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!