From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

Milne Bay

Bay of the Solomon Sea on the coast of New Guinea

Summary

Bay of the Solomon Sea on the coast of New Guinea

Field	Value
name	Milne Bay
image	MilneBayLocation.jpg
caption	Location of Milne Bay
location	Milne Bay Province
coordinates
type	Bay
pushpin_map	Papua New Guinea
oceans	Solomon Sea
countries	Papua New Guinea
length	35 km
width	15 km
area	202.7 sqmi
depth
cities	Alotau

| max-depth = Milne Bay is a large bay in Milne Bay Province, south-easternmost Papua New Guinea. More than 35 km long and over 15 km wide, Milne Bay is a sheltered deep-water harbor accessible via Ward Hunt Strait. It is surrounded by the heavily wooded Stirling Range to the north and south, and on the northern shore, a narrow coastal strip, soggy with sago and mangrove swamps. The bay is named after Sir Alexander Milne.

History

Surveyed by Luis Vaez de Torres in July 1606.
Surveyed by Captain Owen Stanley, R.N. F.R.S. in 1850.

World War II

Australian troops at Milne Bay, 1 October 1942

During World War II, the area was the site of the Battle of Milne Bay in 1942 and by late 1943 it became the major support base, Naval Base Milne Bay, for the New Guinea campaign through the development of Finschhafen as an advanced base after that area was secured in the Huon Peninsula campaign. By January 1944 about 140 vessels were in harbor due to congestion at the facilities.

Congestion was relieved by opening of a port at Finschhafen and extensive improvements at Milne Bay. Malaria was a major problem in New Guinea and Milne Bay was particularly hard hit with incidents of the disease hitting at a rate of 4,000 cases per 1,000 troops per year and estimated 12,000 man-days a month lost time.

There were three planes ditched off the island in 1943, a P-38H Lightning, a P-38F Lightning, and a B-24D Liberator "The Leila Belle" (MIA).

21st century

HMPNGS ''Seeadler'']] sank a poacher in 2016.

HMPNGS Seeadler fired upon a Vietnamese fishing vessel on 23 December 2016. Her captain died, and the poacher sank.

Gallery

File:Milne Bay NASA.jpg|Milne Bay seen from space. File:MilneBay-Alotau.JPG|Milne Bay from Alotau. File:Treehouse at Milne Bay - Papua New Guinea - 1884-1885.jpg|Treehouse, in 1884-1885 File:Milne Bay.jpg|Map of the bay

Footnotes

References

James, Karl. "General Clowes of Milne Bay".
Royal Geographical Society. Supplementary Papers.1886. p. 270
(1980). "The voyage of Torres: the discovery of the southern coastline of New Guinea and Torres Strait by Captain Luis Baéz de Torres in 1606". University of Queensland Press.
[http://nla.gov.au/nla.map-rm1686 Hydrographic Map of Papua or New Guinea] Sheet 7, Southeast coast, Orangerie Bay to Bramble Haven, 1852-1888
[http://www.pacificwrecks.com/provinces/png_basilisk.html Basilisk Island] Pacific Wrecks

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

bays-of-papua-new-guinea geography-of-milne-bay-province

Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about Milne Bay — get instant answers, deeper analysis, and related topics.

Research with Mako

Free with your Surf account

Content sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This content may have been generated or modified by AI. CloudSurf Software LLC is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Always verify important information from primary sources.

Report