Kokoda Track

In July 1942, a large and well-trained Japanese force landed at Buna, on the north coast of Papua, planning to capture Port Moresby by going over the Kokoda Track. This is the extraordinary story of a small force defeating a much larger one. Across eight weeks from 20 August 1942, the 550 men of the 39th Militia Battalion slowed, and with help, eventually stopped, the advance of 6000 experienced Japanese troops of the Nankai Shitai division across the massive Owen Stanley range.

The Kokoda campaign was complex because there were so many conflicting interests involved. My first writing got bogged down in the stupidity and malice of General Thomas Blamey. Because he was a self-seeker, Blamey toed the line of an infamous American poltroon, General Douglas MacArthur. Further down the chain, competent generals and competent soldiering undid the harm that the top generals attempted. Suffice it to say that I talked to one of Blamey's staff (my uncle), and I read what others had to say, and I know who I admire in this story.

It is my considered opinion as one who was, for a couple of years as a mamangement consultant, dealing largely with fraud, that nothing happening to them would worry me one iota. Their stupidity and vanity killed people, and my first draft became a brief for the prosecution of this ghastly pair. I dumped it and started again. I used the same notes, but I started again from scratch. At the end, I went back and lifted one paragraph from the first version.

War is a risky get-rich-quick scheme, where the people who plan to get rich quickly have no plans to take any of the risks. Now we will ignore the evil clowns

Kokoda is the story of the right people happened to be in the right place at the right time for no good reason. They were sent to defend an entirely unimportant piece of ground, the airstrip at Kokoda, but they ended up fighting a dogged rearguard action as they moved slowly along the Kokoda Track, most of the time with inadequate support and equipment, holding off a far larger Japanese force, until reinforcements could reach them.

101 days after the first fighting began when an Australian patrol chanced on the Japanese invasion force, the Australians walked back into Kokoda.

I have never walked the track, and at my age I probably won't, but when I was the same age as some of the militia in the 39th and 53rd battalions, I was working at the head of the track in Papua. It was in peace-time, and I still remember the culture shock of being in that environment.

The Kokoda Track was originally referred to as "the Owen Stanley track", and it was only when that super-egotist MacArthur tried to grab all the credit that it became called by that clumsy Americanism "Kokoda Trail". You see, MacArthur tried to control all the press releases, and the journalists who hadn't been there took the lead that had been set by Yank PR men, cowering in a bunker in Melbourne.

The Kokoda campaign was the first Allied success against the Japanese, though Milne Bay happened in the same time-frame. The victory was achieved by fighting a withering war of attrition, stretching the Japanese supply lines and holding them until reinforcements could be brought up. The 101 days of the subtitle is the time from first engagement to the Australian troops rolling back into Kokoda, a village of no strategic importance which captivated the tiny minds of the brass in Australia.