The Ghost Mountain Boys - James E. Campbell [23]
The Japanese invasion force made camp east of Basabua at 3:30 a.m. on July 22. By 6:00 a.m. on July 23, the men were moving again, eager to reach what they thought was a road running from Buna to Kokoda. After taking a wrong turn, the force did not arrive at Buna until fifteen hours later.
Led by Colonel Yosuke Yokoyama, the invasion force was made up of elite soldiers who had fought in Shanghai in 1937, Guam in December 1941, and Rabaul in early 1942, and nine hundred men of the Tsukamoto Battalion, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Hatsuo Tsukamoto, part of the superbly trained 144th Infantry Regiment.
The 144th was assembled in Kochi City, a country town situated in the verdant hills at the mouth of the Niyodo River on the island of Shikoku. Its members were hardened, enthusiastic volunteers, the sons of farmers and tradesmen.
Rounding out the force were soldiers from the 15th Independent Engineers Regiment, who doubled as combat infantry; mountain and antiaircraft artillery units; a force of highly skilled naval shock troops; one hundred Formosan troops, praised for their fearlessness and endurance; fifty-two horses; and twelve hundred native conscripts from Rabaul.
Yokoyama’s orders came directly from Japan’s South Seas headquarters in Rabaul. Initially his mission was to reconnoiter the presumed “road” running from Buna to Kokoda and Kokoda south to Port Moresby, and to put the first portion in a condition to handle vehicles, packhorses, and bicycles. However, by the time he departed Rabaul on July 19, that mission had changed. Yokoyama’s men were now considered an invasion force.
Leading the advance guard of the invasion force was Colonel Tsukamoto, a “thundering old man” with a great affection for sake. On the afternoon of July 24, he was at the head of a long line of men bound for the government station of Kokoda. Kokoda was an outpost with huts, native gardens, a school, and a small hospital, situated on a plateau in the northern foothills of the Owen Stanley Mountains. Kokoda also possessed a strategically important airfield.
Seizo Okada, a war correspondent assigned to the invasion, described the march inland. “The unit continued to walk with single-mindedness…Each man is required to carry provisions for thirteen days in his backpack, comprising 18 litres of rice, a pistol, ammunition, hand grenades, a spoon, first aid kit…”
A patrol of scouts from the Tsukamoto Battalion traveled lightly and even faster than the rest of the battalion. Its objective was “to push on night and day” to Port Moresby.
While the Japanese soldiers marched on Kokoda, engineers remained behind to solidify Japan’s hold on the north coast. They built an airfield and fortified the beachhead with antiaircraft guns and a system of reinforced and interlinked bunkers. Some of the engineers also constructed a palm log road from Buna to the inland village of Soputa; the Japanese plan was to build a vehicle base and radio station there. Clearly, they were still under the illusion that the Kokoda track was navigable.
Yokoyama’s engineers toiled tirelessly in torrential rains. When trucks stalled in channels of thigh-deep mud, soldiers were turned into pack mules. They worked around the clock carrying supplies from the coast. Sleep was a luxury, and when they did rest, they did so in riverbeds, where they risked being swept away during flash floods. “Our duty to reach the front line,” one Japanese engineer wrote, “would not let us rest