Dictionary:

Bougainville

  (bū'gən-vĭl', bū-găN-vēl')

A volcanic island of Papua New Guinea in the Solomon Islands of the southwest Pacific Ocean. It was discovered by Louis de Bougainville in 1768.

The largest of the Solomon Islands group, eastern New Guinea. Bougainville was controlled by Japanese forces during World War II, until U.S. troops landed on November 1, 1943. Allied airstrips were built on Bougainville by January 1944, for use in attacking the Japanese strongholds throughout the South Pacific. Although Japanese forces were essentially defeated on Bougainville by March 1944, intermittent Japanese resistance on the island continued through the end of the war.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

For more information on Bougainville, visit Britannica.com.

Bougainville, site of U.S. landing in Pacific during World War II. With the objective of gaining air-fields for a strike on New Britain Island, Lieutenant General A. A. Vandegrift's First U.S. Marine Amphibious Corps landed on the western coast of Bougainville, the largest of the Solomon Islands, on 1 November 1943. The marines faced a scarcity of amphibious shipping, a swampy terrain, and worthless naval gunfire support. Nevertheless, this was at the time the best-planned and best-executed amphibious operation of World War II. By 13 November 33,861 marines had been put ashore to face a Japanese contingent of approximately 58,000. By 15 December the American perimeter was defended by a well-anchored defense. The objective had been achieved at a cost to the U.S. Marines of 423 killed and 1,418 wounded; 2,500 Japanese were killed.

Bibliography

Dyer, George Carroll. The Amphibians Came to Conquer. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Marine Corps, 1991.

Gailey, Harry A. Bougainville, 1943–1945. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1991.

—W. M. Darden/A. R.

• Louis Antoine de Bougainville
• Bougainville Province, Papua New Guinea
• Bougainville Island, Papua New Guinea
• Bougainville, Somme in Somme département, France
• Bougainville campaign (1943-45) during World War II
• Lively Island, in the Falklands known as "Isla Bougainville" in Spanish.
• French cruiser Bougainville - a warship of the French Navy that fought during World War II.

See also

• Bougainvillea, plant

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