Thread: The first defeat of the japanese on land in WW2

Originally Posted by UncleHo

From memory it was the 39th div Chockos that turned the Japs on the Kokoda track,and fought them down onto the plains,and that the US troops at Milne Bay had an Aust battalion behind them to keep them inline with the 2 Aussie Battalions.

My 1st wife's father was one of the few survivors of HMAS Perth,can't remember his station or rank but I think it was Engine room but off duty.

The 39th Battalion were the first to meet the Japanese, on the track. Followed by the 53rd, both militia battalions. The 53rd was decimated, & returned to Moresby. Units of the 7th Div. just back from the Middle East, reinforced the Militia, and indeed it was the regulars of the AIF who eventually pushed the Japanese back over the Owen Stanleys, after the Militia had exhausted them selves during the initial fighting.



Visit our site dedicated to The Kokoda Track
The Kokoda Track

The Kokoda Track
[DVA]

More than 600 Australians were killed and some 1680 wounded during perhaps the most significant battle fought by Australians in World War II.
Forced to repel a Japanese invasion force, which landed at Gona on the north coast of Papua on 21 July 1942, the Australians fought in appalling conditions over the next four months. The Japanese objective was to capture Port Moresby, the main Australian base in New Guinea, by an overland strike across the Owen Stanley Range. The most direct way across these rugged mountains was by a jungle pathway known as the Kokoda Track. During the next four months, until 16 November 1942, Australian soldiers fought the Japanese, first to keep them from reaching Port Moresby and then to push them back over the Owen Stanleys to their north coast strongholds at Buna, Gona and Sanananda.
In late July 1942, as the Japanese advanced towards Kokoda village, they were engaged by forward elements of the Papuan Infantry Battalion and the Australian 39th Infantry Battalion. Despite the Australians’ stubborn resistance, Kokoda fell to the larger Japanese force and by 27 August the Australians and the few Papuan troops who had stayed with them had been forced back to Isurava. Reinforcements were sent from Port Moresby: first the 53rd Battalion, which protected a side-track behind Isurava, and then the veteran 2/14th and 2/16th Battalions, which had previously served in the Middle East.
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A cross-section of the track shows the back-breaking terrain between Owers' Corner and Kokoda. (1000 feet is approximately 305 metres)
[DVA]

At Isurava, in the last days of August, the 39th and the 2/14th Battalions, with support further back from the 2/16th and 53rd Battalions, were able to temporarily hold the Japanese during an intense five-day action. Three days into the battle, on 29 August, in the face of yet another enemy assault, Private Bruce Kingsbury, 2/14th Battalion, was killed as he rushed forward with his Bren gun, driving back the enemy in a determined counter-attack. He was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross, the first VC awarded during the New Guinea campaigns.
Damien Parer



Throughout September, the Australian units withdrew down the Kokoda Track, being joined by the 2/27th Battalion. They made further stands against the Japanese at Eora Creek, Templeton’s Crossing, Efogi, Mission Ridge and Ioribaiwa. Allied airmen dropped supplies and made repeated attacks on the enemy’s supply lines. During those gruelling days, the Papuan men employed as carriers played a vital role in the battle. They carried supplies forward for the troops and then, as the number of troops who were wounded or fell sick increased, carried back to safety those who were unable to walk.

Between 26 August–25 September
1942 the Australians made a
strategic withdrawal from Kokoda
back to Imita Ridge. On 25
September the Japanese abandoned
their attempt to reach Port Moresby.
[DVA]

By 16 September, after more troops had come forward from Port Moresby and dug into a defensive position at Imita Ridge, the Japanese were exhausted. They had been forced to fight hard to cross the mountains and had run out of many supplies. Following setbacks on other battlefields against Australian and American forces, which robbed them of further reinforcements, the Japanese on the Kokoda Track were ordered to withdraw. As Australian patrols pushed forward of Imita Ridge on 28 September, they found that the enemy had slipped away.

