Kokoda Push Back

Ok let’s step back to the Kokoda Track and 1942, the Australian retreat continued and after a fierce battle at Ioribaiwa the exhausted Aussies had to withdraw to Imita Ridge only 50 kilometres or 31 miles from Port Moresby.

By the end of September, it was clear that the Japanese would not take the battle to Port Moresby which was a good thing. Due to all the retreating the Aussies felt forced to undertake they were closer to their supply lines, the Japanese however found themselves far from their supply lines. The Japanese were also exhausted and starving and by the end of September the Aussies were pushing them back over the Owen Stanleys.

Sadly, the fighting was far from over and MacArthur was complaining about slow the pursuit of the Japanese was going across the mountains. General Blamey was also complaining but he was caught in the middle between MacArthur and the Australian Prime Minister, and you can bet MacArthur was breathing down his neck demanding this and that be done.

On the 2 November the Aussies retook Kokoda, which was abandoned, however, this was bot the end of the fighting to expel the Japanese.

While the Aussies were fighting in Papua the United States forces landed at Guadalcanal the battle there took six months before the Japanese finally withdraw on 6 February 1943.

Total casualties of Aussie on the Kokoda Track from July to November 1942 were 1,680 of these 625 were killed, this didn’t include the battle of Milne Bay.

Blamey and MacArthur planned that the Aussies would mount a rapid offensive against Gona in mid-November, of course this was easier said than done with the Japanese bunkers were well defended.

The terrain was swampy with shoulder-high, razor sharp kinai grass and it wasn’t till 9 December that they succeeded.

It has been estimated that the Japanese lost 7,000 men during the Papua campaign.

After Papua the Aussies remained under Japanese fire in the mandated territory of New Guinea until the end of the war.