The Kokoda Campaign
World War 2 History of the Kokoda Trail
Battle of Isurava

Part 2 of 8

ISURAVA

The 39th withdrew into the mountains to Isurava where they went into fresh defensive positions. It was at Isurava that the battalion met its new commander, Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Honner. Honner, an experienced soldier, quickly summed up their condition after a month of jungle warfare:

Physically the pathetically young warriors of the 39th were in poor shape. Worn out by strenuous fighting and exhausting movement, and weakened by lack of food and sleep and shelter, many had literally come to a standstill. Practically every day torrential rain fell all through the afternoon and night, cascading into their cheerless weapons pits and soaking the clothes they wore - the only ones they had. In these they shivered through the long chill vigil of the lonely nights when they were required to stand awake and alert but still and silent.

Honner arrived at Isurava on 16 August 1942 as the Japanese were beginning to probe his forward positions. At that point, any determined enemy assault would probably have overrun Honner's weary battalion. A second battalion, the 53rd, had trekked from Port Moresby and Honner sent it towards Abuari to protect a side-track over which the Japanese could also advance. Coming up the Kokoda Track in the second half of August were reinforcements in the shape of the 21st Brigade, Australian Imperial Force. Forward elements of the brigade's lead battalion - the 2/14th - began reaching Isurava on 26 August. As these hardened soldiers, veterans of the fighting in the Middle East made their way through the mountains they had begun to understand just how much the 39th had endured on this toughest of battle fronts. Of their first day's march, an officer wrote:

Gradually men dropped out utterly exhausted - just couldn't go on. You'd come to a group of men and say 'Come on! We must go on.' But it was physically impossible to move - many were lying down and had been sick ... many made several trips up the last slope helping others. We began to see some of the tremendous effort the troops were going to make to help the lesser ones in. Found many of the battalion [at Ioribaiwa] lying exhausted, some ate, others lay and were sick, others just lay. Some tried to eat but couldn't.

It was the intention of the 2/14th to relieve the tired 39th Battalion, but before the whole of the 2/14th could take up positions at Isurava, the Japanese struck. The brunt of the opening attack fell on E Company of the 39th and a breakthrough was only prevented by desperate close-quarters fighting:

Through the widening breach poured another flood of the attackers to swirl around the remainder of the right platoon from the rear. They were met with Bren gun and Tommy gun, with bayonet and grenade; but still they came, to close with the buffet of fist and boot and rifle-butt, the steel of clashing helmets and of straining, strangling fingers.

That day the 39th held and prevented a disastrous collapse of the Australian front while the remainder of the 2/14th came up to support them. At Isurava, and throughout the Kokoda Track battle, the Australians were up against a brave and determined enemy to whom Dudley McCarthy, the official historian, paid this tribute:

They were brave and strong of purpose. They were trained and experienced in this type of warfare. They were hard and enduring. To face this threat would require equal strength of purpose, hardness and endurance.

Japanese attacks resumed at Isurava on 28 August but they failed to break the 2/14th's lines, now established in front of the 39th Battalion. On the next day, persistent enemy thrusts were met with dogged resistance requiring counter-attack after counter-attack. About midday, it looked as if a breakthrough might occur. to meet this threat, different groups of men charged back at the Japanese and, as this assault developed, one man was seen to lead - Private Bruce Kingsbury, 2/14th Battalion:

PRIVATE BRUCE KINGSBURY

[He] rushed forward firing the Bren gun from his hip through terrific machine gun fire and succeeded in clearing a path through the enemy. Continuing to sweep enemy positions with his fire and inflicting an extremely high number of casualties on them, Private Kingsbury was then seen to fall to the ground shot dead by a bullet from a sniper.

For his outstanding courage and his key role in restoring the Australian position, Bruce Kingsbury was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross, the first of the war in Papua New Guinea.

By the evening of 29 August, however, the 2/14th were in a bad way and withdrawal became inevitable. At night, covered by the 2/16th Battalion, the 2/14th and 39th Battalions moved back about two kilometres to Isurava Rest House. Throughout 29 August, the 2/16th and elements of the 53rd Battalion had held off a Japanese advance along the Abuari side-track to the right of the Isurava position. Had the enemy broken through here, the 2/14th and 39th would have been prevented from any possibility of retreat. Intense enemy pressure on 30 August forced a further withdrawal towards Eora Creek. As the Australians fell back, over 172 men of the 2/14th were cut off, including the commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Key.

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