Kokoda (44 page)

Against this kind of heavy weaponry, the best the Australians could offer was one all but obsolete Lewis heavy machine gun, which had first seen action on the Western Front of France during the Great War, some twenty-five years earlier. The new supplies at Myola had not yet got through, and the 39th simply had no long-range artillery to get at the Japanese. They would have to wait till they got to closer quarters before trying to inflict damage…

Up at the forward patrol post, Lieutenant Don Simonson and his men were trying to do exactly that. Having successfully beaten off the main Japanese thrust through their post, the combined men from E and D Companies now counterattacked and went forward in an effort to silence the mountain gun. This proved fruitless as the Japanese were well dug in beside the track on the approaches to the gun, so for the moment Simonson and his men fell back to their previous position.

Typical of the Japanese tactics, however, was that although they had been stopped on the main track, it did not mean that they had
stopped
. By the middle of the afternoon, other Japanese forces had skirted Simonson and were now attacking the Isurava perimeter from the high ground to the immediate northwest, as the mountain gun continued to rain missiles upon the defenders.

The first of the Japanese soldiers to get within cooee of the lines at Isurava were met by a lone Australian soldier placed a hundred yards forward. He held his fire in a hidden position until they were right upon him, and then squeezed the contents of an entire Tommygun magazine into a satisfactorily tightly bunched group of them at a range of just three yards. With a now empty gun, he looked up to see what seemed like a whole
battalion
of Japanese swarming out of the rainforest at him, prompting him to take a running jump— with bullets whistling all around—into the forest and down a ravine to relative safety. It would take him all night to make his way back to his own lines…
¹⁷⁰

Meantime, about three hundred miles roughly to the east of Isurava, at Milne Bay, on the eastern tip of New Guinea, fierce fighting was also underway. The strategic significance of Milne Bay—its promising areas of flat ground and geographic proximity to the Coral Sea made it ideal for the establishment of airbases—had not been lost on either side in this war. In late June, General MacArthur himself had ordered the construction of an airfield at a spot known as Gili Gili at the western end of the bay, and a brigade of the Australian Army was placed there to defend it. Throughout August that brigade had been reinforced with soldiers from other Australian units and had enjoyed some of the most inhospitable country in the world, where the air was always filled with one of two things: teeming rain or swarms of malarial mosquitoes. In appalling conditions, the Australian soldiers, with the help and guidance of American engineers, had set about building two more airfields and roads between them.

But on the previous night, at the same time that General Horii was moving his own troops forward to get in position for the attack on Isurava, a convoy of Japanese transports, minesweepers and destroyers had entered the bay. They unloaded two thousand crack soldiers just six miles from Gili Gili where the Australians were dug in under the command of General Cyril Clowes.

The Japanese soldiers had therefore already completed the first half of their orders for this operation, which were clear and to the point: ‘At the dead of night, quickly complete the landing in the enemy area, and strike the white soldiers without remorse.’
¹⁷¹

On that same afternoon of 26 August, at Isurava the Australians were also providing unexpectedly strong resistance to the Japanese attacks. But still Brigadier Potts, at Alola—where he had now taken formal command of Maroubra Force from Honner—signalled Port Moresby that they would likely be needing some help. Advising the Moresby command that they were under attack, he added: ‘Condition of 39th Battalion men weak due continuous work lack warm clothing blankets shelters curtailed rations and wet every night.’ Later in the day, with a view to who was guarding the 39th’s rear and eastern flanks, Potts added: ‘53rd Battalion training and discipline below standard required for action. For these reasons consider it imperative 2/27th move to Myola as my only fighting reserve.’
¹⁷²

As the Japanese attacks continued on the Isurava perimeter that afternoon, Ralph Honner looked at the situation with growing dismay. Ammunition was getting low, the men were totally exhausted and the Japanese kept pressing, pressing, pressing forward, while simultaneously launching endless foraging flanking movements. By Honner’s estimation, his men could only survive the Japanese onslaught for a few hours more, and maybe—just maybe—to the following morning. However courageous his men, he had little doubt that if the 2/14th didn’t get to them very soon, they would be gone.

For their part, all the men of the 39th knew was that they were in a fight to the finish and, until such times as they were relieved, they had to keep going until either they or their attackers were dead.

There is a noble, if bloody, tradition of such an approach in the Australian Army. Back in World War I, for example, an Australian lieutenant by the name of F. P. Bethune, a clergyman at home, found himself in charge of twenty Australian soldiers in a brutal battle on the Western Front, near the tiny French town of Villers-Bretonneux. In March 1918 it fell to Bethune’s platoon to hold the line against the marauding Germans. The Australians were clearly outnumbered and outgunned, and nearby British forces considered their position suicidal. But it was crucial to the rest of the Allies that they hold the line, and the only way to succeed was total resolve. If one man wavered, they were lost. Lieutenant Bethune gathered his men and gave them written orders. ‘This position will be held, and the section will remain here until relieved. The enemy cannot be allowed to interfere with the program. If the section cannot remain here alive, it will remain here dead, but in any case it will remain here.

‘Should any man through shell-shock or other cause attempt to surrender, he will remain here dead. Should all guns be blown out, the section will use Mills grenades and other novelties. Finally, the position, as stated, will be held.’
¹⁷³

In that case, as in so many others, the position was held, and so it was too with the men of the 39th and their commander. Knowing that the 2/14th were on their way, there could be no possibility of withdrawing the men to a safer position. They had to stay, and that was that.

As the light began to fade on this 26th day of August, though, the situation was beyond grim. Moving around the perimeter, Honner became aware that his previous view that they might be able to hold for a few more hours might have been optimistic. If the Japanese broke through just one of his sections then it would be all over. His reserve force was now committed, as was his mobile unit and, like cats on a curtain, the 39th were just managing to hang on with final reserves of strength they hadn’t even known they possessed.

