Inlet of the South Pacific Ocean, Papua New Guinea.
Located at the southeastern end of the island of New Guinea, the bay is 30 mi (50 km) long and 6–8 mi (10–13 km) wide. A Spanish explorer charted the bay in 1606; it was named by the British for Adm. Alexander Milne in 1873. European interest in it increased during the 1889–99 gold rush. Samarai, an island in the China Strait, became a boomtown from which prospectors spread through the islands of Milne Bay and to the mainland. As a Japanese base of operations in World War II, Milne Bay was the scene of Japan's first major setback in 1942, and it served as an Allied base for the remainder of the war.