Kokoda Track campaign

• 1. Introduction

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  The Kokoda Track campaign was fought between July and November 1942 in the Australian Territory of Papua, and it nearly cost Australia the war in the Pacific. At its most desperate point, Japanese forces stood within 32 km of Port Moresby, the last Allied stronghold before mainland Australia. How a handful of militia battalions, raw and undersupplied, held that line against veteran Japanese troops who had already swept through Malaya and Singapore is a question that haunted commanders, historians, and soldiers for decades.

  The campaign was not simply a battle. It was a test of supply lines through some of the world's most punishing terrain, a contest of artillery versus determination, and a political crisis that ended the careers of three senior Australian officers. It also gave rise to one of the most enduring legends in Australian military history, the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels, though the men who carried that legend have rarely been at the centre of the story told about them.

  By the time the last Japanese forces at Buna and Gona finally surrendered on the 22nd of January 1943, the lessons learned on the Kokoda Track had already begun reshaping Australian military doctrine in ways that would last to the present day.

• 2. A Stage Unlike Any Other

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  Papua in 1942 was almost entirely without roads beyond the immediate vicinity of Port Moresby. The Kokoda Track itself ran roughly 96 km overland from Kokoda to Port Moresby, passing over the Owen Stanley Range, reaching a height of 2,190 m near the peak of Mount Bellamy. The total elevation gain and loss over the full length of the track came to around 5,000 m, a figure that made every kilometre of movement a physical ordeal.

  The track passed through what was called "the Kokoda Gap", a dip in the range roughly 11 km wide. To the Japanese, intelligence from vague pre-war explorer accounts suggested this Gap might offer a quick corridor to Port Moresby. To the Allies, the same intelligence suggested a narrow path that a small force could easily block. Both assessments proved wrong in ways that shaped the entire campaign.

  The climate along the track was relentlessly hostile. The lower reaches were hot and humid with high rainfall. The higher elevations, frequently above the cloud line, produced fog, and were bitterly cold at night. Tropical diseases compounded the physical toll. Malaria, dysentery, scrub typhus, and fungal infections ravaged both sides. Historian Walker observed that the Kokoda Track "starts and ends with malaria". Poor field hygiene, contaminated water, and a high-fat diet of tinned beef contributed to enteric infections that wore down fighting capacity as surely as enemy fire.

• 3. The Forces in the Field

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  Major General Tomitaro Horii commanded the Japanese South Seas Detachment and began his overland advance with each man carrying sixteen days' rations. His troops included veterans of the fighting in Malaya, including the 41st Infantry Regiment, which had fought against Australians there. By late August, Horii had assembled a force estimated at 6,000, built around the 144th and 41st Infantry Regiments and a mountain artillery battalion. He had also brought artillery into the mountains: thirteen pieces that crossed the Owen Stanleys on the backs of around 940 men.

  Opposing them initially were just four platoons of the 39th Battalion and elements of the Papuan Infantry Battalion, together designated Maroubra Force. The 39th was a militia unit, considered poorly trained, and its B Company under Captain Sam Templeton had only reached Kokoda on the 14th of July after departing Illolo on the 8th. Lieutenant Colonel William Owen, the commanding officer, was mortally wounded in the fighting at Kokoda on the 28th to the 29th of July. The veteran 21st Brigade of the 2nd AIF, under Brigadier Arnold Potts, arrived as reinforcement but inherited a deteriorating situation and a critical shortage of supplies.

  The Militia units varied sharply in quality. Morale in the 53rd Battalion was particularly low. A draft of around one hundred men had been drawn from other units on short notice, denied Christmas leave, and diverted to New Guinea when they had expected to deploy to North Queensland. That disaffection, according to official accounts, was a significant factor in the battalion's subsequent failures in the field.

• 4. The Artillery Gap

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  Japanese forces carried into the Owen Stanley Range eighteen medium machine guns, three battalion guns, two rapid-fire guns, and two regimental artillery pieces from the 144th Regiment alone, plus a further complement from the 41st Regiment. Their 75 mm Type 41 mountain gun could throw a 5.8 kg projectile to a maximum range of 7,000 m and could be broken down into eleven units of not more than 95 kg each for transport. Historian Anderson estimated that Japanese artillery caused around 35 per cent of Australian casualties along the track.

  The Australians, by contrast, deployed forward with neither mortars nor medium machine guns. Australian command had judged the Vickers machine gun and medium mortars too heavy to carry and likely ineffective in jungle terrain. A post-action report by the 2/14th Battalion later identified that decision as a mistake. When Australian artillery eventually attempted to intervene, two Ordnance QF 25-pounder guns were hauled to Owers' Corner by caterpillar tractor and shelled Japanese positions at Ioribaiwa on the 20th of September from a range of 11,000 yards. A third gun was stripped down and man-handled forward by 50 men over five days to cover just 3 km, arriving too late: the Japanese were already out of range.

  The psychological effect of the imbalance proved as significant as the physical casualties. Anderson wrote that "the helplessness felt by the men who were subjected to relentless bombardment without the means to retaliate sapped both their number and their spirit." Historian Williams concluded that Japanese artillery provided an "important, perhaps decisive, role" on the battlefields of the Kokoda Track.

• 5. The Supply Line That Nearly Broke

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  Lieutenant Bert Kienzle was ordered to construct an overland road to resupply Maroubra Force. Historian Peter Brune described this as "one of the most ludicrous" orders ever given. Just over 11 km of road was completed by the end of September 1942. Everything else moved on foot, mostly through aerial resupply that was neither reliable nor efficient.

