Adventure Kokoda Blog

An Australian Battles Nomenclature Committee was established in 1947 to define the battles in the Pacific. Their final report in 1958 adopted ‘Kokoda Trail’ as the official Commonwealth battle honour which was awarded to 10 infantry battalions and the Pacific Island Regiment. 

In 1972 the PNG Government gazetted the route from Owers Corner to Kokoda as the Kokoda Trail.

The Australian War Memorial adopted the name “Kokoda Trail’ for its Second World War galleries because of the official battle honours awarded in that name.

The author of the most definitive history of the Kokoda Trail (Stuart Hawthorne, The Kokoda Trail – A History’ Central Queensland University Press, 2003) recently wrote on the Australian War Memorial blog:

‘Exploration and development of the early parts of the overland route near Port Moresby began about 130 years ago. In this light, the campaign constitutes a very small part of the track’s history (about a third of one percent) yet the importance ascribed to the WW2 period often assumes a considerably high significance.  Of course the Kokoda campaign is very important in Australia on many levels but notwithstanding this, I often wonder whether the presumption that our Australian perspective displaces all others and borders on the arrogant’.

If advocates of a different name wish to have it changed they should prepare a submission in accordance with the protocols of the PNG Government and forward it to them for consideration – after all they are the owners of the land.  In the meantime the Australian Government and media should respect the deliberations of those who awarded the battle honour, Kokoda Trail, and the sovereign right of the PNG Government to name its own geographical features.

Charlie Lynn

A motion to have the RSL lobby the Australian Government to have the Kokoda Trail renamed as ‘The Kokoda Track’ was defeated at the RSL National Congress held in Dubbo on 14-15 September 2010 (National Congress Resolution 6.1.2 refers).

The RSL is to be congratulated for respecting the sovereign right of the National Government of Papua New Guinea to name its own geographical features (PNG Government Gazette No 88 of 12 October 1972, page 1362, column 2, Notice 1972/28 refers). (more…)

The RSL Services Clubs Kokoda Youth Leadership Challenge is a peer group leadership program based on the Kokoda campaign.  Young people are selected from their local communities to participate in the program.  Licenced clubs in NSW, WA, SA and Qld have recently joined the program. A young female participant, Simone Norris, recently wrote to her trek leader, John Nalder, on the impact of the experience: (more…)

Questions over the fate of Captain Sam Templeton were recently revived after an elderly Japanese veteran, Kokichi Nishimura, made a number of rambling and conflicting claims over the issue.  In one report he claimed to have killed Templeton himself. In another he claimed to have witnessed his killing. Later he claimed he buried Templeton around eight days after he had been killed!  His latest ‘correction’ was probably due to the fact that offical Japanese records revealed that his unit, the 2/144th Battalion, did not arrive in the area until a week after Templeton was either killed or captured by the Japanese Yokoyama Advance Force.   These, and a number of other fanciful claims Nishimura has made over the years, do not stand up to scrutiny. His eccentricities have led to his estrangement from his  battalion association in Japan and from his family. Military historians would regard him as an ‘unreliable witness’.  Carl Johnson who published a history of the 39th Battalion (Mud over Blood. History House, 2006) provides the most authentic report of Templeton’s fate. (more…)