from Rabaul proved what good work AirSols had already accomplished." The Greens provided a site for a PT boat base, and during the night of 1 March, PT-319 entered Simpson Harbor and went undetected by the Japanese. This would have been inconceivable just two months earlier. In addition, a detachment of Seabees constructed an airfield, putting the Japanese base at Kavieng in range of AirSols planes for the first time. March 1944: Japanese counterattack Preparations General Hyakutake, commander of the 17th Army, commanded about 40,000 men. In addition, there were also about 20,000 naval personnel in the southern part of the island under Vice Admiral Tomoshige Samejima. One of the units in Hyakutake's command, the 6th Infantry Division under Lieutenant General Masatane Kanda, was reputed to be the toughest in the Imperial Japanese Army. Initially, Hyakutake was convinced of the Allied intent to remain permanently at Torokina and as a result remained on a defensive posture. The resulting delay in Japanese offensive action gave Griswold plenty of time to deploy his men in suitable defensive positions. In December 1943, Hyakutake resolved to launch an attack on the US forces around the perimeter and throughout the early months of 1944 his staff made the necessary preparations and plans. Hyakutake's attack would employ the 12,000 men of the 6th Infantry plus 3,000 reserves. His faith in the ultimate victory was such that he planned on taking Griswold's surrender at the Torokina airstrip on 17 March. The Japanese dragged the greatest concentration of field artillery they had yet assembled onto the ridges overlooking the perimeter. Griswold decided that allowing the Japanese to hold these ridges was better than stretching his own lines thin by occupying them himself. On the American side, Hodge's Americal Division and Beightler's 37th Infantry Division manned the Perimeter, while the 3rd Marine Defense Battalion and the US Army 49th Coast Artillery Battalion protected the beachhead. Griswold had learned on New Georgia that waiting for the Japanese to attack was a much surer way to victory than undertaking his own offensive operations in a jungle. Battle of the Perimeter As far as the press and the American public were concerned, the war had moved on from Bougainville. As Morison writes, "the struggle for the Perimeter went almost unnoticed outside the Pacific." Hyakutake opened his all-out effort to throw the Americans off Bougainville, which came to be known simply as The