Meanwhile, Templeton led two platoons in support of the men at Awala, who kept ambushing the advancing Japanese and fighting an almost continual rearguard action. Overwhelmed by the number of Japanese, and their superior firepower, the Australians and Papuans fought a series of gallant but losing skirmishes. When Templeton learned that Colonel Owen was flying into Kokoda, he placed Major Watson of the PIB in charge of the Awala defense and rushed back to the airfield to advise Owen of the situation. About four o’clock that afternoon, July 23, increasing numbers of Japanese swept up the road toward Awala. To the defenders, it was clear that this was not just a simple reconnaissance patrol, but rather a large number of professional soldiers who brought with them, in addition to machetes for cutting through the jungle, heavy machine guns, mortars, and even a field artillery piece.9
During the night of July 22, before the big enemy advance, Sergeant Katue, one of the first men to join the PIB in 1940, slipped through the Japanese lines. He traveled “for a distance of several miles and returned to his headquarters with valuable information of the enemy strength and disposition, thereby enabling his unit to take up a strategic position and greatly retard the enemy advance.”10
On July 27, perhaps buoyed by the speed his advance party was making toward Kokoda, Colonel Yokoyama sent a report to 17th Army headquarters claiming that the engineers could repair the road to Kokoda, thus making it possible for additional troops to reach Kokoda in a four-day march. From there, he claimed, they could reach Port Moresby in an additional eight days. In its delusions that all things were possible, the Japanese official history of the war comments that the 17th Army staff “was overjoyed with this report.”11
When Templeton arrived back at Kokoda field, he learned that a radio message had reported that as many as two thousand Japanese had landed at Buna. He sent the men at Awala a signal to fight a rearguard action only and to begin their return to Kokoda. When Colonel Owen’s plane arrived on the evening of July 24, Templeton briefed him on the situation, and the colonel sent a radio message to Port Moresby asking that reinforcements be flown in immediately. By now, the Australians and Papuans had withdrawn to a village called Oivi, a two-hour march from Kokoda. Templeton went to Oivi to resume his command. The first flight from Port Moresby arrived on the twenty-sixth, with Lieutenant Douglas McClean and fourteen members of his D Company platoon aboard. Owen ordered him to rush down the track to support the men fighting at Oivi. A second flight brought the fifteen remaining members of McClean’s platoon under Sergeant E. J. Morrison.12
When it became obvious the Japanese planned to surround them, Templeton started up the track toward Kokoda to warn McClean before he and his men stumbled into the enemy force. Templeton was never seen again, presumed killed by an enemy patrol.13 In fact, Templeton was wounded and taken prisoner. After a period of intense interrogation, a Japanese officer killed him. This was a fate Templeton shared with all Australians and Papuans who fell into Japanese hands: none who were captured by the Japanese survived the war.14
The Japanese troops attacking Oivi were the 1st Company of the 1/144th Regiment, under the command of First Lieutenant Yukio Ogawa. His men were seasoned jungle fighters who had participated in the invasions of Guam and Rabaul, as well as in the combat across New Britain that followed. One of the Australian officers present in New Britain recalled that their “movement in the bush had to be seen to be believed, because they’d just vanish! Their field craft and movement was magnificent.”15
At nightfall on the twenty-sixth, the Australian officers held a conference at which they determined the enemy had nearly surrounded their positions at Oivi, and if they were to survive, they must find a way out of the village quickly. Daybreak was sure to bring a concentrated Japanese attack from all directions. They agreed that they met the requirement set down in an order from Colonel Owen the day before that Oivi would be held “at all costs unless surrounded.”16
When word spread about finding a way out, Lance Corporal Sanopa of the Royal Papuan Constabulary, on temporary assignment with the PIB, offered to escort them to safety by way of a little-used trail he was sure the enemy had not found. At ten p.m., the Australians and Papuans slipped away from the encircling Japanese and began a difficult and dangerous slog along a nearby creek in the pitch-black of night. Each man held on to the bayonet scabbard or webbing straps of the man in front of him, who was nearly invisible in the darkness, so that he would not become separated. By dawn, the party had reached the safety of a track south of Kokoda. While they rested and ate their emergency rations, the men could hear explosions and firing in the distance as the Japanese attacked the now-empty village they had deserted during the night. It had been a narrow escape.17
Meanwhile, when Owen learned that enemy troops had surrounded Oivi, and that his own soldiers there were attempting an escape, he decided the fifty or so men he had at Kokoda would not survive a Japanese attack. Owen had secretly observed the slaughter of more than 130 prisoners by Japanese soldiers at the Tol Plantation on New Britain, and he was likely concerned that any of his men who fell into enemy hands would suffer a similar fate.18
Owen had his men bury extra supplies, such as grenades and ammunition they were unable to carry, at a nearby plantation for later use. He then led them five miles southwest to Deniki, where he met Watson’s force from Oivi and a platoon that had been on its way there. Deniki was on the main track to Port Moresby, and any reinforcements sent from there would have to pass through the village.
