the road for the next few months but its efforts were ultimately frustrated by the New Guinea weather and the rugged terrain of the Finisterre Range. Some submarines were made available for supply runs to Lae but they did not have the capacity to support the troops there by themselves. An operation was carried out on 29 March in which four destroyers delivered 800 troops to Finschhafen but the growing threat from Allied aircraft led to the development of routes along the coast of New Guinea from Madang to Finschhafen and along the north and south coasts of New Britain to Finschhafen, thence to Lae using Army landing craft. It was by this means that the remainder of the 51st Division finally made the trip to Lae in May. The necessity of delivering troops and supplies to the front in this manner caused immense difficulties for the Japanese in their attempts to halt further Allied advances. After the war, Japanese officers at Rabaul estimated that around 20,000 troops were lost in transit to New Guinea from Rabaul, a significant factor in Japan's ultimate defeat in the New Guinea campaign. In April, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto used the additional air resources allocated to Rabaul in Operation I-Go, an air offensive designed to redress the situation by destroying Allied ships and aircraft in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. The operation was indecisive and Yamamoto became a casualty of Allied intelligence and air power in the Solomon Islands on 18 April 1943. Game theory In 1954, O. G. Haywood Jr., wrote an article in the Journal of the Operations Research Society of America in which game theory was used to model the decision-making in the battle. Since then, the name of the battle has been applied to this particular type of two-person zero-sum game. Notes References Further reading External links Bismarck Convoy Smashed! Incorporates footage of the battle taken by Damien Parer. 1943 in Papua New Guinea Battles and operations of World War II involving Papua New Guinea Territory of New Guinea Bismarck Sea Conflicts in 1943 Naval battles of World War II involving Australia Naval battles of World War II involving Japan Naval battles of World War II involving the United States South West Pacific theatre of World War II World War II aerial operations and battles of the Pacific theatre March 1943 events