2Lt John Stringfellow
In March 1967 I asked my Company commander, Major Colin Adamson, if I could walk the Kokoda Trail. The Trail had been part of Western Australian folklore since I was a child as Western Australians had served with the 2/16th Battalion in the retreat from the Japanese Army’s advance on Port Moresby. I knew that the Trail started some distance from Port Moresby from a road sign I had seen on the road to the Sogeri Plantation pointing in the direction of Owers Corner, but that was all. What made me want to do this walk, I am not sure, but the words Kokoda Trail was embroidered onto the PIR Regimental Colours that was kept in the Officers mess and which I saw every time I entered the mess. I guess this triggered a subconscious impulse to relieve the boredom of barracks life and a desire to get into the jungle. In my ignorance I equated the Trail with the bush paths through our Western Australia’s national parks.

Colin gave me approval subject to the battalion headquarters also approving. Their approval came back with advice that B Company was shortly to go on patrol in the Lae area and as such the Army’s Cessna 180 airplane would be available to bring me back to Port Moresby. A problem then arose when I asked for a map of the Trail as nobody in the battalion or, it seemed, the PNG Military Command, had access to a detailed map of the Trail area. The then current 1:50,000 topographical map produced by the Department of Surveys, and kept in the battalion’s intelligence office, had a large white space over most of the area with a description that no aerial photography had been taken of the area due to cloud cover. This created a bit of excitement in the Officer’s mess and the senior officers delved into their history books looking for information on the Trail. I was given various books to read of the wartime heroics on the Trail and a finally a crude map of the principal villages on the trail drawn on tracing paper and copied from the official history of the Army in WW2. Colin solved this problem by telling me to take my Koiari batman, Private Wozoi, with me as he was a native from the Kokoda area and spoke the local language. Wozoi was to be my guide and trusted companion. A short time after I made my request, I was told that the Cessna airplane was coming back from Lae on Thursday week and would pick up me and Wozoi at 9.00am. We were to draw 5 days’ rations and to leave on the Saturday afternoon. For my personal protection, I was allowed to take a 9mm pistol and 50 rounds of ammunition, something I now wonder about.

I decided to leave after the Saturday’s football game as I could not let the team down as it often struggled to make a full side. It was arranged for the picket duty corporal to pick us up at 5.00 pm and drive us up the steep and windy road past Rouna Falls to Owers Corner. All went according to plan and just before the sun went down Wozoi and I had disappeared over the edge of the steep decline at Owers Corner down to the Goldie River which we crossed in waist deep water and set up camp and settled in for the night.

At daybreak we breakfasted and broke camp to begin our walk. Wozoi cut me a walking stick (everybody had a trail stick – see the photo of the 39th battalion on parade at Menari) and we set off. We followed the Goldie River continually recrossing it for the next hour or so. I could not see any obvious signs of a path but followed Wozoi until eventually we emerged at a wide path close to an abandoned village where old, dilapidated huts were evident. This was Uberi on my “map”. From there we followed this path and came across the wartime “Golden Staircase” up to the top of Imita Ridge. The staircase went steeply up for at least 100 metres and consisted of cut tree branches laid across the track and held in place by wooden spikes. It was a regular staircase, said to have over 2000 steps, with risers about 20cm high but there were no landings on which to stretch out or sit down. I was surprised how good was the condition of the staircase after being in place for 25 years, with only small sections washed away, but once Kokoda was recaptured air transport would have replaced the need to walk and there were no locals living in the immediate area. It was a hard slog lifting your leg from one step to the next. From the top of Imita Ridge I took my last look at the Port Moresby area, and we continued on our way to face our next challenge in the form of climbing the ridge to Ioribaiwa. I had been told that there were at least nine false crests to the top of this ridge, and I soon found out what a false crest was. It is where you can see the sky at the end of a steep climb in the track framed by the jungle only to get to the top and find the track continues upwards like a giant’s staircase. Very disheartening to the weary body. Going up the path I became aware it was on top of a narrow ridge where on either side the country fell steeply for at least 20 metres. After reaching the top there was a great deal of war debris on the track for at least 500 metres in what must have been the site of a battle. It was a souvenir hunter’s paradise as the place was littered with discarded and rusting equipment such as rifle and gun parts, helmets, rotten boots and webbing, bullets, bayonets, signal wire, ammunition boxes and so forth. I decided to take a Japanese helmet but everyone I picked up had a bullet hole in the rear of it. Obviously, no prisoners were taken, and no chances were taken with booby trapped wounded or dead persons lying on the track. The badges on the front of the helmets were interesting as some had a chrysanthemum, others had a star and others had an anchor and entwined rope. The leather lining in some of the helmets was still intact. When I found one to my satisfaction, I strapped it to my pack and continued on. I also picked up a small calibre Japanese bullet and a 45mm Thomson machine gun bullet which I still have amongst my souvenirs.

