Lae is where Amelia Earhart had last stopped before disappearing over the Pacific on her way to Howland Island. This has nothing to do with WW2 except that the airfield already existed, built as a link to the Kokoda gold mine.
According to Saburo Sakai, there was not much to Lae:
...Though I could see little cause for the humor in this forsaken mudhole. The runway was 3000 ft long at the most, and ran at a right angle to the mountain slope almost down to the water. Adjacent to the beach was a small aircraft hangar riddled with shrapnel and bullet holes. Three shattered Australian transport planes lay in a tangled heap on the floor, and demolished equipment littered the area. The hangar and its contents had been bombed and strafed by our planes during landings operations the previous month.
The Lae airdrome had been hacked out by the Australians to airlift supplies and gold ore to and from the Kokoda Mine, which lay deep within the formidable Owen Stanley Mountains. Overland access to the mine was almost impossible, sincethick, steaming jungles and precipitous mountain slopes barred the way to foot travel. The seaport was as desolate as the airfield. A single merchant ship of 500 tons, also Australian, lay in the harbor mud, its stern and mast jutting from the water near the pier. And that was the only vessel in sight. I was convinced that Lae was the worst airfield I had ever seen, not excluding Rabaul or the advanced fields in China.
...The CP was ridiculously inadequate. It failed to deserve the name "shack," for it had no walls! Matts hung from beams to act as walls, curtains, and doors. The room was barely large enough to hold all thirty fliers when they huddled close together. In the middle was a large, crude table hewn from the local timber. A few candles and one kerosene lamp served as illumination. Electricity for telephones came from batteries.
After we had been briefed by Captain Saito, I saw all the vehicles assigned to Lae. These consisted of an ancient, rusty, creaky Ford sedan, one decrepit truck, and one fuel vehicle. They served the entire base. There were no hangars. There was not even a control tower!...
Twenty non-commissioned officers and three enlsited fliers were packed into a single shack. This so-called building was six by ten yards. In its center there rested a large table, which we used alternately for eating, writing, and reading. On both sides of the room cots were jammed together. A handful of candles provided our only light. The billet was a typical tropical hut with a floor raised five feet off the damp ground. A rickety staircase at its front provided entry into our "home."
Five hundred yeards east of the strip lay the officers quarters. Their billet was exactly like ours. Their only advantage was that ten officers comprised their total strength; they had the same facilities for half the men. The base commander, his deputy, and an assistant crowded into a smaller shack adjoining the officers billet.
During our stay, and until Lae's capture by the Allies in 1943, no attempt was made to improve our facilities, nor were any ground reinforcements brought in.
Saburo Sakai Samurai!
, Chapter 12