The Kokoda Campaign
World War 2 History of the Kokoda Trail
The Beginning

Part 1 of 8

The Kokoda Track is a narrow, jungle-enclosed pathway across the Owen Stanley Range over the roof of Papua. It climbs from the hills north of Port Moresby through small settlements such as Uberi, Kagi, Efogi and Isurava to a height of over 2,200 metres.

Towering over the range west of Isurava is Mount Victoria, 4,073 metres, a summit regularly hidden by grey rain clouds. Beyond Isurava, the track falls away through Deniki down the northern slopes of the range to the little village of Kokoda, and then on through gentler foothills down to the banks of the swift-flowing Kumusi River. Before World War 2, few people used the track. Europeans wanting to cross the damp, rain soaked mountains did so by plane and the only travellers along this isolated footway were government patrol officers and local villagers. Distances on the track were measured not in kilometres, but in the days it took to travel through the rugged terrain from place to place, up and down one precipitous slope after another.

For the Australian soldiers sent to serve in the Owen Stanleys in 1942, the surroundings were a shock.

THE BEGINNING

War came to the Kokoda Track in July 1942. During the night of 21-22 July, a Japanese invasion force from Rabaul, New Britain, began landing at Gona Mission on the north Papuan coast. This was Major General Horii's 'South Seas Force', whose instructions were to take Port Moresby, if feasible, by a thrust across the mountains. Another Japanese force would land later at Milne Bay at the eastern tip of Papua to secure aircraft landing grounds and to prepare for an assault on Port Moresby from along the south Papuan coast.

As the Japanese pressed inland from Gona, they were opposed by soldiers of the Papuan Infantry Battalion and a company of militiamen of the 39th Battalion. Indeed, for the first month after the Gona landings the young Victorians of the 39th were virtually the only Australian force resisting the enemy drive towards the Owen Stanleys.

KOKODA 1

During this period the Australians moved back to Kokoda village, which fell after a sharp engagement on 29 July. Lieutenant Colonel William Owen, the commanding officer of the 39th Battalion, was killed.

On 8 August 1942, the 39th temporarily retook Kokoda but were again driven out back to Deniki. By now the Japanese had landed their main force and were preparing for a full-scale assault towards Port Moresby.

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