After spending a cold, cheerless night camped on a windy hilltop overlooking the track, with a spectacular view of Kokoda, Owen received startling news: a scouting party reported the Japanese had not occupied Kokoda. Owen knew the only way he could receive reinforcements quickly was by air, so he decided that if the enemy was not going to occupy Kokoda, he would.
Shortly after ten a.m. on July 28, the Australians and Papuans returned down the hill and reoccupied the plateau on which the Kokoda airstrip was located. At eleven thirty, following a brief reconnaissance of the surrounding area to ensure he had not walked into a trap, Owen radioed Port Moresby: “Re-occupied Kokoda. Fly in reinforcements, including two platoons and four detachments of mortars. [Aero-]Drome opened.”19
Owen expected that the enemy, which he knew was to the north at Oivi, would come along the track from that direction. He positioned his men in a horseshoe-shaped line around the edge of the plateau, facing north. When the Japanese came, they would have to fight uphill. Tense, tired, and hungry, the defenders remained at their posts for the entire day on the twenty-eighth.
Meanwhile, the Japanese advance had halted at Oivi as the men of Lieutenant Ogawa’s company rested and awaited reinforcements that were strung out along the track from Buna. Several hundred soldiers had brought bicycles, a much-used means of transport by the Imperial Army throughout China and in the Malay fighting leading to the capture of Singapore. Yet the muddy trails of New Guinea proved too much for them, and by the time the troops reached Oivi, abandoned bicycles littered the jungle and bush alongside the track.
When Lieutenant Ogawa arrived at Kokoda and learned of the Australian deployment, he positioned his men in a reverse horseshoe, enabling them to attack from the front and sides simultaneously. He also sent a small party on a circuitous route leading to the rear of the Australians.
At some point during that day, two U.S. Army Air Force Douglas transports appeared overhead and circled the airfield. On board were at least thirty Australian troops, mostly from Captain M. L. Bidstrup’s D Company, the remainder of whom were waiting at the field near Port Moresby for the plane to return for them. Bidstrup later complained about the American pilots: “The Yanks wouldn’t put us down, because they reckoned there were Japs around. I could see our own troops on the ground at Kokoda. And I asked them [the American pilots] to hang around; those people were clearing the barricades on the strip. No they wouldn’t, they went back.”20
Just afte
r nightfall, the Japanese began lobbing mortar shells into the Australian lines. This continued through most of the night. Then, at two-thirty on the morning of the twenty-ninth, Ogawa’s two hundred men commenced their charge up the incline to the plateau. Shafts of moonlight occasionally broke the thin gray mist covering the area. This, coupled with the shouting and chanting the Japanese had developed in night attacks in China, gave the entire scene a ghostly feel that left the defenders spooked.21
The intense fighting lasted more than an hour as the defenders’ machine guns and grenades cut down enemy soldiers clawing their way up the hill. Although at a topographic disadvantage, the Japanese persisted, seemingly unconcerned about taking heavy casualties. One casualty was Lieutenant Ogawa himself.
