ww2...The Kokoda Trail

Busy reading about the Papua/New Guinea campaign with emphasis on the Kokoda Trail , Milne Bay and Port Moresby. Again the author is Paul Ham an Australian writer.

Australia was very much a British colony with the Australian population being very pro British, and the British utilising this to the max. To the extent the prime minister Mr Curtain had to insist with a great deal of unpleasantness in getting the Australian Imperial Forces back to defend Australia from the Japanese hopscotching along the Pacific Ocean after bombing Pearl Harbour and thus declaring their intention of creating a Japanese Empire.

An interesting insight to the politics of the time, the embarrassingly unpreparedness of the country, the fact there were 2 armies independent of each other and the horrible old men at the top worried more about their careers then for the men at the front. General McCarther added his 2 bobs worth into the toxic mix.

The Papuan campaign was appalling with enormous supply problems for both sides, I did not know that the Japanese army starved and was instructed to eat the enemy. Everyone got malaria and dysentery.

I am amazed that anyone survived and it makes me feel very grateful to the tenacity of the soldiers who fought and died in such a theatre of war.