Kokoda: And two national histories

Journal of Pacific History

Volumn 42, Issue 1, 2007, Pages 73-88

  Nelson, Hank ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 61249246239     PISSN: 00223344     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00223340701286859     Document Type: Review

References (81)

1. The National, 21 Jul. 2006.
2. There were over 5,500 still in Rabaul when the war ended: Gavin Long, Australia in the War of 1939-1945: the final campaigns (Canberra 1963), 557.
3. And see ehapters by Kaori Maekawa and Peter Stanley in Yukio Toyoda and Hank Nelson (eds), The Pacific War in Papua New Guinea: memories and realities (Tokyo 2006), 362-76 and 396-404 for comments on the status and experiences of the Indians.
4. Gladys Baker in a radio talk of Aug. 1942 for 2FC Sydney, transcript in the Fryer Library, University of Queensland, UQFL387 and primed in Una Voce (journal of ex-officers of Papua New Guinea).
5. Angau War Diary, 14 and 17 Mar. 1943, and transcript of broadcast printed as appendix 57, Australian War Memorial (AWM), Canberra, 54 1/10/1.
6. Geoffrey Baskott, Islands and Mountains (privately published n.d.), 94;
7. and Ian Mackay, Broadcasting in Papua New Guinea (Melbourne 1976), 6-9.
8. G.W.L. Townsend, District Officer: from untamed New Guinea to Lake Success, 1921-46 (Sydney 1968), 262 says FELO (Far Eastern Liaison Office) dropped 23,000,000 leaflets over New Guinea.
9. The speech that Keating gave later in the morning at Ela Beach is in Mark Ryan (ed.), Advancing Australia: the speeches of Paul Keating, Prime Minister (Sydney 1995). 279-82;
10. and see Don Watson, Recollections of a Bleeding Heart: a portrait of Paul Keating PM (Sydney 2003), 180-4;
11. and H. Nelson, "Gallipoh, Kokoda and the Making of National Identity', Journal of Australian Studies, 53 (1997), 157-69.
12. Dudley McCarthy, Australia in the War of 1939-1945: South-West Pacific area - first year Kokoda to Wau (Canberra 1959), 124-5 gives the encounter a few sentences.
13. Papuan Infantry Battalion War Diary, 8/4/4, AWM 54.
14. Jack Metta in The National, 21 Jul. 2006.
15. There are many chapters and articles, but nothing comprehensive and reaching a wide audience, e.g., Geoffrey While and Lamont Lindstrom (eds), The Pacific Theater: Island representations of World War II (Honolulu 1989) has four chapters ou particular Papua New Guinean memories.
16. See Toyoda and Nelson, The Pacific War in Papua New Guinea for other chapters and bibliography. Two documentary films are A Pike. H. Nelson and G. Daws (dirs), Angels of War, 1982;
17. and Noriko Sekiguchi (dir.), Senso Daughters, 1990.
18. In publications primarily about foreigners much is also about Papua New Guineans - as in Alan Powell, The Third Force: ANGAU's New Guinea War. 1942-46 (Melbourne 2003).
19. Ken Inglis had pioneered scholarly interest in the commemoration of war in Australia: 'The Anzac Tradition', Meanjin Quarterly, 1 (1965), 25-44.
20. Bill Gammage, The Broken Years: Australian soldiers in the Great War (Canberra 1974; repr. 1975) was important in stimulating increased scholarly and publie interest.
21. Ryan, Advancing Australia, 289-90. Keating also spoke on Sandakan (ibid., 285) and on prisoners of war on other occasions.
22. From the typescript issued by the Prime Minister's office. Howard gave two speeches at Hellfire Pass on 24 April and one (quoted) on 25 April at Kanchanaburi.
23. Nelson, 'Kokoda: the track from history to politics', Journal of Pacific History, 38 (2003), has examples of newspaper responses.
24. Les Carlyon, Gallipoli (Melbourne 2001) reprinted five times in 2002, still in print and with sales over 200,000, set a precedent for success and the single-word evocative title that Peter FitzSimons has most recently followed with Tobruk (Sydney 2006).