On the downhill walk I first encountered numerous leeches that rose humpbacked to cross the path. I had been advised that if a leech attached itself to you it was removed by sprinkling salt over it which caused it to fall off. I was told never to pull a leech off the skin as it would leave a wound which could become infected. The walk continued downhill until we reached a flat area where we could see the village of Nauro in the distance at the end of a long cleared narrow strip of land that looked like an old airstrip, and which had been recently flooded. To get to Nauro we were made to walk for well over 500 metres through calf deep mud sometimes sinking up to your knees. The walking stick was often used to lever myself out of the mud. It was one of the hardest physical tasks I have ever done. You could not sit down for a rest as you would not have been able to get out of the mud. If you stood still, you could feel yourself sinking into the mud, your feet were sucked into the mud, and it was only with great difficulty that you could remove your foot to advance one small step at a time. All the time Nauro was in sight but never seemed to be getting closer.

At Nauro we were well received by the locals who wore old cotton shorts or frocks that must have been provided by missionaries and possibly put on when seeing the approach of a white man for some time. They put us up in the village guest house which was a two roomed house made of bush timber supports, rafters and floor with palm leaf roof and walls. The split bamboo floor was placed on stilts well over a metre above the ground level. The front of the building was similar to a three-sided porch with a stone lined open fireplace and the rear room was an enclosed sleeping place. I had the rear room where I changed into my night clothes and sat and watched Wozoi and a few of the locals cooking the locally supplied vegetables and our tinned rations. After the meal I retired to the rear smoked filled room to lie on my blow-up mattress and listened to the continuous babble of Wozoi and the locals before falling asleep completely exhausted. We rose at sunrise and readied ourselves for the next part of the walk. After breakfast we thanked the villagers for their hospitality and left our unused rations, mainly tea, sugar and salt, from that day’s pack as a small gift and departed.

The second day’s walk was not as difficult as the first day’s as the path was well defined and less steep. We passed through Menari, a neat little village, then on into Efogi (on my map) in mid-afternoon. There were no souvenirs on this section of the trail, but I saw defensive weapon pits for the first time. At Efogi we stopped for lunch and a brew and for Wozoi to have a chat with the locals. Across a steep ravine we could see the Kagi village. It looked so close but the creek at the bottom of the ravine looked far away. This was the most difficult part of the day’s walk. The path was almost vertical, and it took what seemed a long time to reach the bottom and cross a shallow creek. I was surprised to see women washing clothing in this creek and wondered where they had come from. The climb was just as steep but more energy sapping as the lifting of knees was a constant requirement The path ran through tall kunai grass and was exposed to sunshine which created heat and high humidity. I was so relieved when we got to the top and reached the village which was situated in the middle of a large red clay pan cleared of vegetation for some hundreds of metres around. Wozoi was treated like a sporting champion with all the villagers coming to shake his hand and talk to him. My treatment was the same as I received at Nauro. I had the rear smoke-filled room of the guest house, a similar meal and dropped off into a deep sleep while listening to Wozoi and the locals having a great chat. It was another long day’s walk. As at Nauro we woke at sunrise, thanked the villagers, left our unused rations and got off to an early start.

Day three took us to a village I think was Isurava. The walk from Kagi to Isurava was in a high-altitude region with the elevation being above 2000m and there was a high humidity with water constantly dripping from the trees. During the morning Wozoi seemed to have great pleasure in pointing out trees in which Japanese snipers had hidden and shot Australians dead. It was never the reverse. As Wozoi would have only known this from hearsay of relatives and friends, I came to the conclusion that the locals must have helped out the Japanese during their advance. (I later read where the Japanese encircled the Australians on Brigade Hill, south of Efogi, who at one stage watched the lights carried by the Japanese as they came down the hill from the direction of Kagi during the night.)

