The Japanese had begun planning a counterattack during the Australian advance on Finschhafen. The main part of the 20th Division was moved down from Madang as the Japanese began concentrating their forces around Sattelberg, with the main force arriving there on 11 October. The Japanese plans became known to the Australians through captured documents and by mid-October 1943 the Australian 24th Infantry Brigade had been brought up to reinforce the 20th. When the Japanese counterattack came, signalled by a bonfire on Sattelberg, the first wave fell upon the 24th Brigade around Jivevaneng on 16 October but the attack, having been put in a piecemeal fashion, was pushed back. The next day Japanese aircraft attacked Allied forces around Scarlet Beach and this was followed shortly an amphibious landing which was all but destroyed at sea by fire from American and Australian anti-aircraft and machine-guns. It was during this assault that an American soldier, Private Nathan Van Noy, from the 532nd Engineer Boat and Shore Regiment, performed the actions for which he was later posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. Only a small number of Japanese managed to make it ashore amidst the devastating fire and, by the following day, these all had been killed or wounded by Australian infantry conducting mopping up operations.