25. Film figures from newspapers and www.moviemarshal.com (accessed 14 Feb. 2007). Stephen Matchett in the Weekend Australian 25-6 June 2005 commented on the sales of Ham, Brune and FitzSimons. For figures on FitzSimons's sales, see www.smh.com.au/new's/books/green-and-gold-touch/2006/07/06/1152158275577.html (accessed 14 Feb. 2007).
26. The main books considered here are: Stuart Braga, Kokoda Commander: a life of Major-General 'Tubby' Allen (Melbourne 2004), 374 pp.;
27. Peter Brune, A Bastard of a Place: the Australians in Papua Kokoda, Milne Ray, Gona, Buna, Sanananda (Sydney 2003), 691 pp.;
28. Peter FitzSimons, Kokoda (Sydney 2004), 490 pp.;
29. Paul Ham, Kokoda (Sydney 2004), 602 pp.;
30. Stuart Hawthorne, The Kokoda Trail: a history (Rockhampton 2003), 269 pp.;
31. Neil McDonald, Damien Parer's War (Melbourne 2004), 366 pp. (a revised edition of War Camerman: the story of Damien Parer (Melbourne, 1994)
32. and John Raftery, Marks of War: war neurosis and the legacy of Kokoda (Adelaide 2003), 205 pp.
33. David Mulligan, Angels of Kokoda (Melbourne 2006) is a book for young Australians.
34. Powell, The Third Force, has relevant sections on Kokoda. Two books arising from collaboration are Steven Billiard and Tamara Keiko, From a Hostile Shore: Australia and Japan at war in New Guinea (Canberra 2004);
35. and Toyoda and Nelson, The Pacific War in Papua New Guinea. Bill James, Field Guide to the Kokoda Track: an historical guide to the lost battlefields (Sydney 2006) is a carefully researched account of what happened where and what now remains to be seen on the Track, and it includes the results of wide reading in published and unpublished sources.
36. Clive Baker first produced his guide then called Walking the Track in 1994, and it has been expanded and revised as Kokoda Trek: guide to the world famous trek (Loftus 2006).
37. This is essentially a practical guide with brief references to the history of the Track. Stuart Hawthorne, in The Kokoda Trail, has written what is a local history of the Track, The reader has reached p. 187 before the Japanese threaten Kokoda. Hawthorne has excellent detail on early developments in the area, including north of Kokoda, and the police on the old Kokoda mail-run.
38. Australian, 5 Jan, 2005, 15.
39. National, 18 Aug, 2006;
40. and Canberra Times, 17 Sept. 2006.
41. Stu Lloyd, "Walking Matilda', Weekend Australian, 28-9 Oct. 2006, Travel section, 1, says that many of those following the track of the Australian prisoners of war on the Sandakan death march had already 'done, the Kokoda Track'.
42. Eco-Trekking Kokoda, vi.
43. Post-Courier, Editorial, 1 Aug. 2006.
44. Alter the possibility of mining on the Track had been in the Port Moresby newspapers for some time, it suddenly became an issue in the Australian media (e.g., The Australian, 29 Sept. 2006).
45. Canberra Times, 22 Nov, 2005.
46. Nelson, 'Governments, stales and labels', Stale Society and Governance in Melanesia, Australian National University, Canberra, Discussion Paper, 2006/1, 11. The landowners have also threatened to close the Track unless the government of PNG helps fund the Kokoda Track Authority (Australian, 20 Dec. 2006).
47. Good Weekend, 25 Feb. 2006, 55-6.
48. Weekend Australian, 14-15 Aug. 2004;
49. Australian, 24 Apr. 2006.
50. Report on Kokoda L of C, Native Carriers, during Campaign Owen Stanley Range, Kokoda-Gona-Buna by Capt. H.T. Kienzle AXGAU N.F., Feb. 1943, Appendix to Angau War Diary for Sept. 1942, AWM 54, 1/10/1.
51. Angau War Diary, table at the end of the Oct. 1942 diary.
52. One calculation was a loss of 5% per week and, if that was the case, less than 3,000 were employed; but in that same report, Basil Morris thought a 10% loss might occur, Appendix 46b to Angau War Diary for Sept. 1942. On that son of wastage over an effective period of less that four months. 3,000 is a reasonable number. The numbers lost to desertion declined as the numbers of overseers and general efficiency increased. (Angau War Diary, 18 Aug. 1942 makes the claim that, by then, morale had improved and 'desertions almost ceased'.)
