Special features

• New Guineans on the Kokoda Track

  

  The great majority of the 20,000 New Guineans who participated in the campaign did so as carriers of supplies for the Allies, though 800 men from the Papuan Infantry Battalion and the Royal Papuan Constabulary fought against the Japanese in 1942. more ...

• Animated Battle Maps

  

  There were a number of key battles in the Papuan campaign. In the initial stages the Australians were forced to withdraw on numerous occasions, but as the tide turned they they were able to push the Japanese back to Gona and the coast. more ...

• A Kokoda Timeline

  

  On July 7 1942 Australian troops (Maroubra Force) began operations along the Kokoda track. On July 21 Japanese forces landed near Buna and Gona on the north-east shore of Papua New Guinea. View an interactive timeline of the Kokoda campaign within the larger Pacific War. more ...

• Track or Trail?

  

  Kokoda track or the Kokoda trail? The official name is the Kokoda trail, but this term is rarely used in Australia. Pre-war documents referred to it as the 'overland mail route' and the 'Buna road' . Locally it is now called the Kokoda dala or Kokoda road and 'Kokoda road' was sometimes used during the war. more ...

• Why Port Moresby?

  

  Port Moresby was important because any Allied attack north through New Guinea towards Rabaul required Port Moresby as a base. Similarly for any attack south towards Australia, the Japanese required Port Moresby. more ...

• A Fighting Retreat

  

  At the first of two engagements at Kokoda the Japanese defeated Lieutenant Colonel Owen's force and captured the airstrip from which they expected to receive supplies from Rabaul. The combined Papuan/Australian force fell back to Deniki. more ...

• The Stand at Isurava

  

  In late August both the Australians and the Japanese were greatly reinforced and prepared for a decisive battle at Isurava. While the Japanese were victorious they failed to achieve their main objective - the total destruction of Maroubra Force. more ...

• Retaking Kokoda

  

  In the morning fog on 25 October 1942, while the two armies fought at Eora-Templeton's 25 km to the south, Winkle, having come from an Australian patrol base in the Yodda valley, crossed the Kokoda airstrip and entered Kokoda Government Station. more ...

• The Decisive Moment

  

  As a result of the decisive defeat suffered by the Japanese at Oivi-Gorari they abandoned their plan to take Port Moresby and turned their attention to holding their base at Buna-Gona. The Japanese cut through the surrounding Australian infantry and retreated to the coast. more ...

• Casualties

  

  Casualty statistics are not reliable in every category. Numbers for those killed in action are accurate but Australians evacuated sick during the campaign can only be estimated. The situation is much worse when assessing the losses of the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy. more ...

The Australian Veterans' Accounts

Kokoda Veterans' Video Interviews

Lawrence Downes

...of 39 Infantry Battalion, reflects on the fate of his friends during and after the Papuan campaign.

“I had a couple of good leaders. There's a couple of them still alive. But their memories are gone. One of them was decorated. But at Kokoda in my original section three were given Military Medals. And there was only five of the originals there. So someone did some good.

They're all, bar one, gone. Ron Dryden died in Ballarat. Vic Smythe died - he had a block up at Robinvale. He got it after he'd been battling around Melbourne skinning rabbits and that. He put in for a block and he got a block up there. He's dead. Alec - he's still alive but he's had a stroke. He don't go anywhere. The rest of them are gone. Those that didn't get killed there [at Kokoda] got killed up at Gona. They just kept pushing them back in.”

Site Contents

• About the Kokoda Track: 1942 and Today
  • Overview
  • Why is the Kokoda track significant?
  • Topography of Kokoda
  • Kokoda today on video
  • Where does the track start and finish?
  • Track or trail?
  • A Kokoda timeline
  • History of the track before the war
  • Damien Parer
  • Seeing Kokoda the easy way
  • Bomana Cemetery
• The War in Papua: The Strategic Context
  • Overview
  • Japanese intelligence about the Kokoda track
  • Why was Port Moresby important?
  • Guadalcanal August 1942 - February 1943
  • The war in the air
  • The war at sea
• Four Peoples at War
  • Overview
  • The Australians
  • The New Guineans
  • The Americans
  • The Japanese
• Jungle Warfare
  • Overview
  • Tactics of jungle war
  • The problem of supply
  • Patrolling the jungle
  • Japanese artillery
  • Malaria and dysentery
• A Fighting Retreat
  • Overview
  • Japanese landing and advance to Kokoda
  • First engagement at Kokoda 28 July 1942
  • Second engagement at Kokoda 8 August 1942
• Into the Mountains
  • Overview
  • Falling back to Deniki
  • The stand at Isurava
  • From Eora to Templeton's Crossing
  • Disaster at Efogi 8 September 1942
  • Action at Ioribaiwa Ridge
• Milne Bay
  • Overview
  • Japanese landing and defeat at Milne Bay
• The Tide Turns
  • Overview
  • Australian advance to Eora
  • Retaking Kokoda
  • The decisive moment: Oivi-Gorari 10 November 1942
• The Japanese Besieged - the Battle of the Beachheads: Buna, Gona, Sanananda
  • Overview
  • The advance to the sea
  • The Battle of the Beachheads: November 1942
  • The Battle of the Beachheads: December 1942
  • The Battle of the Beachheads: January 1943
• Casualties
  • Overview
  • List of casualties for Kokoda, Milne Bay and Buna-Gona
• The Australian Veterans' Accounts
  • Kokoda Veterans' Video Interviews

Resources

• Flickr: Kokoda
• YouTube: Kokoda
• Google Maps: Kokoda
• FlashEarth: Kokoda
• Google weather: Port Moresby
• Weather Underground: Port Moresby
• Smartraveller: Travel advice

Feature: Bomana Cemetery

Just off the road from Port Moresby at the southern end of the Kokoda track is Bomana, the largest war cemetery in the Pacific. Established in 1942 it contains 3779 graves. There are 3069 known and 237 unknown Australians from the fighting in New Guinea together with 443 Allied soldiers sailors and airmen. more...

Wikimapia: Port Moresby Bomana War Cemetery

Feature: Video Interviews

Australian Kokoda veteran interviews: The interview excerpts here are drawn from over two thousand interviews with Australian war veterans conducted by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. The project, called the Australians at War Film Archive, aims to provide a resource for all Australians and a permanent record for posterity.