137 The Kokoda Trail.pdf

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THE KOKODA
TRAIL
Number 137
3 7
9
770306
154080
£3.95
NUMBER 137
© Copyright
After the Battle
2007
Editor-in-Chief: Winston G. Ramsey
Managing Editor: Gordon Ramsey
Editor: Karel Margry
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KOKODA TRAIL
Between July and November 1942, Australian army units fought a hard and difficult
jungle campaign against Japanese units along the Kokoda Trail — a narrow, moun-
tainous, jungle-enveloped pathway across the Owen Stanley Range in Papua New
Guinea. The Japanese, having landed in the Gona area on Papua’s north shore, were
pushing southwards towards Port Moresby, and the Australians were throwing
whatever they could into the fray to stop them. However, in a series of stiff battles,
the Japanese South Seas Detachment pressed on, forcing the Australians to give
ground and retreat ever closer to Port Moresby. Its fall would mean the loss of New
Guinea. It was Australia’s darkest and most-difficult hour of the war.
CONTENTS
THE KOKODA TRAIL
WAR FILM
Kokoda
— The Movie
GERMANY
Milag-Marlag POW
Camps at Westertimke
ITALY
The Fall of Rimini
2
22
24
43
Front Cover:
Walking the Kokoda Trail. A group of
hikers toils up the historic track across the Owen
Stanley Range in Papua New Guinea, scene of bit-
ter fighting between the Australians and Japanese
in July-November 1942. (Phillip Bradley)
Centre Pages:
Aerial reconnaissance photograph of
the Milag-Marlag naval POW complex at Wester-
timke in northern Germany taken by a photo recce
aircraft of the US 106th Group on April 14, 1945.
(Luftbilddatenbank Ing.-Büro Dr. Hans-Georg Carls)
Back Cover:
Memorial plaques commemorating the
Canadian contribution to the breaching of the
Gothic Line and the liberation of Rimini in Septem-
ber 1944. Beyond is the Porte d’Augusto, the ancient
city gate from Roman times. (Glenn Hodgson)
Acknowledgements:
The Milag-Marlag story is
based to a large extent on Gabe Thomas’ excellent
book
Milag. Captives of the Kriegsmarine. Mer-
chant Navy Prisoners of War, Germany 1939-1945,
published by the Milag Prisoner of War Associa-
tion in 1995. For further help with this story the
Editor would like to thank Jeff Smith and Frian Lit.
Photo Credits:
ATL — Alexander Turnbull Library,
Wellington; AWM — Australian War Memorial;
IWM — Imperial War Museum, London; NAC —
National Archives of Canada; USNA — US
National Archives.
The fighting along the trail was hard and desperate and troops of both sides suffered
equally from the hardships imposed by the climate and terrain. After advancing doggedly
for 51 days the Japanese troops came to within sight of their objective, Port Moresby, but
then the Japanese high command decided to abandon the push, and ordered a with-
drawal. The Australians followed on their heels but it took another 35 days of very heavy
fighting before they regained the northern end of the track and recaptured Kokoda. Army
photographer Thomas Fisher pictured Australian troops leading packhorses and mules
down the precipitous curving track into Uberi valley at the beginning of the trail.
2
AWM 027025
Following the declaration of war in the
Pacific on December 7, 1941, the Japanese
armed forces carried out a remarkably swift
series of operations to establish a perimeter
of defence well away from the Japanese
homeland. A key bastion of that defensive
arc would be the main island of Papua and
New Guinea.
On January 21, 1942, only six weeks after
the start of the war, a Japanese force cap-
tured Rabaul (see
After the Battle
No. 133),
thus providing a vital anchorage and staging
post for further attacks against Papua and
New Guinea to the south and the Solomon
Islands to the south-east. Then on March 8, a
Japanese naval force landed at Lae and Sala-
maua, on the northern New Guinea coast-
line. Their aim was to establish an airbase
able to support the critical landing to be
made at Port Moresby. However a US car-
rier-based raid from the
Lexington
and
Yorktown
sank three transport ships and
thus delayed the planned landing. It would
not be until May 7 that the Japanese invasion
convoy would sail from Rabaul for Port
Moresby. Again the two American aircraft
carriers played a vital role in stopping the
invasion, though both were badly damaged,
the
Lexington
sinking on May 8. But criti-
cally, the Japanese attack force returned to
Rabaul.