53. Nelson, 'Kokoda', 121-2.
54. T. Dutton, The Peopling of Central Papua: some preliminary observations, Pacifie Linguistics, series 8 no. 9, Pacific Linguistics, Australian National University (Canberra 1969), 56. Note also that Faole and his family from near Efogi in the incident reported below escaped to the bush.
55. Kienzle, Report, 9 Jul. 1942. (Note that Kienzle used the term 'Trail' in his re-typed diary which became a report dated February 1943.)
56. Kienzle, Report, 2-31 Jul. 1942. Kienzle had some rubber on his properly on the upper Mambare, and when ordered to take over on the Track, he was managing rubber plantations at Kanosia.
57. It was 'Northern Division' at the start of 1942, but later the New Guinea term "District' was used.
58. Alan Hooper, Love, War & Letters: PNG 1940-45 (Coorparoo 1994), 142.
59. Tom Grahamslaw, Pacific Islands Monthly, Apr. 1971, 117.
60. The Binandere language group covers the wider area. F.E. Williams who worked among the Orokaiva in the 1920s gave the population (not including the people to the south) as 9,000 (Orokaiva Society (London 1930), 7);
61. and in 1969 A. Healey et al. said there were 25,000 Orokaiva speakers, using a narrow definition of Orokaiva (A. Healey, Ambrose Isoroembo and Martin Chittleborough, 'Preliminary Notes on Orokaiva Grammar', in A. Capell et al. (eds), Papers in New Guinea Linguistics No. 9, Australian National University (Canberra 1969), 33).
62. Syd Elliott-Smith, Appendix 44A, Angau War Diary, Sept. 1942.
63. C.G. Bowman, Appendix 67, Angau War Diary, Deo. 1042.
64. Kienzle, Report, 12 Oct. 1942.
65. McCarthy, Australia in the War of 1939-1945, 144.
66. A. Leadley, 'A history of the Japanese occupation of the New Guinea Islands, and its effects, with special reference to the Tolai people of the Gazelle Peninisula', MA thesis, History, UPNG (Port Moresby 1976), 84.
67. 'Interrogation of Rabaul Natives who had deserted from the Japanese', AWM 54, 779/3/76.
68. James Benson, Prisoners Base and Home Again (London 1957), 60.
69. Roy Hodgkinson's half-tone drawing is in the Australian War Memorial collection, AWM 36380. I assume Misirai survived the war, as he is not listed in the Pacific Islands Regiment dead. In the information accompanying the drawing, Hodgkinson said he was a 'Buka boy' from the "Solomons'. He certainly looks as though he is from Bougainville.
70. Karkar Kais, 'Interview with William Metpi', Oral History, 2:4 (1974) and 2:6 (1974), 24-31, Ibid., 27, refers to his working for the surveyor. Matpi also gave his background when he appeared as a witness before a court, Court of Inquiry, Bisiatabu, Oct. 1944, AWM 54, 229/25/2.
71. G. Byrnes, Green Shadows: a war history of the Papuan Infantry Battalion . . ., (privately published 1989), 234 publishes the citation.
72. Nelson, 'Hold the good name of the soldier: the discipline of Papuan and New Guinea Infantry Battalions, 1940 1946', Journal of Pacific History, 15; 4 (1980), 212; and evidence before Court of Inquiry.
73. S.R.M. Gill, Letters from the Papuan Bush 1942-1946 (privately published 1954), 12.
74. Benson, Foreword to Gill, Letters from the Papuan Bush.
75. Angau War Diary, Beharcll extracts from patrol report. Feb.-Mar. 1943, attached as appendix to April diary.
76. There can be some confusion as there were two Embogis, They were brothers and both were involved in violence.
77. Report by Morris . . . on PIB and reply by Sturdee, AWM 54, 419/5/6.
78. AWM 54, 506/1/4, lists charges. Nelson, 'The swinging index: capital punishment and British and Australian administrations in Papua and Xew Guinea, 1888-1945', Journal of Pacific History, 13:3-4. 149.
79. Grahamslaw, Pacific Islands Monthly, May 1971, 117.
80. Grahamslaw's memoirs were published in three successive issues of Pacific Islands Monthly, March, April and May 1971.
81. L. Lock, Locks That Open Doors (Warburton n.d.), 32-40;