15. The first painful lesson

The Japanese landed at Buna on July 21 1942. Despite air attacks by allied aircraft the Japanese had landed their task force, unchallenged on land, during that night. Allied observers posted along the coast had radioed this event to Port Moresby but received no response..

At Port Moresby, Major-General Morris was ordered to establish one battalion at Kokoda immediately. Lieutenant-Colonel Owen and his 39^th Battalion was ordered to leave by air for Kokoda on July 23 and assume command of all allied troops on the northern ramparts of the trail, including Templeton’s force, some Papuan infantry, planters and Patrol Officers. This force were named “Maroubra Force”!

Templeton had pushed two of his three platoons forward to ‘stage a delaying action’. His third platoon occupied Kokoda, guarding the airstrip there. The Japanese were easily able to push the Australians back, their numbers and their drill were far superior.

The Japanese jungle fighting tactics were to send a scout forward (expendable) and when fired upon they would follow up with a strong frontal attack in which quick casualties were the accepted norm. The speed in which they encircled and destroyed and enemy reflected their lightly equipped infantry, their excellent camouflage and, above all, their tremendous and almost silent deployment. To the inexperienced Australians, the enemy’s preoccupation with his continual frontal attack merely ensured that they would encircle and overrun any static defenders. The Japanese infantryman was the epitome of the jungle fighter; lightly equipped, even his food supplies were meagre – a ball of rice, some seaweed and , perhaps, some dried fish – enough to survive on for 24 hours, he travelled light, fast, was practised in most matters of jungle warfare and, most of all, he was prepared to lay down his life for his Emperor.

(with acknowledgement and thanks to "Trails of war")

In a series of engagements from Gorari to Kokoda the two platoons of B Company 39^th battalion were engaged in almost constant contact and withdrawal. It was during these forays that Templeton, while insisting on leading from the front, disappeared.

It later was learnt that Captain Templeton was captured, tortured and executed:

Kokichi Nishimura stands in front of his

house in Kazo, Saitama Prefecture

Japan Times - on-line

“…. Kokichi Nishimura, The Bone Man of Kokoda, ….(returned) to the site at Oivi Village where he stated he had buried Captain Templeton. ……….  Nishimura did not suddenly remember that he had buried Templeton 68 years previous, he had just assumed that Templeton’s remains had been recovered and re buried on the Australian’s advance. It was not until I returned to Japan that Templeton’s name came up in a conversation with Nishimura and he recounted the events to me. He was surprised that his remains had not been recovered.

Nishimura still clearly remembers the day he stumbled upon the bloated and rotting remains of Captain Templeton. Nishimura did not discover Templeton’s body until six days after Templeton’s execution. It is important to remember Nishimura arrived six days after the execution and was not a witness to the execution.

How could Nishimura remember the spot so clearly after 68 years? The event was clearly etched in his memory, the sight of the body, the smell and the waterfall that the body lay near. If you ever had a chance to meet Nishimura or read his book The Bone Man of Kokoda then you would understand he is a man of high honour and exceptionally intelligent, he has nothing to gain from assisting me. …”

(With appreciation to Wayne Weatherall at Kokoda Spirit Blog )

During a brief action at Oivi a concentration of Japanese firepower was assembled at the rear of the defenders who answered with grenades and rifle fire before a degree of panic broke out, abandoning the position the defenders had no hope of defending. Some pushed forward to their original front whilst others retreated to their rear and almost certain annihilation. If was the bush craft of a native policeman, Sanopa, serving with the Papuan Infantry battalion, that saved most of those moving forward and cut-off many heading for the rear where a strong enemy force lay in wait for them. Amongst the fierce actions fought that day there was much understandable confusion amongst the poorly trained and ill-equipped militiamen.

Kokoda Walkway - click to enlarge

Kokoda Walkway

With these events in train, Lieutenant-Colonel Owens decided  that the the Trail was easier to defend than Kokoda Village so he took the decision to fire the buildings and stores and to fall back to Deniki. To his latter amazement, on arrival at Deniki, he was told that the Japanese had still not occupied Kokoda. Owen thought he may still have time  to reinforce Kokoda by air, so, leaving a small force at Deniki he could hurry back to Kokoda. If his small force of around 80 men could hold Kokoda airstrip long enough reinforcements might land.


