What was the Kokoda campaign?

The Kokoda campaign was the Australian-led defensive campaign fought along the Kokoda Track in the rugged mountains of Papua from July to November 1942. Australian militia and AIF troops fought a series of defensive actions to stop the Japanese 17th Army advance toward Port Moresby, the capital of Papua and the last Allied base in the south-west Pacific.

The Japanese landed at Buna and Gona on the north coast of Papua on 21 July 1942 and began advancing south along the Kokoda Track, a 96-kilometre walking trail across the Owen Stanley Range. The defending Maroubra Force (initially comprising the 39th Australian Infantry Battalion, a mostly young and inexperienced militia unit nicknamed the Ragged Bloody Heroes) fought a series of delaying actions through July, August, and September 1942. The 39th was reinforced by experienced AIF battalions including the 21st Brigade and 25th Brigade as the campaign developed.

Major actions on the track included Kokoda village (lost to the Japanese on 12 August 1942), Deniki, Isurava (26 to 31 August 1942, the first major Australian stand and the site where Bruce Kingsbury was killed earning a posthumous Victoria Cross), Eora Creek, Templeton's Crossing, Mission Ridge-Brigade Hill, and Ioribaiwa Ridge (the Japanese high-water mark, just 50 kilometres from Port Moresby, reached on 16 September 1942). From 28 September the Australians began a counter-attack that progressively drove the Japanese back. Kokoda village was recaptured on 2 November 1942.

The campaign ended at the Japanese beachhead at Buna, Gona, and Sanananda, which fell to combined Australian-American forces in January 1943. Australian casualties on the Kokoda Track totalled about 625 dead and 1,600 wounded. Disease casualties were substantially higher, with malaria, dysentery, and tropical ulcers affecting thousands. Japanese casualties are estimated at about 6,000 dead. Papuan carriers (the so-called Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels, though the term is now considered outdated) supported the Australians by carrying supplies forward and wounded backward across the track. Kokoda has become central to Australian memory of the Second World War. The Kokoda Track Authority manages the track today, with hundreds of Australians walking it each year as a pilgrimage. The annual Kokoda Day commemoration on 8 November and the Isurava Memorial in Papua mark the campaign in modern memory.