 Historian William Manchester outlines in his biography of General Douglas MacArthur, "American Caesar", that acting as porters was well down the natives' list of acceptable voluntary activities and that they would fade away without great inducements.Many Papuan residents of Port Moresby either returned to their family villages or were evacuated to camps when the threat of Japanese invasion loomed.The city became, by September 1942, home to an important Allied complex of bases and thousands of troops were eventually stationed in the area or more often, staged through it, as it was the last Allied bastion on the island and, conversely, a key staging and jumping off point as the Allies began conducting offensive warfare themselves, pushing back the Japanese advances.