On February 19, 1942, the largest air raid by the Japanese after Pearl Harbour rained down on Darwin, Australia – also the single largest assault ever inflicted on the country. An important defence base for the Dutch East Indies, 260 Japanese bombers attacked the city’s harbour and airfields, killing 252 Allied service personnel and civilians – the first of 97 air raids to occur on mainland Australia. The bombing of Darwin followed just four days after the surrender of Singapore and a full-scale invasion of the Solomon Islands and New Britain the previous month.
The next coveted prize for the Japanese was Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea, a strategic base that was not only vital to their intended dominance in the South Pacific but also one that the enemy could use to invade the industrialised cities of eastern Australia and control the trade routes to the USA. At the beginning of May, an enemy seaborne strike against Port Moresby was launched under the command of Admiral Shigeyoshi Inoue.
Though the Japanese had swept through South East Asia and the South Pacific with swift success in April 1942, US code-breakers deciphered radio messages outlining their pending invasion of Port Moresby by sea. On May 4, 1942, a joint Australian-American strike force including the carriers, Hobart and Australia were deployed to intercept and drive back the Japanese fleet in a surprise attack. Within three days, several enemy destroyers and cruisers were sunk in the Battle of the Coral Sea and the Japanese quickly withdrew. Their first major defeat was followed by the Battle of Midway in June, which not only destroyed Japan’s naval strength but also reduced the likelihood of another amphibious invasion of the coastal port and advancing further south to Australia.
The Japanese promptly mounted an overland invasion of Port Moresby along the Kokoda Trail from the northeast coast of the island. And linking the region to Ower’s Corner in the terraced hills just 40 kilometres from Port Moresby was the Kokoda Track – a ribbon of dense, impenetrable rainforests, treacherous white water and steep mountainous inclines that formed the Owen Stanley Ranges.
Landing at the northern coastal villages of Buna, Gona and Sananda under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Hatsuo Tsukamoto, the first wave of Japanese soldiers prepared to strike the Allied outpost of Kokoda and its airfield on July 21, 1942. It was near the village of Awala where they met a small militia from the 39th Battalion led by Captain Stan Templeton under the command of (Australian) Major General Basil Morris. Inexperienced in jungle warfare and hampered by 30 kilogram supply packs that had to be carried in extreme humidity, cold and rain, the young Diggers were finally outnumbered by 1500 enemy fighters.
On July 22, Lieutenant John Chalk and his indigenous Papuan Infantry Battalion (PIB) ambushed Japanese forces near Gona before withdrawing back into the coastal jungle. The next day at Awala, the Maroubra Force engaged in six days of savage fighting. Withdrawing under a barrage of mortar and machine gun fire, the village of Oivi and Kokoda’s airstrip were finally captured by the Japanese but not before General Morris flew in reinforcements from the 39th Battalion and PIB and ambushed the enemy at Gorari Creek. Fighting to the bitter end, nearly 40 men including their commanding officer, Lt Colonel Owen were killed during the first Kokoda Track assault.
Despite moving back into the steep ridges of the Kokoda Trail, the Diggers’ fierce resolve led the Japanese to believe that their force comprised 1200 men; not the remaining 77 soldiers who fought them in a full-scale assault.
Now having taken control of Kokoda, the Japanese continued with their overland offensive against Port Moresby along the Kokoda Trail. For the Australians, the loss of the airstrip meant that other companies of the 39th, 30th and 53rd Battalions and 35 indigenous troops from the Papuan Infantry Battalion had to be deployed to the village of Deniki, just south of Kokoda where they were ordered to recapture the airfield. With only two transport aircraft available in Port Moresby supplies were now air-dropped by the US Army Air Force (USAAF); the sick and injured also had to carried along the Kokoda Trail by heroic Papuan stretcher bearers – known as the legendary ‘Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels’ by their Australian comrades.
At the village of Isurava the campaign along the Kokoda Track intensified into a full-scale bloodbath. It was here where the 39th and 2 /14th Battalions, with back up support from the 2/16th and 53rd Battalions met the opposing Japanese forces on August 26 in a fight to the death. Amid a hail of machine gun and rifle bullets, grenades, bayonets and ferocious hand-to-hand combat over the next five days, the fatigued Diggers held their positions against an endless wave of Japanese assaults before being forced back into the jungle. Ambushed by the Australians every inch of the way, the Japanese dead quickly began to stockpile – so much it was said that the Koiari villagers of Isurava claimed that the nearby creek ran red for almost a week.
It was amongst the carnage of the second assault that Private Bruce Kingsbury was killed as he rushed forward to drive back the advancing Japanese in a counter-attack. The Digger was posthumously awarded the first Victoria Cross during the New Guinea campaigns.