MAJOR GENERAL MICHAEL JEFFERY AC, AO (Mil), CVO, MC (Retd)
AT THE COMBINED BATTALION ASSOCIATIONS LUNCHEON COMMEMORATING THE 70TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE KOKODA/OWEN STANLEYS CAMPAIGN
RIVERSIDE RECEPTIONS, NEW FARM, QLD
26 JULY 2012
Thank you for your warm welcome and may I say what a pleasure it is to be with you at this combined Battalions function commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Kokoda/Owen Stanley’s Campaign.
Cicero said “To remain ignorant of things that happened before you were born is to remain a child.” There’s a few sprightly octogenarians and nonagenarians in the audience today but for the other whippersnappers a short history lesson:
In the early 1940s, the Papuan Infantry Battalion was in its infancy and by 1942 consisted of a poorly equipped three companies made up of volunteers including 300 indigenous Papuans, tasked to patrol the northern coast of Papua and the first to make contact with the Imperial Japanese troops near Awala on 23 July in an ambush.
The 13,500 Japanese troops who landed at Gona on 21 July and fought the Kokoda campaign were well trained, fit and battle-hardened.
Most had been in action since 1937 and were expert in jungle warfare.
The Supreme Allied Commander in the South-West Pacific, General Douglas MacArthur knew that if the little-known Kokoda Airfield was seized by the enemy, then Port Moresby would be under direct threat, along with his future plans for an offensive against the major Japanese base in Rabaul.
This clearly was not acceptable.
MacArthur therefore ordered immediate action from the Commander Allied Land Forces, General Sir Thomas Blamey, who in turn directed Major General Basil Morris, the local commander in New Guinea, to prevent Japanese access across the Track.
To do so, Morris rushed Maroubra Force, guided by the PIB, with two largely untrained and ill-equipped militia battalions – the 39th and 53rd – to the Kokoda area, roughly half way between Port Moresby and the northern coastal village of Buna.
These troops had been employed as wharf labourers and on other manual tasks before finding themselves rushed forward, inadequately prepared to meet a tough and battle- experienced foe.
The 39th followed the PIB into action and, to its everlasting credit, acquitted itself brilliantly from its first contact with the enemy north of Kokoda village.
However, skirmishing and several fierce assaults by the Japanese caused the outnumbered Australians to fall back through Kokoda.
The 39th soon re-took the village but after two days a renewed Japanese offensive forced the Australians to withdraw.
Kokoda was captured by the Japanese on July 29.
Conditions at this point are best summed up by Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Honner, Commanding Officer of the 39th Battalion:
“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 of them had literally come to a standstill.
Practically every day, torrential rains fell all through the afternoon and night, cascading into their cheerless weapon pits and soaking the only clothes they had.”
But although desperate, greatly outnumbered and under-resourced, the resistance was such that, according to captured documents, the Japanese believed they had defeated a force more than 1,200 strong when, in fact, they were facing just 77 Australian troops.
With the Kokoda Airfield now lost, the newly appointed New Guinea Commander, Lieutenant General Sydney Rowell, immediately dispatched the 21st Brigade to re-take the village of Kokoda.
Brigadier Potts reached Alola, some 10 km south of Kokoda, on the Owen Stanley Range on 23 August and immediately took command of the remnants of the exhausted Maroubra Force.
In the early stages of the Kokoda campaign the PIB fought alongside the Australian 39th Battalion as part of Maroubra Force. When the Australian 7th Division reinforced Maroubra Force, the PIB was organised into stretcher teams and assigned the vital task of carrying the sick and wounded back along the track to safety.
On 26 August, Potts reinforced the 39th Battalion with his own 2/14th; fit, tanned and superbly trained from the Syrian Desert.
Although outnumbered five to one and without supplies of food and ammunition, they held Isurava for four days of bitter fighting against fanatical Japanese attacks where hand-to-hand combat using bayonet, boot and grenade was a regular occurrence.
