Kokoda Track (Papua, New Guinea) Commemoration---75th Anniversary

[Tanuki]

http://kokoda.commemoration.gov.au/

"The fighting there, against a Japanese invasion force, was perhaps the most significant battle fought by Australians in World War II.

This site will help you to understand about this extraordinary event: Why it occurred, who was involved and what it was like to face death in the jungled mountains along the Kokoda track.

The Japanese landed near Gona on the north coast of Papua on 21 July 1942. In the next two months they drove the Australians and their Papuan allies back over the mountains towards Port Moresby, the Japanese objective. Port Moresby was vital to the defence of Australia. If they took Port Moresby the Japanese planned to begin a bombing offensive against north Queensland and, had they decided to invade Australia, the invasion would have been launched from Port Moresby. None of this came to pass. The Japanese approached to within 40 kilometres of their objective but the tide turned in September. Then the Australians, in a series of costly engagements, pushed the Japanese back the way they had come. By mid-November the Japanese were forced to abandon their plan to take Port Moresby. They retired to their north coast strongholds at Buna, Gona and Sanananda.".......

[DinahMoeHum]

1. Before this, the Imperial Japanese had failed. . .

. . .to take Port Moresby by air and sea, having been turned back by the Americans in the Battle of the Coral Sea (May 4-8, 1942).

That battle was the first in the war where aircraft carriers were pitted against one another, and neither side's ships sighted or directed fire at each other. It was all an air battle at sea.