Vintage Military - Part 13

World War II
Buna, New Guinea

By the end of 1942, Japan had conquered the northern side of New Guinea and the adjacent Bismarck Islands, but its invasion of Australian-held Port Moresby on the south side of New Guinea had been thwarted at the naval Battle of the Coral Sea.  The plan of General Douglas MacArthur, in charge of Allied land forces in the Pacific, was to retake New Guinea and then move on to the Philippines.  The first major American battle in New Guinea was the recapture of Buna, on the north shore, in January 1943.

Accompanying the U.S. 32nd Infantry was LIFE photographer George Strock, who took all these photos.  This photo was published in the magazine, with a caption saying "Americans bathe in muddy shell holes almost as soon as the firing stops."

Here's the published page from the Feb. 15, 1943 issue of LIFE.  Comparing this with the original photo, you can see that the side view of the naked soldier in the center was left as is, but an artist has retouched the photo to add a mound of dirt to hide the tiny frontal view of the soldier on the right.

Here, some soldiers are skinny-dipping after the battle.

And here are some more soldiers bathing and washing their clothes in shell holes.

In command of the U.S. 32nd Infantry was Lieutenant General Robert Eichelberger, shown here giving cigarettes to a naked soldier climbing out after bathing.  With the American retaking of Buna and the recapture of the nearby town of Gona by the Australians, MacArthur's drive to oust the Japanese had begun.