  Kienzle himself identified the arithmetic of the problem: a porter could carry a load equivalent to 13 days' rations. If that porter carried rations for one soldier, together they would consume the load in six-and-a-half days, with nothing left over for ammunition or the porter's return. The trek to Kokoda alone was eight days. He concluded that operations were unsustainable without large-scale airdrops, and on the 3rd of August he identified the smaller of two dry lake beds near the crest of the range, which he named Myola, as the main drop zone. On average, 50 per cent of supplies dropped were lost, with losses reaching up to 90 per cent. Parachutes were scarce and most supplies were free-dropped, wrapped in blankets or tied in sacks.

  Brigadier Potts arrived at Myola on the 21st of August expecting to find 40,000 rations plus ammunition stockpiled. He found only 8,000 rations. Australian official historian Dudley McCarthy concluded the most likely explanation was faulty staff work by inexperienced staff. A second, larger lake bed, Myola 2, was found by a patrol that same day; crews had been dropping supplies into the wrong one. A Japanese air raid on Port Moresby on the 17th of August destroyed or damaged eleven aircraft, including seven transports, leaving only one in service at a moment when the track fighting was intensifying.

• 6. Papuan Labour

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  On the 15th of June 1942, Brigadier Morris issued the Employment of Natives Order under the National Security (Emergency Control) Regulations, conscripting Papuan labour to support the Australian war effort. Without that labour force, the campaign could not have been sustained.

  Caption Geoffrey Vernon wrote of the Papuan carriers at Eora Creek: "The condition of our carriers caused me more concern than that of the wounded... Overwork, overloading, exposure, cold and underfeeding were the common lot. Every evening scores of carriers came in, slung their loads down and lay exhausted on the ground." On the return journey, those same carriers carried the Australian wounded. Captain Henry Steward wrote that the men on the stretchers were "tended with the devotion of a mother and the care of a nurse". Frank Kingsley Norris recorded that carriers would build shelters over patients, fetch water, provide food, and sleep four to each side of the stretcher through the night. This devotion gave rise to their lasting name: the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels.

  The carrier force under Kienzle supporting the Australian advance numbered over 1,600. Historian Paul Ham estimated the total who worked on the track at up to 3,000, with a desertion rate of around 30 per cent, driven by the gruelling conditions. Japanese forces also used conscripted Papuan labour, transporting around 2,000 indentured workers from Rabaul and recruiting 300 from the north coast of Papua. Those workers were poorly treated, and many who became sick or injured were murdered. High desertion rates among Japanese-controlled carriers contributed directly to the supply shortfalls that halted Horii's advance.

• 7. The Command Crisis

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  General Douglas MacArthur arrived in Australia on the 17th of March 1942 after being ordered to leave the Philippines and was appointed Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in the South West Pacific Area. General Sir Thomas Blamey arrived on the 23rd of March and was simultaneously appointed commander-in-chief of the Australian Army and commander of Allied Land Forces. The two men's handling of the campaign, and specifically their treatment of subordinates, became one of its most contentious legacies.

  On the 6th of September 1942, MacArthur wrote to General George Marshall that "the Australians have proven themselves unable to match the enemy in jungle fighting. Aggressive leadership is lacking." On the 17th of October, MacArthur's headquarters sent Allen a message asserting that "extremely light casualties indicate no serious effort yet made to displace enemy." Allen's forces were at that moment fighting through well-prepared Japanese defensive positions under severe supply constraints. Allen replied defending his brigade commanders. On the 21st of October, a further signal declared that progress on the trail was "NOT repeat NOT satisfactory." Allen was replaced by Major General George Vasey on the 28th of October. Lieutenant General Sydney Rowell, commanding New Guinea Force, had already been relieved by Blamey on the 28th of September after a confrontation rooted partly in long-standing personal friction from the Middle East campaign. Brigadier Arnold Potts was also recalled. Three senior officers were removed in the space of a few weeks.

  Vasey's own assessment of the situation, recorded by McCarthy, was that "there was little that General Vasey could add immediately to General Allen's planning." The implication was plain: the pressure that had forced Allen's removal was not grounded in a realistic appraisal of the conditions on the ground.

• 8. Myth and Aftermath

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  The Kokoda Track campaign has been incorporated into the Anzac legend and compared to Australia's Thermopylae. A central premise of that mythology, that the Australians faced a vastly numerically superior enemy, has since been shown to be incorrect.

  The campaign forced widespread changes in Australian military doctrine, training, equipment, and force structure. The lessons of the track, combined with the subsequent battle of Buna-Gona, produced a different kind of army: one that understood jungle warfare, valued lightweight weapons, and had confronted at enormous cost what happens when artillery support is absent. The 1st Mountain Battery, raised hastily in response to the gap exposed during the campaign and equipped with 3.7-inch pack howitzers obtained from the Royal New Zealand Navy, did not take part in the track fighting, but on the 15th of November a detachment with one gun was flown into Kokoda to support the advancing 7th Division, a small symbol of how quickly the institution was learning.

  The Japanese forces that had advanced to within 32 km of Port Moresby were ultimately undone not by Australian firepower but by the same terrain and supply arithmetic that had plagued both sides. As the Japanese withdrew, Australian soldiers found men who had died of malnutrition, with evidence that some had been reduced to eating wood, grass, and roots. A 1987 Japanese documentary, Yuki Yukite Shingun, contained interviews with Japanese soldiers who confessed to cannibalism in New Guinea. For the Australians who had fought back along that same track, the evidence they encountered deepened an already profound animosity. The battles at Oivi and Gorari from the 4th to the 11th of November ended in an Australian victory, and by the 16th of November, two brigades of the 7th Division had crossed the Kumusi River at Wairopi to advance on the Japanese beachheads.