With their naval invasion force stymied,
and with the critical loss of most of their car-
rier force at Midway in early June, the Japan-
ese command decided on June 14 that the
advance on Port Moresby would be under-
taken by a land force that would cross Papua
overland from north to south. On the night of
July 21/22, Japanese landings took place at
Gona, on the Papuan northern coast. The
landing force, the Yokohama Advance Butai,
included Lieutenant-Colonel Moto Tsuka-
moto’s 1st Battalion from Colonel Masao
Kusunose’s 144th Regiment plus the 15th
Independent Engineer Regiment, a company
from the 5th Sasebo Naval Landing Force
and attached artillery and pioneers.
A basic road wound its way south-west
from the Japanese beach-heads at Gona and
Buna to the small government station at
Kokoda. Here the mountains of the Owen
Stanley Range towered over the Yodda Val-
ley, barring any movement towards the south
coast except by foot over what would
become known as the Kokoda Trail. The
For the heavily-laden troops, it was a matter of sheer determination to achieve the
steep climbs and slippery descents of the trail, their toiling made even more strenuous
by the humid climate with its hot days and chilly nights, the torrential rain and mud,
the wet boughs and vines, the mosquitoes and leeches, the malaria and dengue. Here
men of the Australian 16th Brigade move up the trail in October 1942.
THE KOKODA TRAIL
trail meandered some 50 miles through the
jungle-covered mountain ranges until it
emerged at the Sogeri Plateau above Port
Moresby. No more than a native track, its
possible use as an invasion route had been
By Phillip Bradley
given scant consideration by the Australian
command.
Another group on the Kokoda Trail, August 2006. Our
author, Phil Bradley, joined nine high school students and
two teachers from London’s Dulwich College for the trek
along the historic track. The group made the expedition in
the spirit of one of Dulwich College’s most renowned old
boys, the explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton. Under the expert
guidance of Frank Taylor, from Kokoda Treks and Tours,
they experienced a remarkable journey in the footsteps of
history. The current trail follows a somewhat easier route
than that used in 1942.
3
PHIL BRADLEY
AWM 027054
A Papuan Infantry Battalion (PIB), com-
prising 30 officers and 280 men under Major
Bill Watson, had been deployed between
Kokoda and the coast. The Papuans were
reinforced by the Australian 39th Battalion,
despatched from Port Moresby in early July.
The 39th was a militia battalion that had
been raised for service in Australia (includ-
ing Australian territories). This was distinct
from the Australian Imperial Force (AIF)
battalions that had been raised for service
worldwide and considered the cream of the
Australian army. The 39th was commanded
by Lieutenant-Colonel William Owen, who
had served with the AIF 2/22nd Battalion in
Rabaul during the Japanese invasion. A
number of other AIF officers also came into
the battalion. Most of the men in the unit
were very young, with an average age under
20, and their proud commander later called
them his ‘pathetically young warriors’.
With native carriers helping, the first com-
pany from the 39th Battalion crossed the
Owen Stanley Range via the Kokoda Trail
and arrived in Kokoda on July 15. The carri-
ers were arranged by a Yodda Valley planta-
tion owner, Bert Keinzle, who would prove
to be the vital cog in organising the all-
important supply line for the Australians.
