Операция «Колёсная Пружина»: Тихоокеанский театр военных действий (1943–1944)

Major military strategy for the Allies in the Pacific theater of World War II

Operation Cartwheel (1943 – 1944) was a major military operation for the Allies in the Pacific theatre of World War II. Cartwheel was an operation aimed at neutralising the major Japanese base at Rabaul. The operation was directed by the Supreme Allied Commander in the South West Pacific Area (SWPA), General Douglas MacArthur, whose forces had advanced along the northeast coast of New Guinea and occupied nearby islands. Allied forces from the South Pacific Area, under Admiral William Halsey, advanced through the Solomon Islands toward Bougainville. The Allied forces involved were from Australia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the US, and various Pacific Islands.

The Japanese Navy decided to try to save Rabaul by sending hundreds of airplanes from aircraft carriers based at Truk in December 1943 to counter the US and Australian bombers. But the only thing that this operation accomplished was the destruction of 200–300 of their own irreplaceable carrier planes and the loss of experienced naval aviators. This degradation of the Japanese aircraft carrier air fleet led to preparations by the US Navy to start the Marianas campaign a few months later. Also, the Admiralty Islands campaign was conducted starting in late February after the Allies confirmed that Rabaul no longer had any airplanes. By February 1944 Rabaul had no more fighters or bombers for the rest of the war because of the non stop bombing by land based Allied airplanes only a few hundred miles from Rabaul after most of Operation Cartwheel was completed. 120 airplanes were evacuated to Truk on 19 February in an attempt to replace the destroyed Navy carrier airplanes. Rabaul's valuable mechanics attempted to leave Rabaul by ship on 21 February, but their ship, the , was sunk by Allied bombers. Rabaul became a death trap as the Japanese refused to surrender even as their food and medicine ran out.