Australians buried many Japanese in
common graves along the Kokoda
Track. Here, an Australian burial party
placed dead men’s helmets on one grave.
[AWM 013645]

During the next six weeks, the Japanese fell back over the mountains. They were pursued by troops of the 25th Brigade – comprising the 2/25th, 2/31st and 2/33rd Battalions – and the 16th Brigade – comprising the 2/1st, 2/2nd and 2/3rd Battalions – along with the 3rd Battalion and men from medical and supply units. Significant actions were fought at Templeton’s Crossing, where it took more than a week of hard and costly fighting for the 25th Brigade to push back the enemy, and at Eora Creek where the 16th Brigade also doggedly attacked enemy strongpoints to slowly make ground. The Australians were plagued by supply shortages that increased the difficulties of jungle warfare. Finally, on 2 November, Kokoda was retaken. The Australians had one more tough battle to fight at Oivi-Gorari, where the Japanese were determined to make another stand, before they were able to finish the advance over the mountains. By 18 November the Australians had reached the Kumusi River. The battle for the Kokoda Track was over.

Yes, Bougainville, possibly the costliest campaign for Australia in the Pacific War. Bob






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Sister BA Embling, Australian Army Nursing Service, applies mercurochrome dye to the leg of Corporal OG O’Connor, 24th Battalion, during treatment for a skin ailment at the 109th Casualty Clearing Station.
[AWM 093179]

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Map of Bougainville
[DVA]


In the Shadows
Bougainville

An Australian soldier carries a
cross hewn from rough forest
timber to be placed over the
grave of an Australian killed in
action in the Tsimba area of
Bougainville on 27 February 1945.
[AWM 018176]

When a veteran of the Bougainville campaign, Peter Medcalf, sat down in the early 1980s to write his memoir of the campaign, he came up with the title War in the Shadows. It was a statement both on the type of fighting experienced on the island – jungle warfare in the shadowy half-light under dense jungle canopies – and the sense those taking part had of being ‘forgotten’.
Bougainville Island and the adjacent, smaller Buka Island form part of the Solomon Islands chain. They were the outermost islands of the Australian mandated territory of New Guinea. The Japanese invaded the two islands in early 1942 when fewer than 20 Australian troops and a couple of naval coastwatchers were stationed there. The soldiers withdrew inland to observe the enemy and later were evacuated, leaving the coastwatchers to continue reporting Japanese air and sea movements. Their radio messages warning of convoys and air raids helped the Americans achieve victory to the south-east at Guadalcanal. This battle was the start of the American ‘island hopping’ campaign recapturing a string of islands from the Japanese.
In November 1943, American forces landed at Torokina on the western side of Bougainville Island. Along with some New Zealand and Fijian troops, they established and defended a base there. The Americans intended only to secure this base, building airfields and supply depots, to support subsequent operations beyond the island. They were content to leave most of Bougainville and all of Buka Island in Japanese hands.
Allied air and sea superiority meant that the Japanese garrison, the 17th Army, effectively was cut off from the main Japanese forces. The Japanese could not get supplies in and had no air cover. Without resupply, they could not mount an effective attack on the American base at Torokina. Only once, in early 1944, was a major attack on the base launched. It failed. After that, Bougainville became a backwater of the war.

More than 23,000 Japanese surrendered on
Bougainville and Buka Islands at war’s end;
another 40,000 had been killed or died of
illnesses since late 1943. Image 1: A linocut
used to print leaflets announcing to Japanese
troops the surrender of Japan; 2: The news was also painted beneath a Beaufort aircraft that
dropped pamphlets; 3: A pamphlet to be carried
by surrendering Japanese; 4: A surrender
party; 5: Sick prisoners carried to an Australian
field ambulance; 6: Japanese naval troops
on parade before Australian officers.
[AWM RELAWM30413, P02122.001, 019006,
095039, 096663, 096793]

In the middle of 1944, there began a handover of responsibility for the base at Torokina to Australian forces. Rather than merely hold the enemy at bay, as the Americans had done, Australia’s political leaders and senior officers decided the Australian force would go on the offensive.
The Japanese were concentrated in three main areas. One force was positioned at Numa Numa on the north-east coast and had sent troops over the Numa Numa Trail across the island towards Torokina. To the south, a major garrison force was located at Buin, on the southern tip of the island, while in the north another large force occupied the Bonis Peninsula on the northern tip of Bougainville Island and also Buka Island. The Australians were to advance on all three locations. The Japanese commander ordered his forces to step up patrols and prepare to fight, but believed the Australians would not launch their attacks before January 1945.

