TOWARDS A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF THE KOKODA TRAIL

Kokoda means for most people of Papua New Guinea, a heroic jungle campaign of World War  Two when the Australian and American soldiers succeeded in turning back a Japanese advance  only 40 miles from Port Moresby.

 But by then the Japanese attack had been going on for more than two months.

It starts 66 years ago on July 21, 1942 at 4pm in the afternoon, with a landing at Basabua near  Gona in Papua New Guinea’s Northern Province. Under the command of Colonel Yosuke  Yokoyama, the first groups of 3,000 Japanese troops with 1,000 Tolai carriers and some horses  set off immediately for Kokoda where the mountain pack track starts. Some rode bicycles.

 They advanced from the coast on a rough vehicular track which led across the coastal plain as  far  as the Kumusi River encountering very little resistance from a small infantry of the Marouba  force  of the 39 th Battalion of the Australian army at Awala. Here they crossed a bridge of wire  rope  (the village people called it “Wairope”) and then a bridle track, climbing to the plateau  upon which  stood the Kokoda Government station and the rubber plantation.

 Eight days after landing on the coast the Japanese were halfway to Port Moresby.

 They occupied Kokoda on July 29, 1942 when they forced the Australians from the 39 th  Battalion  and some Papua New Guinea infantrymen to fall back after a fierce battle.

The Australians had occupied Kokoda but with little effective use of the Kokoda airstrip and  without reinforcements and lack of supplies from Port Moresby, they were driven out of Kokoda  to Isurava and Deniki on the Kokoda trail.

On August 15, 1942 the Commander of the Japanese South Seas detachment and conqueror of  Rabaul, Major Tomitaro Horii landed at Gona with the main Japanese force of 13, 430 and  began building massive bases at Gona, Sanananda and Buna.

 On August 24, General Horii opened his own headquarters at Kokoda and by September 12, he  had 5,000 men deployed in the forward zone of the Kokoda trail.

 The Australians were forced back by the enemy who fought with the greatest courage and skill  in their efforts to capture Port Moresby but were forced to withdraw when they were only 40  miles from the coast.

This was the end of the Japanese advance.

 Fresh Australian troops, many of them seasoned ATF veterans with service in the Middle East,  efficient staff and supply organization and the very much shorter line of communication were  the  main factors of the turn of the tide.

 In the retreat across the Kokoda trail, the Japanese suffered great hardship and shortage of  supplies.

 The enemies were finally driven out of Isurava on the Kokoda trail by the Morouba Force of the  39  th Battalion under the command of the Deputy Chief of the Australian General Staff, Major  General George Vasey.

 On November 2, they recaptured Kokoda and 12 days later the Japanese were totally driven out  of their stronghold at Oivi and Gorari back to Gona, Sanananda and Buna on the coast across  the Kumusi River.

 In the course of retreat, General Horii and his chief Staff Officer, Colonel Toyanami Tanaka  were drowned when their long raft was pushed in the swift current of the Kumusi River and  overturned.

 By January 23, 1943, Japanese resistance in the Northern Province of Papua New Guinea was at  an end.

 This is basically what war historian of the pacific component of World War Two say about the  Kokoda trail.

 But in the memory of those who lived through those dark days, the Kokoda campaign was more  than a near suicidal retreat under a vacillating command, which somehow turned into victory.

 The men who fought in Papua New Guinea look back on a time of greatness.

 They remember the unbelievable speed of the Japanese advance into Papua New Guinea and  the  way the enemy made light of the alledgedly “impossible barrier” of the Owen Stanley  Ranges.

 They remember the physical misery of the struggling and fighting along a steep, slippery,  malarial jungle track which seemed never ending to soldiers fighting against impossible odds.

 They remember the wounded that were agonizingly carried on stretchers along this track by the  “BLACK ANGELS FROM HEAVEN” who were called at those days as the “FUZZY WUZZY ANGELS”.

 But most of all they remember the cheerfulness of their comrades and their incredible courage  in  battle.

 Therefore in 1995, in remembrance and appreciation of the many Papua New Guineans who  helped won the war, the Returned Servicemen’s League (RSL) built a modern facility hospital on  Kokoda station, formally opened by Prime Minister Paul Keating on the occasion of Papua New  Guinea’s 20 th anniversary of independence.

 The RSL had previously build a war museum at the end of the Kokoda Trail which was turned  into a national walking track in 1972 to give overseas tourists and Papua New Guineans an  opportunity to ponder and perhaps experience one of the greatest trails of the human spirit.