All Hell Let Loose_ The World at War 1939-1945 - Max Hastings [168]
The Japanese repulsed the Australians on the Kokoda Trail, then harassed them relentlessly as they retreated with ambushes and outflanking movements. Many stragglers died: ‘Confusion was the keynote,’ wrote Sergeant Clive Edwards. ‘No one knew exactly what was happening, but when the sounds of battle came from in front we were told that the others were trying to fight their way through … It was pitiful – the rain was coming down, and there was a long string of dog-tired men straining the last nerve to get wounded men down and yet save their own lives too. Bewilderment … showed on every face and as the long line faltered and halted those at the back became affected and sent messages … to “Keep moving, the Jap is on us.”’ The Australians were eventually pushed back to within a few miles of Port Moresby.
A new threat to the Allied position in Papua was fortunately preempted. Ultra decrypts revealed a Japanese plan to land at Milne Bay, on the south-eastern tip of the island. An Australian brigade was hastily shipped there and deployed. When the Japanese landed on the night of 25 August, they met fierce resistance, and on 4 September their survivors were evacuated. But the situation on the Port Moresby front remained critical. MacArthur displayed a contempt for the Australian showing which reflected his ignorance of conditions on the Kokoda Trail. The Japanese battered the Allied perimeter relentlessly, and a disaster beckoned. This was averted chiefly by air power: USAAF bombing of the enemy’s over-extended supply line created a crisis for the attackers which worsened when some troops were diverted from New Guinea to Guadalcanal.
The local Japanese commander was ordered to pull back to the north shore of Papua. The Australians found themselves once more struggling up the Kokoda Trail and across the Owen Stanleys, this time pressing a retreating enemy in conditions no less appalling than during the earlier march. ‘Our troops are fighting in the cold mists of an altitude of 6,700 feet,’ wrote Australian correspondent George Johnston, ‘fighting viciously because they have only a mile or two to go before they reach the peak of the pass and will be able to attack downhill. This means a lot to troops who have climbed every inch of that agonizing track, who have buried so many of their cobbers, and who have seen so many more going back weak with sickness or mauled by the mortar bombs and the bullets and grenades of the enemy, men gone from their ranks simply to win back a few hundred yards of this wild, unfriendly and utterly untamed mountain … The men are bearded to the eyes. Their uniforms are hotch-potches of anything that fits or is warm or affords some protection from the insects … In the green half-light, amid the stink of rotten mud and rotting corpses, with the long line of green-clad Australians climbing wearily along the tunnel of the track, you have a noisome, unforgettable picture of the awful horror of this jungle war.’
In November, MacArthur launched coastal landings by two US regiments, to take Buna. The green Americans, shocked by their first encounter with the combat environment of Papua, performed poorly. Meanwhile, the Australians were exhausted by their efforts on the Kokoda Trail. Thousands of soldiers on both sides were weakened by malaria. But Buna was finally taken at the beginning of January 1943, and residual enemy forces in the area were mopped up three weeks later. The Japanese had lost almost two-thirds of their 20,000 men committed, while 2,165 Australians and 930 Americans died. Lt. Gen. Robert Eichelberger, a US divisional commander, wrote: ‘It was a sly and sneaky kind of combat, which never resembled the massive and thunderous