In deciding his future course of action, Potts elected to conduct a fighting withdrawal rather than obeying impossible orders from higher command to move forward and attack a greatly superior and better armed enemy.
He formulated a tenacious withdrawal strategy with carefully planned ambushes and vicious limited assaults as the appropriate tactic.
When Potts and his now greatly reduced 2/14th and 2/16th Battalions withdrew to Mission Ridge (Brigade Hill) roughly 30 km south of Kokoda Village, he was then reinforced by his 2/27th Battalion.
Under the most trying conditions, they fought a short desperate brigade defensive battle that inflicted further delay upon the Japanese.
With heavy casualties on both sides, this critical hold-up in time finally exhausted the tenuous supply line of the enemy commander, General Horii, who had necessarily relied on a strategy of speed, with its attendant risks, to his logistics to capture Port Moresby.
Demoralised, starving and diseased, the Japanese withdrew back along the Track, vigorously followed up by fresh battle-trained troops of the 25th and 16th Brigades.
More heavy fighting was to follow, but the threat to Port Moresby was over.
As a former combat infantryman who has realistically exercised his own troops across the Kokoda Track, I stand in awe of our troops achievements on the battlefield.
In particular, during that three-week period in August and September of 1942 and against a superior number of battle-hardened Japanese troops, Potts inspired his severely out numbered and poorly-supplied militia and AIF soldiers to fight a series of bitterly- contested delaying actions down the Track to save Port Moresby, and its strategically important airfield and port, the capture of which would have given to Japan control of the northern sea and air approaches to Australia.
Fighting in conditions so terrible and beyond the comprehension of higher Headquarters to imagine, Potts came under criticism for conducting a fighting withdrawal.
We now know the Japanese High Command did not intend to invade Australia but at the time this seemed an inevitable intention-serious enough for me as a young boy to remember very clearly, our well constructed air raid shelter in our backyard at Cannington in a suburb of Perth.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is important to know of and reflect on our military history and it is right and proper to reflect on the sacrifices of those 359 killed and 560 wounded who fought around the Kokoda Track particularly on this significant milestone of the 70th anniversary.
A few further words now on the PIB and NGIB.
After Kokoda, the PIB took part in the advance to Salamaua, before fighting in New Guinea on the Huon peninsula, along the Markham, Ramu, and Sepik rivers, and on Bougainville.
In late 1943, New Guinea Force Headquarters, noting the success of the PIB, decided to create another battalion of indigenous soldiers. Made up largely of recruits enlisted at Malahang, near Lae, the 1st NGIB was formed in March 1944 in the lower Markham valley.
Indigenous New Guineans who had been in the PIB also joined the new battalion. A second NGIB was raised later in September 1944. The 1st NGIB served on Bougainville and New Britain, and the 2nd NGIB fought alongside the Australian 6th Division in the Aitape-Wewak campaign.
The 3rd NGIB was formed in early 1945 and as the Pacific war ended the 4th NGIB was being planned. By the time it was disbanded in 1947 approximately 3,500 Papuans and New Guineans had served in the battalions of the PIB and NGIB. The PIR was formed in November 1944 from an amalgamation of the PIB and the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the NGIB. It was then reformed in 1951 and consisted of two battalions, one stationed in Papua and the other in New Guinea. The PIR was formally controlled from Australia until Papua New Guinea’s Independence in 1975. It was renamed the Royal Pacific Islands Regiment in 1985.
It was my great privilege to serve as company commander of 1 PIR from 1966-69 and then as the last Australian CO of 2 PIR in Wewak in 1974/5.
My wife and I were married in the Haus Lotu of 1 PIR at Taurama Barracks in February 1967. Indeed the Piper who played at our wedding, travelled to Canberra in 2008, to play us to our car as we departed Government House, Yarralumla. We took our four children to Wewak when I assumed command of 2 PIR. They were some of the happiest days of my soldiering career.
So well done to all who have served in the PIB, NGIB and PIR, whether in peace or war.
As one of the post-war PNG military brethren it has been my great privilege to address you today.
Thank you.