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When Japan entered the war after the bombing of Pearl Harbour on December 7 1941, John Curtin, the Australian Prime Minister, urgently recalled the 6th and 7th Divisions of the AIF from the Middle East. The 2/16th battalion arrived in Brisbane in March 1942 and were stationed on the defensive “Brisbane Line” in case the Japanese invaded.
The Japanese landed on the northern coast of PNG on July 21/22 and immediately set about crossing the Owen Stanley Ranges intent on capturing Port Moresby with its strategic airbases and harbour. The 21st Brigade under the command of Brigadier Potts DSO MC was despatched with haste to PNG and within days over 1500 men were navigating the Track through the Owen Stanley Ranges in an effort to position themselves so they could repel the Japanese advance. The Japanese forces facing them now were building to over 10,000 men and were already engaging the ill trained, poorly equipped, but heroic militia of the 39th Battalion at Kokoda on the far side of the range.
The military actions that followed have forever gone down as some of the most heroic defensive actions in the annals of military history. Between August 26 and September 16 1942, Brigadier Pott’s Maroubra Force, consisting of the 2/16, 2/14 and 2/27 Battalions, together with the 39th Militia and some scattered elements of the ill-trained 53rd Battalion, fought the Japanese to a standstill on the ridges before Port Moresby. The enemy outnumbered the Australians by more than 5 to 1. These “Ragged Bloody Heroes” managed a masterly display of strategic defence, by defending, retreating and counter attacking, thwarting the efforts of Major General Hori’s South Seas Force to brush them aside and push on to Port Moresby.
They made the enemy pay dearly on every yard of the Track. Conditions were almost indescribable. Unseason-able heavy rain turned The Track into a wet, cold, miserable bog. Racked by malaria and dysentery and having to live, fight and survive in some of the most difficult terrain in the world, these heroes kept fighting. Lt Col Honner DSO MC, who commanded the gallant 39th on the Track later wrote in the forward to Peter Brune’s book, Those Ragged Bloody Heroes, “They have joined the immortals” and of those that did not survive he wrote“Wherever their bones may lie, the courage of heroes is consecrated in the history of the free.”
The 143 remaining men of the original 1500 or so who went up The Track were finally withdrawn after the Japanese were turned back at loribaiwa, only a breath away from Port Moresby. These brave survivors of Maroubra Force were paraded before their commander in chief, General Sir Thomas Blamey at Koitaki and accused of running like rabbits. Weeks later they were sent back across open ground against well prepared Japanese positions at Gona beachhead on the northern side of the range. The 2/16th Battalion left the Gona battlefield with less then 50 “fit” men. When walking The Track today, we do so in awe and humility. The sheer ruggedness of the terrain, the savage uphill and brutal downhill sections, the heat, humidity, the treacherous and ever changing river and creek crossings are only appreciated when experienced. Our soldiers sacrifice throughout the New Guinea campaign is inspiring.
Remember Kokoda
The Kokoda Track is as significant to the history of Australia as Gallipoli. Like Gallipoli, Kokoda is now iconic, symbolic of the remarkable values our soldiers displayed of mateship, courage, endurance and sacrifice. These are the basic values that all Australians could aspire to as the true defining character of an “Aussie”. The privileged life we all enjoy today in Australia is due in no small way to the heroism of the men and women who fought and died in battlefields all over the world and so near to home in New Guinea, and along The Kokoda Track.
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