The second painful lesson was about to be learned in a desparate battle which bravery was defeated by overcaution.

14. The 30th Brigade in Port Moresby

The 30^th Brigade’s Battalions in Port Moresby:

While sweeping political and military events were occurring in the Middle East, Australia and the Philippines, the garrison at Port Moresby – mainly the 30^th’s Brigades 38^th, 49^th and 53^rd Battalions -  had primarily been involved in labouring duties rather than the training they so desperately needed. Unloading ships, building roads constructing defensive positions, digging trenches and stringing barbed wire whilst constantly losing the battle against malaria, dengue fever and dysentery.

In April 1942, Major-General Vasey wrote to subordinate army commanders requesting monthly reports concerning the combat efficiency of brigades in the army. He gave six guidelines for rating efficiency:

A.      Efficient and experienced for mobile offensive operations.

B.      Efficient as a formation for mobile offensive operations but not experienced.

C.     Individual brigades are efficient for mobile operations, but higher training has not been completed.

D.     Individual brigades are efficient in a static role. Additional brigade and higher training is required.

E.     Units have completed training. A considerable amount of brigade and higher training is required.

F.     Unit training is not yet complete.

Five weeks before the 30^th Brigade was committed to action on the Kokoda Trail its grading was given as ‘F’.The garrison at Port Moresby was thus given the lowest possible rating while being deployed in the most threatened area.

The Japanese commenced bombing Port Moresby on the 3^rd February 1942. Natives fled and Coastal ship desertions were high. Three of the five Catalina flying boats were sunk by Japanese Zero attacks leaving those two and a lone Hudson bomber for air defence of the garrison. Eventually a long promised squadron of Kittyhawk fighters arrived. As the situation deteriorated in the South West Pacific Area during April it was decided to put a more positive emphasis on the defence of Port Moresby.

Squadron Leader Keith ‘Bluey’ Truscott steps out of the cockpit

of his Kittyhawk fighter as fellow pilots of 76 Squadron RAAF 

help to push it back into the dispersal bay. - [AWM 026648]

"

Brigadier Selwyn Porter was despatched to take command on 17^th April.

As the former commanding officer of the 2/31^st battalion in Syria, Porter bought with him a distinguished  Middle Eastern record and a youthful, driving personality to the garrison. The 2/31st Infantry Battalion had a battle honoured background. It was one of three formed in the United Kingdom on 27 June 1940 to create the 25th Infantry Brigade. The battalion’s personnel were drawn from throughout the Australian force that had arrived in Britain earlier in the month. It left Britain on 4 January 1941 and disembarked in Egypt on 9 March. Upon arrival, the 2/31st moved to Palestine for training where it was joined by a fourth rifle company. On 11 April, the 25th Brigade, now part of the 7th Australian Division, began to move to Egypt to bolster the defences along the Libyan frontier against an expected German attack and the 2/31st occupied positions at Mersa Matruh. In late May 1941, the 2/31st returned to Palestine to take part in the 25th Brigade’s first offensive operation - the invasion of Syria and Lebanon. The 2/31st’s first major engagement in eastern Lebanon was around Khirbe between 8 and 11 June. It was subsequently ordered to capture the town of Jezzine, which controlled one of the lateral routes to the coast. Jezzine fell to the 2/31st on 14 June but was heavily counter-attacked by the Vichy French on the 16th. The terrain around Jezzine was steep and rugged and the fighting exhausting; it was still in progress when the armistice was declared on 12 July. The 2/31st remained in Lebanon as part of the Allied garrison until 13 January 1942.

Selwyn Porter (left in service cap) and other

24th Brigade officers at Beaufort, Borneo

in August 1945

Upon arrival, Porter soon realised that he faced four critical problems:

1. The quality of defences were such that they were easily identified from the sea, far too dispersed, static and therefore restricted in mobility.

2. The garrison’s overall poor standard of leadership.

3. No real battle training had been implemented.

4. The brigade was poorly equipped with outdated equipment.

While not able to do much about the equipment problems, Porter injected young, trained and experienced officers from the 7^th Division as reinforcement officers to assist in leadership and training and used age and health issues of the older officers as an excuse to send those back to Australia. Unfortunately a few of the older officers escaped the net.

