Peter FitzSimons evokes Kokoda

Extract from Kokoda by Peter FitzSimons
Original full-length version published by Hodder Headline Australia Pty Ltd., an imprint of Hachette Livre, Australia
Condensed version © Reader’s Digest (Australia) Pty Ltd 2010 

Early in 1942, Allied code­breakers intercepted Japanese messages that mentioned a land route leading from the north coast of New Guinea across the Owen Stanley Range into Port Moresby—part of a plan known as Operation MO. Australian high command was aware of this track, but very little was known about it, and it sounded impassable to an invading army. Still, the information was reviewed by General MacArthur at his HQ in Brisbane, and General Blamey, commander of the troops in New Guinea. The Japanese had taken Rabaul and Lae-Salamaua, and they wanted Port Moresby. Australia could not countenance the invaders reaching it. Peter FitzSimons takes up the story from July 1942 …

As to Buna, an airfield for American bombers could also be easily constructed on the flat, grassy terrain just inland from the village, which would be useful when the time came to retake Rabaul. Additionally all New Guinea maps showed the one thor­oughfare between the north and south coasts of the island that started at Buna and meandered across the Owen Stanley Range, via a government settlement called Kokoda, which had an airfield, native hospital, police house, officers’ houses and rubber plan­tations. MacArthur had some slight concern about Kokoda because, as he told Blamey, ‘There is increasing evidence of Japanese interest in developing a route from Buna through Kokoda to Port Moresby and that minor forces might try to use this route to attack Moresby …’

 

The track had been formed by natives over cen­turies, and Europeans in New Guinea had considered it as being almost exclusively for the natives: ‘white fellas’ simply wouldn’t be able to make it across. This view had been confirmed in 1927 when gold had been discovered not far from Kokoda—two large parties set out from Moresby to get to the goldfields and were never seen again. At least, not by Euro­peans.

 

Nevertheless, after due consultations, MacArthur issued an order in the third week of June for Major General Morris to send out forces to first secure Kokoda and thence proceed to Buna. MacArthur’s rough timetable called for the force to cross the mountains, secure the Kokoda airfield by the middle of July and then Buna by early August, when the American engineers would arrive.

On the morning of 7 July 1942 the men of 39th Battalion’s B Company were gathered right beside where the track began, at McDonald’s homestead just near the village of Ilolo. (McDonald had put it at the disposal of the Australian Army as a base for stockpiling supplies and launching men along the track.)

 

At that point, to the north of B Company there was only a scattering of Western plantations, plus missions, and seven ANGAU posts dotted along the north coast of New Guinea to look out for Japanese shipping and planes. Somewhere out there too was a 35-strong brigade of the Papuan Infantry Battalion, com­manded by a Major Bill Watson—a decorated veteran of the Great War—with five Australian officers. The PIB had set out two weeks before to reconnoitre the northern side of the Owen Stanley Range, but B Com­pany still had a sense they were heading off into the wilderness on their own. They talked about what might lie ahead and discussed a fea­ture called the ‘Kokoda Gap’ which they would have to negotiate, a gap so narrow you had to turn sideways to get through it in some parts. The way they’d been told it, if you had just a few men with enough ammo, you could hold off an entire army at the gap.

 

Most of B Company carried only their personal belong­ings, machetes and .303 Lee Enfield rifles. They secured everything tightly to their upper torsos, to prevent it from swinging and making a noise, the way ‘Uncle Sam’ Templeton had shown them. The reason they could travel so lightly was that Bert Kienzle had set off the day before with his porters to set up the staging camps along the way. Apart from supplies, those porters were also carrying the company’s tents and ammunition.

 

At last, at around eight o’clock in the morning, Captain Sam Templeton gave the order: ‘Move out!’ With Templeton in the lead, B Company was soon swallowed by the jungle. At the back, filling his new role as Acting Company Sergeant Major, was Joe Dawson. He was responsible for such practical things as mail-drops, liaising with platoon sergeants, ensuring that every­one had sufficient ammunition and that no one was straggling. Joe’s promotion had occurred because the official CSM was deemed too old to make the trip to Kokoda. Joe him­self wasn’t too happy about it, but Sam had asked him to do it and, when Sam asked, you never said no.

 

THE MEN OF the 39th’s B Company had no maps. They had just been told that if they headed off up the track and followed their feet they would eventually come to Kokoda. Finding their way wasn’t the problem. Making their way was, for although they were carrying light packs, the going was beyond tough. After a rugged mile alongside the Goldie River, the track suddenly reared up at them and went straight up a spur on the Imita Range. Gasping for air, shocked at the strain, the men won­dered how on earth Bert Kienzle’s native porters had managed to get up there the previous day, barefoot and laden down with at least three times the weight they were carrying. And once they reached the top of the Imita Range, before them was range after range of similar topography, and there was nothing they could do but stagger forward.

 

How far would they have to travel? That was entirely beside the point. On such a track as this, the usual answer was ‘more than you’ll be able to bear’, for as they marched on, their feet became blister farms and the straps of their rucksacks chafed the skin of their straining shoulders red raw.

 

The Diggers of the 39th, struggling up and over these killer mountains, tried in vain to come to terms with their new surroundings. This was like no place they had ever been before. The mountains and ranges continued to the far horizons with val­leys, crevasses and creases plunging randomly between them, many filled with thick mist and most entirely uncharted.

 

Through it all somehow, the track, the bloody track, prodded its way roughly northward, sometimes gripping the side of a mountain above a raging torrent, some­times leaping from rock to rock in that torrent, sometimes glugging along beneath four feet of marsh, often clambering up slopes just a few degrees off vertical to a height at the top of the ranges of over 7,000 feet. Then there was the bone-jarring agony of the equally steep descent, torturing knees and all the while risking falls that could maim a man for life.
Before half a day had passed, nearly all of the Diggers had used their machetes to hack a walking staff out of the jungle trees, which seemed to help by taking some of the strain.

 

As the day wore on, it was all that the company medic, Warrant Officer Jack Wilkinson, could do to keep them mov­ing. When they made camp on that first night in the small village atop Ioribaiwa Ridge, most of Wilkinson’s time was spent strapping up twisted ankles, handing out salt tablets and trying to ease blisters, chafe and fevers. Some of the men were suffering so badly that they had to be sent back to Moresby. Wilkinson was vastly experienced in patching up soldiers, having previ­ously served with the AIF in the Middle East before joining ANGAU, yet he could barely believe how quickly the jungle had taken its toll on these men.

 

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