Nothing aside from annihilation. No cooperation from the navy. If I were to compare the complete cooperation of the enemy, it would be like the war of a child with an adult. Our mountain artillery positions were knocked to pieces by enemy tanks. We are encircled, so they say, and about to be overrun. Consequently, all we can do is to guard our present positions.

As things are now, even if our air and naval forces [give] battle, we could not regain the lost ground. Great numbers of enemy planes are constantly up in the sky. In front of the island, camouflaged destroyers and PT-boats swarm in and out. What in the world could our forces at Rabaul or the staff of Imperial headquarters be doing? Where have our air forces and battleships gone? Are we to lose? Why don’t they start operations? We are positively fighting to win, but we have no weapons. We stand with rifles and bayonets to meet the enemy’s aircraft, battleships, and medium artillery. To be told we must win is absolutely beyond reason.

The Japanese army is still depending on the hand-to-hand fighting of the Meiji era, while the enemy is using highly developed scientific weapons. Thinking it over, however, this poorly armed force of ours has not been overcome, and we are still guarding this island. But this is no time for praise. If [our] forces don’t move, this island will soon be taken. If we, as well as the enemy, were to fight to the end with all available weapons, then I would be willing to give up, whether we win, lose, be injured or be killed. But in a war like this, where we are like a baby’s neck in the hands of an adult, even if I die, it will be a hateful death. How regretful! My most regretful thought is my grudge toward the forces in the rear and my increasing hatred toward the Operational Staff.

In the rear, they think that it is all for the benefit of our country. In short, as present conditions are, it is a defeat. However, a Japanese officer will always believe, until the very last, that there will be movements of our air and naval forces.

There are signs that I am contracting malaria again.

This was Officer Oura’s last entry. His fate is unknown, but given the few prisoners taken and the relative handful of Japanese who escaped from New Georgia, it is unlikely that he survived. Six days after Oura’s final entry, the battered and depleted Japanese forces began withdrawing to Kolombangara and adjacent islands, and Munda airfield fell on August 5, 1943. For the victorious Americans, some two weeks of mopping-up operations remained before New Georgia was deemed secure.