1. The 39^th Battalion:

Following Japan’s sudden entry into the Second World War, a new 39th was raised as part of the 30th Brigade to garrison Port Moresby. The 39th joined the 49th Infantry Battalion, already in Moresby, and the 53rd Infantry Battalion, which had been quickly formed in Sydney. The 39th arrived in Moresby at the start of January 1942, with little military training. The 39th was initially used for garrison duties and working parties. In June it was ordered to proceed up the Kokoda Trail to block any possible Japanese overland advance.

2. The 49^th Battalion:

A new 49^th Battalion was raised for “tropical service” in February 1941. The following month the battalion sailed to the islands as part of the convoy that took the 2/22nd Infantry Battalion to Rabual. Along the way the convoy stopped at Thursday Island and a group from the battalion, mainly from A Company, stayed to garrison the island. This group was initially called the 49th Battalion Details and in January 1942 became known as the Thursday Island Infantry Detachment. The rest of the battalion arrived in Port Moresby.

The battalion undertook little training in Moresby and mainly provided labour for working parties and unloaded ships’ stores. In 1941 the 39th and 53rd Battalions joined the 49th, forming the 30th Brigade. During this time the 49th’s morale was low and had reportedly the worst discipline in Moresby.

Japan entered the war at the end of the year and by the start of 1942 was rapidly advancing through south-east Asia and the Pacific. By March Japanese aircraft were attacking Moresby. The garrison at Moresby was strengthened to cope with the battles along the Kokoda Trail and at Milne Bay, yet there was little change to the 49th’s routine and their training remained basic. One veteran described the work as “digging holes”.

3. The 53^rd Battalion:

The 53rd Battalion was an infantry battalion of the Australian Army. Raised in 1916 for service during World War I the battalion served on the Western Front until the end of the war, before being briefly amalgamated with the 55th Battalion and then eventually disbanded in 1919. In 1921, the 53rd Battalion was re-raised and in 1927 adopted the title of the West Sydney Regiment, however, in 1937 they were once again amalgamated with the 55th, forming the 55th/53rd Battalion (New South Wales Rifle/West Sydney Regiment). In October 1941, during World War II, the two battalions were delinked and the 53rd was later deployed to New Guinea, where they took part in the Kokoda Track campaign. Poorly prepared and trained, and lacking up to date equipment, they did not perform well and were amalgamated with the 55th once more in October 1942, with whom they subsequently took part in further campaigns in New Guinea and Bougainville.

On 21 June 1942 36 AIF officers from the 7^th Division had been posted to the 30^th Brigade – 16 to the 39^th Battalion, 8 to the 53^rd Battalion and 12 to the 49^th battalion. Eight Lieutenants went straight to platoon level, where, in particular, basic training is successfully implemented under a capable officer commanding a company. These officers and the young, enthusiastic militia officers that had been retained performed magnificently under pressure of having little time.

Thus the 39^th Battalion, manned by volunteers for tropical service and led in June 1942 by a very capable bunch of battle-experienced AIF and young and enthusiastic militia officers was a battalion in change. Not so the 53^rd Battalion, as the majority of the militia company commanders were over 40 years of age and while some were proficient a number of company commanders were slow in reacting to orders or unable to do so.

Back in Australia MacArthur had been ordered by the Chief of Staff in America to take Rabaul. He ordered a small party of mixed American and Australian officer to the North Coast of Papua to find a suitable site for an airfield from which he might carry the war forward. An area north-east of Dobodura was considered suitable.

As a consequence of such thinking, Blamey instructed Major-General Morris on the 29^th of June to “… secure Kokoda!...”. Brigadier Porter was ordered to send a rifle company over the Kokoda Trail to fulfil this order.  Captain Sam Templeton was ordered to march his company over the Kokoda Trail and meet the lugger Gili Gili at Buna.

Captain Sam Templeton V50190

Templeton was an older officer – in his 50’s – and referred to as “Uncle Sam” by his mostly adolescent soldiers. He had been refused service with the AIF because of his flat feet and age.