Where, oh where, were the men of the 2/14th?

There!

Climbing up the track to meet them in double-quick time came C Company of the 2/14th Battalion, under the command of Captain Gerry Dickenson. Having left Myola at dawn the day before, they were the advance guard of the whole battalion. Soon they took their places beside the men of the 39th, taking over bit by bit the position that had been held by the 39th’s C Company on the right forward flank, which included Isurava village.

Both groups of Australian fighting men looked at the other with wonder. The newly arrived saw raggedy scarecrows of men, eyes sunken into their skulls, bodies racked by dysentery and fatigue, many recently wounded, and all of them smelling like latrines in the sun—which was not surprising as most of them had not washed for over forty days. All up, it was a wonder some of them still had the strength to hold up a rifle, let alone fire it, but fire it they did and never let up.

As to the men of the 39th, they looked upon the 2/14th, as one soldier later famously put it, as ‘Gods’. At least in comparison to themselves, the newcomers looked fit, strong, tanned, well-fed, and turned out in clothes that were not in shreds. Most of all, the newcomers exuded confidence. Just moments after Dickenson’s men had taken up their positions, a furious volley of mortar fire fell nearby and the AIF blokes all started cheering, calling out to each other ‘You beaut!’ and the like. As later described by Raymond Paull, ‘it combined familiarity, a spirited acceptance of an accustomed situation, and confidence in handling it.’
¹⁷⁴
All up, it was a moment that would ever after be burned in the memories of the members of the 39th.

That night of 26 August the Japanese unleashed more attacks—one skirmish seeing eight Japanese soldiers killed for no Australian losses. The invaders also made a full-blown attack on Honner’s forward patrol, now composed from men of the companies of both Lieutenant Simonson and Lieutenant Sword. The first the Australian soldiers at the forward post had known of it, bullets had suddenly started flying all around them, grenades had exploded in their midst, and from out of the jungle screaming Japanese soldiers had burst, firing as they came. Two of them actually made it all the way to the entrenched Australian position, and for a brief moment had lashed out with bayonets before the attack was beaten off. Lieutenant Don Simonson and three other soldiers were injured in the melee, with one Jap killed and many wounded, which was just as good.

For both sides of the campaign, causing a serious wound in an enemy soldier was almost more effective than a clean kill because every wound was a long-term drain on resources. To care for a wounded soldier on the frontline was debilitating, and to carry a badly wounded soldier out took at least four men many days on a stretcher, not to mention all the subsequent medical care and fuss and bother. If an Australian soldier was killed, though, it only took another one or two fellows perhaps half an hour to bury him and they would be free to fight again. As to the Japanese, their own dead were usually cremated, requiring more effort, but the principle stood.

All up, it was an appalling equation, but real nevertheless, and it was understood by the Diggers themselves. It was for this reason during the Kokoda campaign that time and again, badly wounded Diggers would crawl off quietly to die in the undergrowth rather than draw attention to themselves by screaming for help and so weakening the overall war effort.

On this occasion, though, as soon as contact was made with the 39th Battalion Headquarters and the message passed that four soldiers had been wounded, the instruction came back to bring them in immediately, even though it was still in the middle of the night. Easier said than done. There are few things in this world so pitch black as the middle of a New Guinea jungle in the middle of the night and, while the use of torches would of course help, they also acted as beacons for every enemy gun within miles. The fact was that at this point neither the forward men nor anyone at Battalion HQ had any idea just where the Japanese were, and whether the track between the post and Isurava was clear or not.
¹⁷⁵
The severe groans of the wounded soldiers told them there was nothing for it but to give it a try, and Lieutenant Simonson gave the order to move out. Carefully. With their torches shrouded as much as possible from distant eyes, and emitting just enough of a dim glow on the track, they slowly moved forward…

As they moved out, Lieutenant Bob Sword watched them go with some trepidation. Not just for them, heading off into a darkness crawling with murderous enemies, but for those left behind, who were now manning the forward post with four fewer of their good men.

As dawn broke on the morning of 27 August, it was soon clear that the solo Japanese mountain gun of the previous day was simply the bass drum of a whole percussion set that now included mortars, as the defenders of Isurava came under sustained bombardment. Out on the southern edge of the perimeter with the rest of D Company, Smoky Howson could hear the individual explosions of the mortars being fired, and then would count to ten. The reckoning of the Diggers was that if you got to ten you
definitely
knew you were still alive, but it was nerve-racking all right, as the mortar bombs continued to explode all around their positions.
¹⁷⁶

And what’s that? In the undergrowth about twenty yards in front of them, Smoky and his fellow Diggers could hear a furious crashing as something tore through it.

‘Cover me, mate, here the bastards come!’ Smoky yelled to the bloke next to him. But then—the sheer relief of it!—out of the thick undergrowth charged a wild pig. Smoky shot him anyway for the valuable meal he would provide for dinner that night, and the soldiers were still whooping over their mistake when the awful truth hit them. What had driven the wild pig at them was something much more dangerous—Japs. Seemingly
hundreds
of them on the charge and just another fifty yards or so behind the pig. A battle royal soon ensued, and not just at Smoky Howson’s section.

From all sides of the perimeter, the Japanese forces now attacked, pouring out of the jungle and charging all of the Australian positions, most particularly the ones held by E and B Companies, on the northern and western sections. The most sustained attack came on B Company, dug in at the most crucial position. Wondrously, though, it was clear from the first that Ralph Honner’s decision to show faith in B Company was being fully vindicated, as under Lieutenant French’s command the men were holding, and giving at least as good as they got. But it was going to be a close-run thing…