Hello and welcome to episode 221 of the unauthorized history of the Pacific War podcast.

My name is Seth Periden, historian and deputy director here at the Mississippi Armed Forces Museum here at Kim Shelby. And with me, but not with me this week,

is my esteemed co-host, retired Navy Captain Bill Toady. Bill is currently

the face of, or one of the faces of the sunken submersible that was outlooking after

the Titanic. bill is doing

live news segments all day today and unfortunately can't be with us but we have our ever faithful

co-host co-host and my my often wingman historian john partial john good to have you as always

thanks for being here. Love it.

I'm going to do our back-to-back double-header today.

Indeed.

Indeed.

And we've got a pretty cool topic we're going to talk about today that is an influence on a lot that happens for the rest of the war.

On November 1st, forty three admiral william

halsey's forces surprised the japanese and i do mean surprise the japanese when they

made a full-scale landing at cape torakina on bougainville expecting an american landing but not

expecting it at that location the japanese were stunned when the marines of the 3rd Division waded ashore and pushed inland.

Responding to the threat, the Japanese sent a surface force to destroy the Allied transports offshore that night,

but in turn were destroyed themselves in the Battle of Empress Augusta Bay.

Japanese commander-in-chief combined fleet Koga Manichi responded to the action off Empress Augusta by shuttling a strong force of heavy cruisers to Rabaul and preparation for another strike at the Americans offshore on Bougainville of Bougainville.

Allied intelligence told Admiral William Halsey that the Japanese were building surface units in Raba and anticipated the counter strike, cussing

over his lack of potent surface vessels to respond to any Japanese threat, Halsey decided

to send his carrier task group to raid Rabal and hopefully knock out the threat staring him

...