Black Swan Hollandia

Taleb’s ‘black swan theory’ refers to “high-impact, hard-to-predict, and rare events beyond the realm of normal expectations”.  The term ‘black swan’ comes from the early European belief that ‘all swans are white’ which became a symbol for the impossible – that is, until the discovery of black swans in Australia. 

As a statistics person, this kind of stuff fascinates me (’what ifs’) – and as a history enthusiast, the following story (from U.S. Army in World War II: The War in the Pacific: The Approach to the Phillipines)  is interesting to me:

On April 22, 1944 in Hollandia New Guinea (now Jayapura Indonesia), assault units of a force of 50,000 US troops made surprise landings at Humboldt Bay and Tanahmerah Bay with the objective of capturing Japanese airfields.  Taking Hollandia is the first step in the march back to the Phillipines.   The Japanese are unprepared for the invasion and their light resistance is quickly overcome.  The Americans even find tons of Japanese supplies on the Humboldt Bay beaches, much of it still on fire as a result of the naval bombardment. 

Prior to the invasion, Japanese airfields in the region were attacked by Army and Navy air forces – destroying hundreds of Japanese aircraft – achieving air dominance.

However, US commanders don’t have good intelligence on the ground conditions around the invasion beaches and the road (not much more than a jungle track) leading inland.  Engineers find that trying to construct a road off the beach is tougher than anticipated due to rugged terrain and swamps.

Supplies pile up on the beaches – there is no road to transport supplies inland to advancing forces.  Vehicles have no place to go.  Some artillery units are tasked with hand-carrying supplies to support the advance.

Shortly after dark on the second day, one Japanese aircraft, guided by the smoldering supplies on the Humboldt Bay beaches, drops one stick of bombs on the beachhead.  One of the bombs hits a Japanese ammunition dump, which starts a conflagration that spreads to an American fuel dump and then spreads over most of the supplies sitting on the beaches.

Dozens of American troops are killed, hundreds are injured (about 10% of the casualties suffered during the operation).  More than 60% of the American supplies are destroyed, about 11 LST loads.  The fires rage for days. 

As a result of the supply shortage, combat troops must limit their operations to patrol and defense and subsist on half rations for about two weeks.

Adding insult to injury, the Tanahmerah Bay beachhead terrain is even more rugged and swampy than Humboldt Bay, so all reinforcement and resupply efforts are run through Humboldt Bay.

Fortunately for the US, the Japanese had recently changed their command structure and were reorganizing their forces.  Somehow, Hollandia was left relatively unguarded (about 11,000 mostly support troops instead of the 18,000 mostly combat troops expected).  The Japanese had recognized their mistake and several combat regiments were en route to the area at the time of the invasion.  Also, the Japanese had been having the same logistical problems as the US encountered (evidenced by the Japanese supplies sitting on the beaches) and engineer units were en route to improve the Hollandia base.

The operation was a major success for the US, despite the hardships encountered.  The US forces suffered 1 casualty for 4 Japanese.   The invasion cut off Japanese forces in eastern New Guinea.   The US improved the Hollandia base (air, naval, supply) and used it as a major staging area for the invasion of the Phillipines. 

History is rife with these types of unusual events (not so unusual then, are they?).  Just thought I’d share this story…