On the Fact that 77 Australian Soldiers Held Off a Significantly Larger Contingent of Japanese Troops for Days on the Kokoda Track Near Port Moresby, Papua, New Guinea (Prior to Ultimately Capitulating)
Not surprising, in that this is a country in which the fellows who play their version of football run nonstop and don't wear padding or a helmet.
New Guinea was a bitter fight. click here sent the only available troops, the Wisconsin National Guard over the Owen Stanleys, one regimental combat team by foot over the even worse Kapa Kapa trail on the Aussies right. With no tanks and little artillery, Dugout Doug ordered them to oust the 'lightly held' fortifications in the swamps between Buna and Gona. There were 16.000 Japanese infantry in hundreds of cocoanut log bunkers and the US 32nd Division was mangled quite badly in the constant assaults ordered from the comfort of MacArthur's opulent Brisbane HQ. Of the Wisconsin vets of that campaign that I knew, they hated the General to a man..and every one of them still shook from malaria. the ANZACs were so good that Churchill resisted returning them from his N. Africa campaign, even though they saved his and Monty's sorry asses. Lots of interesting history in that little corner of WWII
New Guinea was a bitter fight.
ReplyDeleteclick here sent the only available
troops, the Wisconsin National Guard over the Owen Stanleys, one regimental combat team by foot over the even worse Kapa Kapa trail on the Aussies right. With
no tanks and little artillery,
Dugout Doug ordered them to oust
the 'lightly held' fortifications in the swamps between Buna and Gona. There were 16.000 Japanese
infantry in hundreds of cocoanut
log bunkers and the US 32nd Division was mangled quite badly
in the constant assaults ordered
from the comfort of MacArthur's opulent Brisbane HQ. Of the Wisconsin vets of that campaign
that I knew, they hated the General to a man..and every one
of them still shook from malaria.
the ANZACs were so good that Churchill resisted returning them from his N. Africa campaign, even
though they saved his and Monty's
sorry asses. Lots of interesting
history in that little corner of
WWII