“He had fought in the Irish rebellion and the First World War and this was to be his last fling. He set an example to the whole company in other words. I think he realise that we were a lot of young blokes …. A man that you couldn’t get to know very well, but he always said that if he went into action against the Japs, he wouldn’t come back and that’s exactly what happened, he told me that.”

(Lieutenant A.J. “Judy” Garland, Platoon Commander.)

It was extraordinary to contemplate that the first Australian contact in PNG against the best jungle fighters in the world at that time, was to be undertaken by a company of raw young militiamen , graded fighting proficiency “F” and led by a commander who was over 50 and had flat feet. Yet Templeton was to prove an inspiration to his young soldiers and create a name legacy that survives on the Kokada Trail until this very day!

13. Climbing "The Golden Stairs"

The ‘Golden Stairs’ rise towards Imita Ridge

on the Kokoda Track, photographed in

October 1942. [AWM 26837]

Peter Brune, in "A bastard of a place" (Allen and Unwin, 2003) wrote:

"In 1942, take the best of the youth of Australia and take them at their physical peak, burden them with equipment weighing anywhere between 50 and 70 pounds (22 to 31kg). Dress them in a khaki uniform designed for the desert, not the jungle,pose them to a claustrophobic environment that will test their alert minds; and send them across terrain that will exhaust the fittest of them. Feed them so sparingly that they will lose two or three stone in weight (13 to 19kg) over a period of six to eight weeks; expose them to humid sweating days and cold wet nights, blessed only with half a blanket or a groundsheet; put them in a weapon pit full of water; isolate them, by creating a situation where they can only be re-supplied by air or overtaxed Papuan carriers, and never to a degree where they can gain sufficient strength to perform at their optimum level.

These young soldiers are not naive; they know that the further they struggle forward, the further they slip away from their supplies - bullets and tucker -  and in everyman's mind the daunting thought of a wound. Will there be enough stretchers, enough carrier, to take them out, and critically, if they cannot crawl out or stagger out the price of falling into the enemies hands."

The Kokoda Track [DVA]

Prior to the outbreak of the war in PNG travellers had two ways to move from Port Moresby to the north coast across the Owen Stanley Range - fly over it or sail around it. There were no roads. The Papuans had their own trails, including the hazardous one over the Owen Stanley Range. A primitive foot track, at most three or four feet wide (about a metre wide), restricting movement in most places to single file and only scant knowledge of this track had reached the outside world through occasional reports of patrol officers, planters, miners or missionaries.

The "Golden Stairs" consisted of several thousand pieces of wood shoved into the ascent and held in place by wooden pegs. Filthy, putrid, mud constituted the rest of the 'step'. At some points the exposed roots of trees formed the 'steps', thus making them irregular. The stairs became permanently soaked and sodden because of the daily rains that saturated the jungle. Men fell, banged knees, shins and ankles on the exposed steeps, gave vent to their anger and struggle agonisingly to their feet; and orderly progress became impossible as long strings of exhausted climbers backed up down the track waiting for a chance to move forward.

Lieutenant Hugh Dalby, 39th Battalion:

"They were so steep . . . we soon had it worked out that instead trying to walk over the mountain range in sections as we started off doing, and nearly killed ourselves, the next day we set off at intervals . . . so you might be five minutes getting rid of your men. But instead of getting to the next staging place at five o'clock at night when t was dark, you'd get there at two o'clock in the afternoon 'cos you wern't hampered by this stop, start, stop, start routine."

Whether the overburdened soldiers travelled up or down, he experienced the unending aching of strained knees and a suffering back never designed to carry a heavy load over the Owen Stanley Range. After his last sporadic bursts, of desperate joint-wrenching, lung-bursting scaling of the "Golden Stairs", many a sweat-sodden campaigner reached Ioribaiwa utterly worn out, disoriented and huddled in the chill of the night nearly 3,000 feet above sea level , completely exhausted, unable to fight and only seeking to rest and recuperate for the next day of trekking the trail.