Soldiers of the 42nd Battalion
negotiate a deep section of swamp
during a patrol towards enemy territory
in January 1945.
[AWM 078546]

In fact, the Australians were ready shortly after arriving. The commander of II Australian Corps, Lieutenant-General Stanley Savige, realised speed offered his force an element of surprise. He had under his command the 3rd Australian Division along with two independent infantry brigades, the 11th and 23rd Brigades, along with supporting troops. Air support was provided mostly by the Royal New Zealand Air Force, with Australian aircraft limited to some tactical reconnaissance, artillery spotter and transport aircraft.
General Savige launched a three-pronged attack against the Japanese in November 1944. He ordered the 7th Infantry Brigade to begin the advance over the mountains towards Numa Numa. The brigade met stiff resistance from the Japanese, with heavy fighting in the mountains around Pearl Ridge. The Japanese had a freshly reinforced infantry battalion with light artillery and mortar support – a formidable force for the Australians to overcome. It took some hard fighting around Pearl Ridge and Artillery Hill for the Australians to secure the heights in the centre of the mountainous range. From the highest peaks, they were able to look out at the sea on both sides of the island.
gallery


Captain John Excell (right), an Army air
liaison officer attached to 5 Squadron
RAAF, briefs Pilot Officer HT ‘Tiny’ Kidman
and Flight Lieutenant Ian Curtis, with a map
placed on the wing of a Boomerang aircraft,
before they lead a strike by New Zealand
fighter-bombers on enemy positions.
[AWM 078318]

Meanwhile the 11th Infantry Brigade was sent north from Torokina. Its orders were to push back the Japanese and, if possible, force them into the interior of the island where they might be starved out. The advance went well until the end of January when the Japanese launched a heavy counter-attack near the Genga River. It took further hard fighting, with artillery support, to break the Japanese. The Australians then pushed on and by the end of April had secured the Soraken Peninsula, hemming the Japanese into a small area on the northern tip of the island. However, an attempt to insert a company of the 31st/51st Battalion behind the Japanese lines was disastrous. The men went ashore in landing craft but had be evacuated after 48 hours, rescued by landing craft crews under heavy fire, having lost 23 men killed and more than 100 wounded.
To the south, the Australian advance also went well. One battalion at a time attacked the Japanese and they made steady ground. In March and April 1945, however, the Japanese counter-attacked with a series of human wave attacks at Slater’s Knoll, about half-way towards Buin. In heavy fighting, and with the assistance of tanks and also air support, the Australians held their ground. On 22 March, Corporal Reg Rattey, 25th Battalion, became the first soldier from a militia battalion to be awarded the Victoria Cross – the highest decoration for valour – in action at Slater's Knoll

Life on Slater’s Knoll Harold Abbott, 1945
[Oil on canvas on plywood, 40.7 x 45.6 cm
AWM ART23875]

Nearly 300 dead Japanese were found around Slater’s Knoll after the battle. Over the following weeks, the Australians pressed on towards Buin but were now under pressure to take the advance easy to reduce casualties to a bare minimum.
For the rest of the war, the war on Bougainville was one of containment of the Japanese. However, there was still some hard fighting, particularly in the north, where the 23rd Infantry Brigade took over the Australian operations. In fact, on 24 July 1945, the last Army Victoria Cross of the war was won by 20-year-old Private Frank Partridge, 8th Battalion, when he dashed forward during a battle to knock out a Japanese bunker and then lead an attack against a second.
The campaign on Bougainville Island was one of the most costly land campaigns in the Pacific for Australia. It cost more than 500 lives and more than 1500 wounded. Many felt this cost in lives was unnecessary, for the campaign made no difference to the outcome of the war. All it achieved was to push back the Japanese into smaller areas of containment. It has for this reason remained one of the most controversial campaigns of the war.