39th Battalion: Withdrawal from Kokoda
The young men of the first Militia battalion ordered up the Track, the 39 th Battalion, had never fired a shot in anger before being thrown in against the Japanese invaders. Most volunteered around October or November of 1941 and by Christmas that year they were on the steamship Aquitania heading for Port Moresby. They’d done their basic training in Victoria using wooden replica weapons and the first time they handled Bren machine guns was when they unpacked them and cleaned the grease off them on the ship.
Even their opportunity to train for combat at Port Moresby was wasted as they, and their sister battalion, the 53rd, were used as labourers - building defences and unloading supplies - instead of learning the techniques of jungle fighting.
Ordered up the Track in the face of the Japanese landings at Buna, the young Diggers of the 39 th were burdened with packs weighing almost 30 kilograms and wore desert khaki uniforms instead of jungle camouflage kit. Many were already malarial because their anti-malaria medicine had been administered too late.
The first elements of the 39th met the Japanese just north of Kokoda – one company or about 120 Diggers faced the first wave of Japanese, about 1500 seasoned troops. Not surprisingly, the untried Aussies found the first skirmishes difficult and although they caused considerable Japanese casualties, the weight of enemy numbers forced them to fall back to Kokoda where they regrouped. By this stage, the battalion’s Commander, Lt Colonel Owen, had 77 men left, most of whom had not slept for three nights. Nevertheless, Owen deployed his men around the Kokoda plateau and prepared to hold it against the invaders.
The young Diggers acquitted themselves well in the face of overwhelming numbers but, sadly, Colonel Owen was killed during the night of 29 July and the survivors were forced to withdraw from Kokoda and fall back down the Track. The rest of the battalion joined them at a tiny village named Isurava and they decided to make a stand - about 500 Diggers against about 6000 Japanese.