weeks to transport the entire 57th/60th north by plane into Nadzab and Tsili Tsili. Meanwhile, movement of engineering equipment such as bulldozers was also difficult. It took several Douglas C-47 Skytrain transport planes for the 871st Airborne to transport just one of their heavy engineering machines into the battlefields to the north. These machines had to be first dismantled in Port Moresby and then flown in pieces over the Owen Stanley Range using five or six transport planes. Initially, they were landed at the airfield at Nadzab. They were then used to build roads into the Tsili Tsili area so that more troops, supplies and machinery could be transported overland for the construction and commissioning of the Tsili Tsili airbase itself. Both the Australians of the 57th/60th and the Americans of the 871st Airborne worked to build the roads into the Tsili Tsili fighter aerodrome from Nadzab over 60 kilometres (37.5 miles) away while also constructing the Tsili Tsili landing strip. In time the base at Tsili Tsili was also upgraded to enable it to land the larger transport planes. The Commanding Officer of the 57th/60th in New Guinea, Lieutenant Colonel Robert R. Marston, and others in the battalion, noted that the Americans were co-operative, generous and "always overstocked". As on the Kokoda Track, at Buna and Gona, and every battleground in New Guinea, there were difficulties with air transport, engineering, supply, communications, tactics and strategic planning caused by the wet climate, jungle illnesses, the topography and the density of the jungle vegetation. Sometimes the soldiers were expected to remain at peak health, fitness and performance to fight in places where, for health reasons, the local Papuans very wisely would not live. The Japanese command at Wewak discovered the Tsili-Tsili airfield and launched preemptive attacks on 15 and 16 August 1943. The bombing raids, including a kamikaze act on a church parade, inflicted many Australian and American casualties, but the raids overall did little damage to the airfield. Between 17 and 21 August 1943, Allied forces launched a series of large air attacks that first bombed and then strafed all four Japanese airfields around Wewak (at Wewak and satellite airfields at Boram, Dagua and But), heavily damaging many aircraft and facilities. Fighter escorts for the bombers came from Tsili Tsili. As a result of these coordinated bombing raids, Japan lost air superiority over New Guinea for the remainder of the