A short time later, Lieutenant Colonel Owen, who had been moving around the perimeter, encouraging his men, was shot as he lobbed a hand grenade. A half hour earlier, Lieutenant A. G. Garland, a young militia officer and platoon leader, had reproached Owen for exposing himself to the enemy. “Sir, I think you’re taking an unnecessary risk walking around amongst the troops like that.” Owen responded, “Well, I’ve got to do it.” He was a strong believer in leading from the front.22
A doctor who had accompanied the troops from Deniki examined Owen’s wound. A bullet had struck him just above the right eyebrow, penetrating his skull and brain. The doctor, Captain Geoffrey Vernon, understood that with such a severe wound the colonel had only a few minutes to live. He was unconscious, so Vernon made him as comfortable as he could.
Despite heavy losses, the Japanese continued pushing their way up toward the plateau. Shells from several large mortars located out of rifle range across the nearby Mambare River rained down on the defenders almost unceasingly. As the Japanese attempted to break through the defensive line, the fighting degenerated into hand-to-hand combat in several places. Each breakthrough resulted in the Australians and Papuans pulling back a little, until Major Watson, now in charge, decided the battle had been lost and ordered everyone to withdraw toward Deniki. The walking wounded were the first to leave, followed by most of the men in small groups. The remainder, fighting a rearguard action against the attackers, were last to depart.
Among the stragglers was Captain Vernon, who moistened the dying Owen’s lips and wiped dirt from his face before withdrawing. Vernon described the scene in his diary: “The mist had grown very dense, but the moonlight allowed me to see where I was going. Thick white streams of vapour stole between the rubber trees, and changed the whole scene into a weird combination of light and shadow. The mist was greatly to our advantage; our own line of retreat remained perfectly plain, but it must have slowed down the enemy’s advance considerably, another chance factor that helped save the Kokoda force.”23
This first battle for Kokoda cost the Allied side seven dead, including Colonel Owen, and five wounded. The Japanese reported twenty killed or wounded, including Lieutenant Ogawa. For reasons of their own, both sides reported the clash with a lack of honesty. Despite a message sent by the retreating Australians from Deniki that Owen had been killed, Templeton was missing, and Kokoda had been lost, and requesting bombing raids on both the airfield and the track between there and Oivi, an Allied communiqué failed to mention the loss of the vital airfield. It said simply: “Kokoda—Allied and enemy forward elements engaged in skirmishes in this area.” A Japanese report claimed the retreating Australians had “left forty dead” when they fled Kokoda. Another maintained: “In the Kokoda area, our advance force has been engaged in battle with 1,200 Australians, and has suffered unexpectedly heavy casualties.”24
All was relatively quiet during the next week, aside from an occasional clash of reconnaissance patrols. Both sides rested their troops and moved up supplies and reinforcements. Bombing attacks kept the Kokoda airfield out of service for the victors, so supplies, especially food, were slow to reach the men there. Meals were reduced to two a day. An Allied bomber made the situation worse when it destroyed a hut filled with potatoes on August 2. With the arrival of more troops, Colonel Tsukamoto decided Kokoda was safe from ground attack and vulnerable only to enemy aircraft. He sent most of his men fit for combat down several jungle tracks in search of a way to surround and isolate the enemy at Deniki.25
A company from the 15th Independent Engineer Regiment that had landed with the Yokoyama advance party began clearing the track between Oivi and Kokoda. Other engineers worked on building bridges across streams and rivers from the coast to Oivi, or repairing existing ones that retreating Australian or Papuan forces had damaged or destroyed. In all, some seventeen bridges required their attention.26
On the same day the bomber blew up the potato storage building, a Japanese patrol had its first encounter with an American weapon recently issued to some of the troops arriving at Deniki from Port Moresby: the Thompson submachine gun. Nine Japanese died in that confrontation, and five days later another eight were killed and five wounded. Total Australian casualties were one man wounded.