The path was wide and heavily infested with leeches. They were everywhere. During one of our morning smokos I put up my aching feet to let the blood flow back up my legs and was amazed to see that at the top of each of my boots were a string of leeches like a bracelet in a continuous circle feeding off me. Some were quite fat. I had been completely unaware of their being on my legs. A sprinkling of salt removed the leeches. We continued on and I kept an eye on my legs and boots to ensure no other leeches attached themselves. They did. During this stage I became aware of blood staining on my canvas jungle boots at the heels. As I could not feel any pain due to my exhaustion, I assumed leeches had got inside the boots and had been squashed. At the next smoko I took my boots off to get rid of the leeches, but I could not find one. What I found was a hole in each of my heels the size of a 20-cent piece. (These canvas jungle boots had a design problem in that the back heel support was inflexible. The PIR soldiers solved this problem by undoing the stitching of the heel support at the back of the boot.) The effort of keeping up with Wozoi had made me unaware of the pain. I had no alternative but to put my boots back on. This was extremely painful. Once I resumed walking the pain lessened. (Appropriately George Johnston – a Kokoda Trail veteran is quoted as saying, “You keep going because you have to and because, if you stop, you stop nowhere, but if you keep going you might get somewhere.”)

The path was quite interesting in this section as there were numerous fast flowing creeks which had to be crossed by logs strewn across granite boulders. Somewhere along this path I saw rocks which had bluey green stripes the colour of rusted copper pipes embedded in them, and I now regret not collecting one and marking its location on my crude map. We crossed Templeton’s Crossing, went through the villages of Alola, which was rather small and appeared to be set in a banana grove, to arrive at Isurava. Wozoi did not seem to be greeted with as much enthusiasm as he was shown at Kagi, (or perhaps I was so worn out I did not notice) but we enjoyed the village guest house and their hospitality, and the routine of the previous two days was again followed. Another long day’s walk.

Day four began as the other three did. After a short while we passed through a small village I assume was Deniki and then came to the descent into Kokoda. Then Wozoi took off leaving me in his wake. He soon disappeared from sight, and I was all alone cursing him. The path at this point was not well defined having narrowed to be almost invisible and I had to keep a careful look out for signs of the path such as broken branches, machete cuts on saplings, disturbed mud. The path also got extremely steep. So steep I found myself running about four or five paces in a zigzag fashion down the slope before catching a tree to stop myself from falling. Eventually the path widened and levelled out and became more recognisable, so I had time to wonder where Wozoi was. My wonderment was answered by a sight I will never ever forget. Wozoi stripped to his underpants lying on a flat granite rock over which a shallow stream of water was flowing moderately fast causing the water to splash all over him. Without a word or hesitation, I also stripped to my underpants and joined him. It was wonderful. The sun was shining. The water was cold. The Kokoda town was in sight. All my aches and pains were washed away and along with my realisation that we were near the end of our journey We stayed there a considerable time lying in the water and chatting, our contrasting skin colours adding to the spectacular scenery of the Kokoda Valley below us. Eventually we dressed into our now dry walking clothes, had a cup of tea and resumed our walk completely refreshed.

The remainder of the walk was a stroll in the park as the jungle gave way to a rubber plantation and the path becoming a dirt road for motor vehicles. We arrived in Kokoda mid-morning, and I made myself known to the local government official. He billeted me out with a local expat and radioed the Army to tell them we had arrived. My billet host was a character who would entertain me for the rest of the day. I told Wozoi to be back at the local government office after breakfast the next day and he disappeared again as a guest of the locals somewhere in Kokoda. I spent the rest of the day drinking cold beer with my host and admiring the lovely Kokoda scenery. My host must have had an endless supply of beer. As soon as he finished a stubby, he would throw it over the small cliff at the rear of his garden and get out another stubby. When in Kokoda do as the Kokodians do. An enjoyable and unforgettable drinking experience.

The Army Cessna picked us up the next day and flew us back to Port Moresby through the Kokoda Gap where the airplane gave us a bucketing ride. We were met at Jackson’s Airport by the battalion duty driver who drove us back to our barracks. I returned my pistol and ammunition to the company Q store and gave a verbal account of my ordeal to my fellow officers, none of whom seemed overly impressed.

(2Lt) John Stringfellow

August 2012

Editor’s note: While the Officers at Taurama Barracks did not appear impressed, the PNG Commander, Brigadier I.M. Hunter, said that he “was most impressed by your work” in a personal letter when John departed from PNG Command.