The first contact between the opposing
forces took place in the afternoon of July 23
when a PIB patrol encountered part of
Tsukamoto’s battalion just east of Awala,
approximately halfway between Kokoda and
the coast. Colonel Owen moved Captain
Sam Templeton’s B Company of the 39th
Battalion up to reinforce the PIB and form a
blocking position east of Gorari, some 20
miles east of Kokoda. On July 25 the Japan-
ese attacked and forced Templeton’s com-
pany back towards Kokoda. Owen’s second
company, Captain Arthur Dean’s C Com-
pany, was still moving along the Kokoda
Trail and he therefore decided to have his
remaining two companies flown into
Kokoda. However, with only two aircraft
available, only a platoon could be carried
and this joined Templeton’s men at Oivi on
July 26. Again the Japanese pressure forced
the Australians back, this time leaving the
brave Templeton behind.
4
For the Japanese troops moving south, the track began at Kokoda. From there the
path leads along the western side of the Eora Creek valley, passing through the
native villages of Deniki, Isurava and Alola, after which it crosses to the eastern side
of Eora Creek, and ascends to the first spur of the main range at 7,000 feet just before
Templeton’s Crossing — a total climb of 5,500 feet in less than 20 miles. Just past
Templeton’s Crossing is the Gap, a broken, jungle-covered saddle in the main range,
about 7,000 feet high at its central point, with higher mountains on either side. The
trail runs about six miles across the gap over a muddy, broken track, in places just
wide enough for one man to pass, and then goes downward to either Myola or Kagi,
and on to Efogi, Menari, Nauro, Ioribaiwa, the Imita Range and Uberi, traversing
peaks 5,000 and 6,000 feet high and sharp east-west ridges with altitudes ranging
from 3,000 to 4,000 feet. The southern edge of the Owen Stanley Range is at Ilolo and
Koitaki, where the elevation is 2,000 feet. The distance between Kokoda and Ilolo is
only 50 miles as the crow flies but due to the mountainous climbs and descents the
actual distance to be covered by the troops was nearly twice as much.
The first Australian troops to experience the vagaries of operating along the trail
were from the 39th Battalion, a militia unit, despatched north from Port Moresby on
July 7 — two weeks before the Japanese landings — to reinforce the Papuan Infantry
Battalion that was guarding the sector between Kokoda and the Papuan northern
shore. Their first contact with the Japanese occurred on July 24 near Gorari. This
picture of men of the 39th Battalion making their way back along the trail was taken
in August 1942.
AWM 013288
TRACK TO PORT MORESBY
AIRFIELD
KOKODA VILLAGE
Kokoda, from which the trail received its name, is a little village
set on a small plateau around 1,500 feet above sea level. It
contained a Papuan Administration post, a rubber plantation
Owen now defended Kokoda with some
80 men from the 39th Battalion and the PIB,
dispersed around the raised plateau of the
administrative centre. In the early morning
hours of July 29 the Japanese began their
attack and, though it was repulsed, Colonel
Owen was shot and he later died. With Major
Watson now in command, the Australians
pulled back into the mountains at Deniki. On
and a mountain airfield. By July 28 the Australians had been
forced back to Kokoda, where they distributed their meagre
forces in defensive positions around the plateau.
mand of what was now termed Maroubra
Force. On the 6th, Captain Max Bidstrup
arrived with 39th Battalion’s D Company.
Total Australian strength at Deniki was now
36 officers and 471 men and Cameron was
planning to retake Kokoda. Symington’s
company managed to get into the town and
on August 10 his men held a series of Japan-
ese attacks before withdrawing.
July 30, Captain Dean arrived with C Com-
pany and, two days later, Captain Noel
Symington joined with A Company. To help
ease the supply situation, Bert Keinzle had
managed to open an air dropping zone at the
Myola grasslands.
On August 4, Lieutenant-Colonel Allan
Cameron, like Owen another veteran from
the invasion of Rabaul, arrived to take com-
The view from the plateau towards the airfield today. Lieu-
tenant-Colonel William Owen, the commander of the 39th Bat-
talion, was mortally wounded in this area in the early morning
hours of July 29, when a sharp engagement with the Japanese
advanced units forced the Australians out of the village and
back into the mountains.
5
PHIL BRADLEY
USNA
TRACK TO BUNA

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