The Thompson was widely popular with the men who received them. Raymond Paull, an Australian war correspondent and historian, wrote that the weapon, called “an American gangster’s gun” by some senior officers, “encouraged them [the young Australian soldiers with limited combat experience] to adopt aggressive tactics against the enemy.”27 Its one drawback was an incompatibility with the jungle environment, requiring it to need constant cleaning to avoid jamming. Later in 1942, the Australian-made Owen Gun superseded it. A similar weapon invented by twenty-four-year-old Evelyn Owen from Wollongong, New South Wales, in 1939, the Owen Gun better withstood the mud and humidity of the New Guinea jungle, and was soon favored by many Australians and Americans alike. Australian soldiers called it the “digger’s darling”—digger being a slang military term used by both Australians and New Zealanders to describe soldiers who have been in combat. The Owen Gun would continue to be used by the Australian Army through the Vietnam War.
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On August 4 a new commanding officer arrived at Deniki: Major Alan Cameron, a veteran of the fighting on New Britain following the fall of Rabaul, and at Salamaua when the enemy landed there in March. Cameron was promised reinforcements, contingent on his driving the Japanese out of Kokoda so that the airstrip could be used for that purpose. Having a reputation as an able officer, he immediately began planning his assault.
Between six thirty and eight a.m. on August 8, three companies set out from Deniki on three separate missions. A Company, guided by Lance Corporal Sanopa, moved along a little-used track to circle around to attack the Japanese occupying the airstrip and the buildings still standing. If successful, it was to hold on until other companies arrived. D Company embarked along a track heading northeast to set up an ambush along the main track from Buna to Kokoda in order to stop additional enemy troops from moving toward Kokoda. C Company went along the track leading directly from Deniki to Kokoda for a frontal attack.
When the men of A Company, commanded by Captain Noel Symington, arrived at the airfield, they saw a small number of Japanese soldiers who turned out to be engineers. These Japanese fled when the Australians opened fire. Symington stationed his one hundred men in the best defensive positions available for what he expected would surely be a concentrated enemy attack to retake the airfield.
D Company, under Captain M. L. Bidstrup, set up its ambush, which was at first successful. Soon, however, they came under intense fire from both directions on the track as the Japanese troops who had already passed the ambush place earlier heard the shooting and turned back. The fighting lasted all day and into the night. When Bidstrup realized he could not reach Kokoda, and that his company would soon be surrounded and greatly outnumbered, he withdrew back toward Deniki. It took the men of D Company two days to reach their starting point, pursued by screaming Japanese most of the way.
A Japanese ambush by the 2nd Company of the 1st Battalion/144th Regiment caught C Company by surprise as it crossed a gul
ly that left it in the open. Among the first killed was the company commander, Captain A. C. Dean. The Australians, pinned down all day, were unable to break through to reach Kokoda. Finally, after nightfall, they withdrew. The Japanese chased them back to Cameron’s camp at Deniki, where they kept up intensive fire until the pursuers eventually turned back toward Kokoda.
That evening Colonel Tsukamoto learned, to his great surprise, that Australian troops had occupied Kokoda. Under the impression that just one enemy platoon held the airfield, he sent his weakest company, along with a platoon from the machine gun company and the battalion gun, to dislodge them.
Early the next morning, Lance Corporal Sanopa reported to Cameron that A Company had occupied Kokoda with little resistance and was waiting for the reinforcements that General Morris had promised once the airfield was in Australian hands. The major called Morris on a newly installed telephone and learned that new troops could not be sent until the following day. By then, Cameron warned Morris, it might be too late.
About the same time that Sanopa was reporting to Cameron, the Japanese launched a daylong series of assaults on Symington’s A Company at the airfield. The battle raged as rain poured down relentlessly. An Allied supply plane circled the field but left when the pilot saw the large number of Japanese. He did not even bother dropping supplies to the Australian defenders, who by then had exhausted their meager food rations and were running low on ammunition.
Seeing his mostly young and inexperienced troopers suffering from fatigue and hunger, and having heard nothing from Cameron, Symington ordered a withdrawal at seven p.m. on August 9. He knew there was no way his small force could stop what appeared to be a great many enemy soldiers. The men of A Company picked up their wounded comrades and kept the enemy at bay until they reached the relative safety of a small village on August 12. The villagers roasted sweet potatoes for the famished troops. A patrol of PIB soldiers met them and took the badly mauled company on a track around Deniki to a place further south called Isurava, where there was an Australian camp with medical personnel and food.
War at the End of the World Page 15