Part I
The Essentials of Kokoda
Glenn Lumsden
âI canât believe my great-granddad did all this AND had people shooting at him as well.â
In this part . . .
When I first went to Papua New Guinea in 1980, I wanted to see the Australian battlefields of World War II. I recall considering going to Kokoda but it didnât stand out in my mind. Instead I went to Buna, Lae, Shaggy Ridge, Finschhafen, Rabaul and Bougainville. Something has changed in 30 years because I canât now imagine a tourist, who wants to see where famous battles were fought in Papua New Guinea, who wouldnât have the Kokoda Trail at the top of the list.
In this part, I explore what has changed, what now gives that word âKokodaâ a little magic, and why Kokoda is one of the best-known words in Australian military history. I explain why you should go to the track and what youâre likely to see when you do.
Chapter 1
Understanding the Significance of the Kokoda Trail
In This Chapter
Crossing the Owen Stanley Range over 2,000 years
Examining the military history of the track
Exploring the start and finish of the track
In 1942 Australia lay in the shadow of war, a shadow starting on its very doorstep. The victorious Japanese forces were in Papua, and Australia was threatened. In the air, on land, at sea and on the home front, Australia was hard-pressed. Survival was the order of the day; victory was far from certain. On the Kokoda Trail, Australians fought to halt the advance towards Australia.
Kokoda is historically significant. The Kokoda Trail (or track, as some call it) stands as an icon for Australian participation in World War II, just as Gallipoli serves the same purpose for World War I. However, the track also stands as a potent symbol of Australiaâs shift in national identity, for Australians are conscious that the defeat of the Japanese on the track was a job Australians did themselves, without significant outside assistance.
Then there is proximity. Port Moresby is only 90 minutes by air from Cairns. The war in Papua was not a far-flung war, but one close to home. Australians see the significance of this. While people can argue about whether or not the fighting in Papua prevented an invasion of Australia, what is certain is that never before had the army of an enemy come close to our shores. Australians care about this, and the sacrifice of our troops in 1942. Why else do thousands of Australians make the Kokoda pilgrimage every year? It is because Kokoda holds a special place in national sentiment.
In this chapter, I explain the significance of the Kokoda Trail by looking at the trackâs history before World War II and during the key year of 1942. I also locate the track geographically and in the context of the other fighting in Papua.
Looking at the Track Before the War
The Owen Stanley Range is the eastern extension of the central mountain range running eastâwest across New Guinea. In Papua, the âtailâ of the island of New Guinea, the range contains mountains almost 4,000 metres high.
For thousands of years, if Papuans wanted to cross the range from north to south, they threaded their way along rugged tracks through the lower parts of the range at altitudes of 2,000 metres. One of the several paths they might have chosen is the Kokoda Trail, which connects the Mambare River valley in the north to the south coast. Prior to the establishment of the British protectorate in New Guinea in 1884, the track was not the best known of the several ways to cross the Owen Stanley Range, but it most certainly is now and the track is still used as a thoroughfare. On it, you may well meet someone from Popondetta walking to visit a relative in Port Moresby.
In 1889, the Owen Stanley Range was first crossed by a non-Papuan, the British explorer George Bedford, though he didnât use the Kokoda Trail. Although other explorers set out with the intention of crossing the Owen Stanley mountains, the problems with hostile villagers and treacherous jungle conditions continued to be a deterrent.
Mining at Yodda
The Kokoda Trail first came to prominence with the 1900 opening of the Yodda goldfield, north-west of Kokoda in the Mambare River valley. The success of the Yodda alluvial goldfield led to the establishment of the Kokoda Government Station on the flat-topped plateau that was the scene of battle in 1942.
By 1904, 1,000 miners and labourers were in the region, extracting almost one tonne of gold each year. The track was surveyed in an effort to improve communication with the new government station and with the miners. The then Lieutenant-Governor of Papua, Francis Barton, thought that the track might supplement the SananandaâKokoda track in servicing the new goldfield, but this didnât happen because gold finds at Yodda declined and many prospectors went elsewhere in search of richer deposits. The path out of Port Moresby towards the southern end of the track was upgraded to a vehicular road with the discovery of copper in the area.
Percy McDonald, who gave his name to McDonaldâs Corner, was the first to drive a vehicle along the new road in 1928. Until 1942, the track began at McDonaldâs Corner. See Chapter 3 to read more about this part of the track.
Posting the mail to Kokoda
In 1904, a group led by Acting Administrator Francis Barton made its way through Bomana, Sogeri, Uberi, Nauro, Menari and Kagi and were the first whites to successfully traverse the Kokoda Trail, as the track is known today. Fittingly, a bottle of champagne was poured into tin mugs to commemorate the great success of the expedition.
Bartonâs expedition led, among other things, to the establishment of a fortnightly mail service between Port Moresby and Kokoda, which began the same year. Delivering civilian mail or official documents from Port Moresby by sea to Buna, then by land from Buna to Kokoda and Yodda along the Sanananda track had sometimes taken six weeks.
The new system was faster. Two policemen, each leaving from one end of the track with a mailbag, met halfway four days later and swapped bags, then returned. Though an airfield was built at Kokoda in 1932, the on-foot mail service continued until World War II.
Coming to Terms with the Military History of the Kokoda Trail
From July 1942 to January 1943, the Japanese Army occupied Papua, the southern half of the country now known as Papua New Guinea. They invaded what was then an Australian territory with the purpose of capturing Port Moresby. The route they chose to come by was the Kokoda Trail over the Owen Stanley Mountain Range.
Most Australians think now that Australia was never invaded but this isnât strictly true. In 1942 the Australian territories of Papua and New Guinea were in law, if not in national sentiment, very nearly as much a part of Australia as the Northern Territory. Australian soil was, therefore, invaded by the Japanese in 1942 when the Japanese arrived in Rabaul and then invaded Papua. The Japanese soldiers had read that Papua was an Australian territory and some believed they were invading part of Australia. More than one Japanese veteran has said to me that the reason the Australians fought so hard in Papua was a natural one: That their country had been invaded.
In this...
