinctive Owen submachine gun, which may denote him as a member of 2/6th Independent Company commandos, which was part of the small overland force that set out to rendevous at Nadzab from Tsili Tsili on 2 September. Also of interest is the apparently field-made assault vest worn by the Paratrooper of the 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment, who had just carried out their first combat jump.
Besides the commandoes, the Australian overland group, primarily engineers and pioneers, consisted of B Company/Papuan Infantry Battalion, 2/2nd Pioneer Battalion, 2/6th Field Company, and detachments from the 7th Division Signals, 2/5th Field Ambulance and ANGAU, along with 760 native porters.
The day after the landing, the Australians and Americans went to work on the airstrip with hand tools. Trees were felled, potholes filled in, and a windsock erected while the waist-high Kunai grass was burned away.
(U.S. Air Force Number 67091AC)
Some 27 miles northwest of strategically important Lae by road and half that by air, it was as if Nadzab was placed in the middle of nowhere for a reason. A godsend to Allied strategists.
Founded in 1910 as a German colonial Lutheran mission station, by 1943, the grassland at Nadzab, at one time cleared from the jungle perhaps for experiments in farming, was some 900 yards long but it was thought it was easily clearable to 2,000 yards with a little work– making it an ideal location for an airfield in the Japanese’s back yard.
The strip to be captured at Nadzab is shown before the landing of the 503rd Parachute Infantry. (U.S. Air Force Number A25418AC)
After much planning, it was hit by 1,700 men of the 503 PIR in a full-scale regimental jump, with 31 Australian gunners of the 2/4th Field Regiment tagging along on what was only their second time leaving an aircraft via parachute.
The 255-aircraft initial assault on 5 September was dramatic in the extreme, being led by 48 low-level B-25 bombers who blitzed the unoccupied valley with 2,800 20-pound frag bombs and their on-board .50 cals, followed by 7 A-20s laying smoke for the 79 C-47s that carried the paratroopers. Five B-17s brought up the rear, dropping supplies. Fighter cover was provided by a mix of 108 P-38s, P-39s, and P-47s. Another three B-17s filled with command observers– including MacArthur himself who received an Air Medal for the act– along with five more B-17s carrying weather and nav teams, kept everyone in line.
The 31 Ozzies of 54 Battery, 2/4th Field Regt, with only one practice jump under their belt, parachuted into Nadzab later that day with two dismantled 25-pounder-Short guns and 192 boxes of ammunition to provide the Americans some more support than their organic 60mm mortars, dropped by a mix of five C-47s and two B-17s.
This picture shows the attack on Nadzab at its height, with one battalion of paratroops descending from Douglas C-47s in the foreground, while in the distance (left) another battalion descends against a smokescreen. Coming in at 400-500 feet at 100 knots, each aircraft dropped its stick in just 10 seconds. The whole regiment was unloaded in 4.5 minutes (U.S. Air Force Number 25418AC)
“From one of the lowest altitudes ever attempted in battle, paratroopers jump among the trees and 12-ft. high kunai grass of the Markham valley.” (U.S. Air Force Number D25418AC)
While smoke screens build up, paratroopers drop from low-flying Douglas C-47 airplanes on each side, along the column of C-47s and about 1,000 ft. above them, come close-cover fighter support. (U.S. Air Force Number C25418AC)
Jumping unopposed, the 503rd lost three men killed and 33 injured in hard hits while one member of the Australian 2/4th Field Regt was likewise injured. Nonetheless, the results were so good that a follow-on glider force assault was canceled and the first transport aircraft landed at the improvised airstrip the next morning, with more than 40 planes cycling in on D+1 alone.
The next day, air-portable bulldozers and graders began arriving and within a month the airfield was fully functional with four strips. This enabled the Australian 7th and 9th Infantry Divisions to close with the Japanese.
Natives of New Guinea crowd around supply-laden Douglas C-47’s which have landed at Nadzab Airstrip, New Guinea. In the distance, another plane comes in for a landing. 11 September 1943. (U.S. Air Force Number 67083AC)
Natives, supervised by men of the Australian 7th Division, unload supplies from a Douglas C-47 at Nadzab Airstrip in New Guinea. 11 September 1943. (U.S. Air Force Number 67085AC)
The landing forced the Japanese evacuation of Lae to take a route that proved to be disastrous for them and 3rd Bn/503d had a major skirmish with the rear guard of this exodus.
As noted by the Army, “The successful employment of Parachute troops, in the Markham Valley, has been credited with saving the concept of vertical envelopment from being abandoned following several less than successful engagements in Europe.”
Interior of Douglas C-47 showing Biak wounded, litter and walking cases, to be evacuated to Lae and Nadzab New Guinea. (U.S. Air Force Number D52993AC)
The field, besides being a logistical hub for the Australian-American forces pushing the Japanese out of New Guinea, Nadzab served as a base for assorted 5th Air Force units including the F-7 Dumbos of the 20th Combat Mapping Squadron (20th CMS), the B-25s of the “Air Apaches” of the 345th Bombardment Group, and the 43rd Bombardment Group (Heavy), with “Ken’s Men” flying their big B-24 Liberators from the growing base in 1944. Likewise, Navy units of the FAW-17, including the lumbering PB4Y-1 patrol bombers of VB-106, were stationed there as well.
The crew of the 64th Bomb Squadron, 43rd Bomb Group, pose beside their plane, the Consolidated B-24J-150-CO Liberator “Shining Example” at Nadzab, New Guinea. 25 May 1944. The aircraft, SN 44-40184, got her name as she was the first natural finish B-24 in SW Pacific. (U.S. Air Force Number 68882AC)
Post-war, Nadzab was abandoned by the Allies, almost as quickly as it was occupied.
Aerial View Of Nadzab Airstrip – Nadzab, New Guinea, July 1946. (U.S. Air Force Number 116758AC)
It eventually became a commercial airport, with, ironically, a redevelopment project spearheaded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency.
As for the 503rd, they jumped again in July 1944 at Noemfoor Island in New Guinea as an airborne reinforcement, helping to defend the Kamiri airstrip against Japanese counterattacks. After that operation, the 503rd shifted to the Philippine Islands where, on 16 February 1945, the regiment made its celebrated jump onto Corregidor Island in Manilla Bay, earning its nickname “The Rock.”
Today its first battalion (1–503rd IR) is still on active duty, assigned to the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team in Vicenza, Italy.