When the Japanese first landed in Papua there was much talk of "the Kokoda Pass". But there was no pass—merely a lowering of the mountain silhouette where the valley of Eora Creek cut down into the Yodd a Valley south of Kokoda . From Kokoda the track slipped easily down towards the sea for three full days of hot marching . First it passed over undulations fringed by rough foothills and covered with thick bush. It forded many streams, passed through the villages of Oivi and Gorari, went on down to the Kumusi River which, deep and wide and swift, flowed northward and then turned sharply east to reach the sea between Gona and Cape Ward Hunt.

This was the country of the fierce Orokaivas, unsmiling men with spare, hard, black bodies and smouldering eyes . They were still greatly feared by all their neighbours although it was many years since Europeans first came and forced peace upon them. They suffered at the hands of the Yodda Valley gold-seekers at the end of the nineteenth century and the severity of the magistrate Monckton at the beginning of the new century, and it was said that they had not forgiven either occasion. Their kinsmen, the coastal Orokaivas farther on, were of the same type. The track crossed the Kumusi by a bridge suspended from steel cables. The place of crossing came thus to be known as Wairopi (the "pidgin" rendering of "wire rope"). A little farther on, in the vicinity of Awala, began a network of tracks which passed over tropical lowlands through or past Sangara Mission and Popondetta into spreading swamps and thus reached the coast on which were the two little settlements of Buna and Gona—the former the administrative headquarters of the district, the latter a long-established Church of England mission. Up to July 1942 Australian military interest in this lonely coast and the even lonelier track which linked it with Port Moresby was of slow growth.

On 2nd February Major-General Rowell, then Deputy Chief of the General Staff, had signalled Major-General Morris:

Japanese in all operations have shown inclination to land some distance from ultimate objective rather than make a direct assault. This probably because of need to gain air bases as well as desire to catch defence facing wrong way. You will probably have already considered possibility of landing New Guinea mainland and advance across mountains but think it advisable to warn you of this enemy course.

Morris, with a difficult administrative situation on his hands, only meagre and ill-trained forces at his disposal and more likely military possibilities pressing him, that month sent a platoon (Lieutenant Jesser) of the Papuan Infantry Battalion to patrol the coast from Buna to the Waria River, the mouth of which was about half-way between Buna and Salamaua, and watch for signs of a Japanese approach.
 
On 10th March a Japanese float-plane swept over Buna about 11 a.m., bombed and machine-gunned two small mission vessels there, then settled on the water . However, it was promptly engaged with rifle fire by Lieutenant Champion,' the former Assistant Resident Magistrate, and the small group with him, who were staffing the Administration and wireless station on the shore, and it quickly took the air again. At the end of March the Combined Operations Intelligence Centre, in an assessment of the likelihood of Japanese moves to occupy the Wau-Bulolo area after the seizure of Lae and Salamaua, had suggested the possibility of a landing at Buna with a view to an overland advance on Port Moresby.
 
But little serious consideration seems to have been given to this suggestion.
 
The Japanese expedition against Port Moresby, turned back by the Allied naval forces in the Coral Sea, had underlined the need to reinforce the troops and air squadrons in New Guinea.

Japanese Attack Plan

Initial movements (Battle of the Coral Sea)

On 14th May MacArthur wrote to Blarney that he had decided to establish airfields on the south-east coast of Papua for use against Lae, Salamaua and Rabaul, that there appeared to be suitable sites between Abau and Samarai, and he wished to know whether Blarney had troops to protect these bases. Blarney had already ordered the 14th Brigade to Port Moresby and it embarked at Townsville on the 15th. He replied, on the 16th, that he could provide the troops, and MacArthur, on the 20th, authorised the construction of an airstrip in the Abau-Mullins Harbour area . At the same time he ordered that the air force bring its squadrons at Moresby up to full strength and that American anti-aircraft troops be sent from Brisbane to the forward airfields at Townsville, Horn Island, Mareeba, Cooktown and Coen.
 

The 14th Brigade, with only about five months of continuous training behind it (although most of the individual men had had more than that), was thus the first substantial infantry reinforcement to reach Moresby since General Sturdee had sent two battalions there, making a total of three, on 3rd January, four months before the Coral Sea battle. When the inexperienced 14th Brigade was sent forward there were, in eastern Australia , three brigades of hardened veterans—the 18th, 21st and 25th—but unwisely none of those were chosen.