Wikipedia:Today's featured article/March 16, 2023
The Bougainville counterattack (8–25 March 1944) was an unsuccessful Japanese offensive against the Allied base at Cape Torokina, on Bougainville Island (now part of Papua New Guinea), during the Pacific War of the Second World War. The goal of the offensive was to destroy the Allied beachhead, which accommodated three strategically important airfields. The Allies detected Japanese preparations and strengthened the base's defenses. The attack, hampered by inaccurate intelligence and poor planning, was repulsed mainly by United States Army forces (artillery pictured) after intense fighting. The Japanese commanders had underestimated the strength of the U.S. defenders, who greatly outnumbered them, and suffered severe casualties, while Allied losses were light. This attack was the last big Japanese offensive in the Solomon Islands campaign. In late 1944 Australian troops took over from the Americans and began a series of advances across the island that lasted until the end of the war in August 1945. (Full article...)