A M4 passes a knocked out Type 97 Shinhoto Chi-Ha
Before the building of a rest area at Garua Bay, with its hot springs and bathing beaches, these Marines relax in one of the crystal clear streams running into the sea from New Britain's mountainous interior.
Marines struggle to winch a tractor, and the 105mm howitzer it is towing, out of the mud of New Britain. The trails linking Volupai and Talasea proved as impassable for heavy vehides as those on Cape Gloucester
Cpl Robert J. Hallahan, a member of the 1st Marine Division band, examines the shattered remains of a Japanese 75mn gun used in the defense of Mount Schleuther and rigged as a booby trap when the enemy withdrew.
At Volupai, as on Cape Gloucester, sand, mud, and land mines sometimes carried by Japanese soldiers who detonated them against the sides of the vehicle could immobilize even the Sherman M4 medium tank.
On 12 February 1944, infantrymen of Company B, from LtCol Walker A. Reaves 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, advance inland on Rooke Island, west of New Britain, but find that the Japanese have withdrawn.
Marine patrols, such as Puller's trek to Gilnit, depended on bearers recruited from the villages of western New Britain who were thoroughly familiar with the local trail net.
LtCol Lewis H. Puller, left, and Maj William J. Piper discuss the route of a patrol from the village of Agulupella to Gilnit on the Itni River, a two-week operation.
The capture of Matsuda's headquarters provides Marine intelligence with a harvest of documents, which the enemy buried rather than burned, presumably to avoid smoke that might attract artillery fire or air strikes.