Adventure Kokoda Blog

Field Marshall Sir Thomas Blamey – Australia’s most promoted, but least appreciated soldier.

The most recent diatribe against Field Marshall Sir Thomas Blamey by ‘historian’ Michael McKernan (The Strength of a Nation) is based on a false premise. In the latest attempt to besmirch the reputation of Australia’s most senior commander McKernan obviously accepts the ‘rumours’ about Blamey’s address at Koitaki as ‘fact’. Students with an interest in Blamey’s life would be better advised to read Blamey: the Commander-in-Chief by David Horner. (more…)

Wouldn’t it be great if . . . during the current election campaign . . . our political leaders took time out from babykissing, glad-handling and giveaway competitions and let us know what their plans are to address the challenges of our Melanesian neighbours in our ‘arc of instability’.Wouldn’t it be great if they were to announce:. The establishment of a ‘Minister for Melanesia’ with a Department of Melanesian Affairs to focus on our relationship with the island nations in our region. (more…)

The Kokoda Trust is being formed to honour the legacy of the Australian and PNG soldiers, sailors, airmen, coastwatchers and carriers who served in PNG during the war in the Pacific 1942-1945. This will be achieved through the implementation of a number of programs designed to strengthen the relationship between Australia and PNG and provide on-going benefits in the fields of health, education and leadership. (more…)

Adventure Kokoda again donated a trek to the Queensland ‘RSL Girl-in-a-Million’ charitable quest to assist with their fundraising efforts in 2008. We received the following letter from this year’s RSL Golden Girl, Miss Melissa Raitelli from Ayr, who raised $65,179.89: (more…)

The Australian Senate inquiry into seasonal labour from the Pacific Region is a welcome initiative however the terms of reference seem to be limited because they do not address the impact of labour mobility on our relationship with our Melanesian neighbours in the Pacific Region.  These nations comprising the island chain from Timor in the northwest through West Papua, Papua New Guinea, Nauru, Vanuatu, Kiribati, the Solomons and Fiji have been referred to as our arc of instability. (more…)

‘You can’t let them kill my guide just because they think he’s a sorcerer’ I bellowed to the police at the end of my 37th expedition across the Kokoda track last year.  A couple of recruits I engaged had decided that one of my older guides from a neighbouring village was a sorcerer so they felt obligated to kill him.  The impending execution was not discernible to my Western mind.  We trekked together, sang traditional songs of an evening and they worked assiduously to ensure every one of my band of trekkers completed their journey safely.

As we sat down to dinner in Port Moresby we reflected on their selfless devotion to us and agreed they were proud sons of the ‘fuzzy wuzzy angels’.

But they had unfinished business in their own tribe and by the time we finished our meal the alleged sorcerer was dead. (more…)

On 27 July advance elements of an elite Japanese South Seas Islands regiment launched an attack on a small band of young Australian militia soldiers at Kokoda.  Over the next three months a series of viscious battles were fought across some of the most inhospitable jungle terrain on the planet.  Heavily outnumbered and outgunned the Australians contested every metre of the Kokoda Trail and fought the Japanese to a standstill on the doorstep of their objective at Port Moresby.  As our commandos, coastwatchers, pilots and sailors enaged Japanese reinforcments at Milne Bay, Wau and Bougainvile our diggers rallied and forced the enemy back along the track.

The Australians recaptured Kokoda on 2nd November and raised the Australian flag the following day.  This small ceremony on 3rd November was significant because it symbolised a turning of the tide in the war in the Pacific and ended any notion the Japanese might have harboured in continuing their advance towards Australia.

Our baptism as a nation is commemorated with our landings at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915 and the end of World War 1 with Remembrance Day on 11 November 1918.

We do not have an official day to commemorate our involvement in World War 11.  The raising of our Australian flag on the Kokoda Plateau on 3rd November 1942 is the most appropriate day to commemorate the service and sacrifice of our servicemen, servicewomen, the Royal New Guinea Volunteer Rifles and the wartime carriers who have never been officially recognised in that conflict. (more…)