Conditions for soldiers at Kokoda

The supply problem

Half the Australians who served in New Guinea never fired a shot at the enemy. Their jobs were to deliver the supplies the combat soldiers needed.

In 1942, the Australians found their supply system was unsuitable for operations in the Owen Stanley Range in Papua. Over 2 years of fighting in North Africa, Greece, Crete and Syria, the Army had become used to the reliability and ease of road supply systems. About 19 tons of supplies were needed for every 1,000 Australian combat soldiers per day. Each day, these were trucked to the front.

Along the Owen Stanley Range, there were no roads for trucks. Moving supplies to troops relied on Papuan carriers, mules and pack horses. Supplies were unloaded and warehoused in Port Moresby. They were then moved to the end of the Kokoda Track and then moved along the track by carriers and pack animals.

Constant resupply of food, ammunition and medical supplies was needed. Moving supplies by carrier and animals was time and energy consuming and only around a quarter of needed supplies made it to front line troops.

Supply improved when supply airdrops began in August 1942, but not all supplies were able to be retrieved. There was a shortage of aircraft for most of the New Guinea campaign. Maroubra Force, the Australian troops on the Kokoda Track, were undersupplied during the campaign. This effected their diet and health which in turn meant that there were fewer men fit to fight.

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Adapting to conditions

The Australian army leadership eventually settled on a reduced requirement of 12 tons per 1,000 men per day. The original issue of around 19 tons each day would have needed an extra 800 Papuan carriers. This reduced ration meant that there weren't enough reserves for frontline soldiers. If a supply drop could not be made, the reserves could dwindle and there may not be enough food or supplies to sustain troops.

The Australian ration pack contained enough kilojoules to sustain each person. In late 1942, new ration types replaced the ‘bully beef and biscuits’ standard ration. The new packs included tinned fruit, dried potatoes, sausages, vegetables, jam, butter and beans. Dehydrated mutton was also a popular standard ration.

Along the track, the Army planned to set up rest places where the men could have a hot drink and a meal. But without reserves of rations, the troops had to move on to the next rest area. This lead to fatigue.

Supply airdrops began after Lieutenant Bert Kienzle was put in charge of establishing staging points and supply dumps along the Kokoda Track. Kienzle recalled seeing a clearing during his flights between Port Moresby and Kokoda. Setting off on foot to find this clearing, Kienzle found the dry lakebed at Myola on 3 August 1942. Following a test drop, Myola was established as supply drop zone.

Carriers were still required to move supplies from the drop point at Myola to the front, which could be 2 or 3 days away. Kienzle established staging points at Templeton's Crossing, Eora Creek, Alola and Isurava. As a major supply point, troops would move through Myola on their way up the track.

A single aircraft could drop almost 2 tons of supplies. Six aircraft per day, as well as what was carried up the track, could keep each of the 1,000 men of Maroubra Force sufficiently supplied.

Japanese supply

The Japanese had experienced poor road supply in China. They were more accustomed to getting by on a bare minimum of 6 tons of supplies per 1,000 men per day. Sometimes, as on the Kokoda Track, when they knew supply would be especially difficult, they survived for short periods on 4 tons per day. They expected to make up the balance by foraging locally and capturing enemy supplies.

The Japanese were continually refining their supply needs. Their food ration in Papua, for instance, contained only 5 different items. The Australians' ration contained 21 items.

The standard Japanese ration pack contained polished rice, biscuits and other preserved foods. Rations could also include vegetables, meat, fish, soy sauce, sugar, barley, soy bean paste (miso), beer and sake. Meat was usually rationed to once or twice per week.

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Malaria and dysentery

The conditions were hell on earth. Living in the sun. Living in the open, in the jungle, in the rain and the mud. Starvation. Dehydration. Sometimes a week without food. There was dysentery, malaria, scrub typhus and blackwater fever. Our casualty list was endless.

[QX18024 Don Johnson, 2/25th Australian Infantry Battalion, quoted in a speech at the 50th anniversary of the Kokoda Track campaign, Brisbane, 14 September 1992]

The pressures of battlefield environments mean that as soon as soldiers take to the field, even if they are not in battle, their health will begin to decline.

Japanese, US and Australian studies at the time all concluded that 3 months in New Guinea brought about a noticeable decrease in the effectiveness of a unit. It didn't matter if the unit had been in battle or not. After 6 months' exposure to the health hazards of the environment, any unit would be of little fighting value.

Casualties from illness

The Japanese came to Papua better prepared to combat disease than the Australians. An Australian study in 1943 stated that the Japanese were the ‘most inoculated army in the world’.

In the mountains along the Kokoda Track and at Milne Bay, the Australians suffered more from illness than Japanese troops. To the end of September 1942, the Australians had evacuated around 1,700 sick men from the mountains. The Japanese had only evacuated around 340.

The turning point was November 1942. This was the point when the Japanese force's medical problems became worse than those of the Australians. By December, the Japanese had lost more casualties to sickness than the Australians.

Lack of medical supplies

The Japanese had problems with supply, including medical supplies. Most of the South Seas Detachment (Nankai Shitai) were long-service veterans who had had been infected with malaria several times. They had been sick either in China, or in Rabaul, where the disease was hyperendemic (meaning that individuals are ill from the disease multiple times) and where they had been stationed for 6 months.

If quinine was regularly supplied, malaria could be prevented. Disease outbreaks happened when the supply lines were broken. The Japanese stated in a report that, by November 1942, just one-third of the South Seas Detachment was fit. In late January 1943, after the Allies cleared the Sanananda Track, the portion of fit men in the Japanese force dropped to one-seventh.

Sick with dysentery

For Australians on the Kokoda Track, the main problem was dysentery. It's an infectious bowel disease that causes severe diarrhoea and can be fatal.

A dysentery outbreak began in mid-August 1942 near Ioribaiwa. It quickly spread to troops up and down the track. It arrived at the front at the end of the Battle of Isurava as the Australians began to retreat. For the next 2 months, the Army evacuated about 30 to 80 soldiers each day from a force of 2,000 to 3,000 men. Most were sick with dysentery.

In November, the Australians advanced out of the Owen Stanley Range, where there was no malaria. They moved to the lowlands near Gona, Buna and Sanananda, where malaria was endemic.

The dysentery epidemic was brought under control just as malaria began to take hold. By 27 December 1942, 4,857 Australians had been evacuated sick from the front. This was more than half the Australians who had served in the Kokoda Campaign to that point.

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Topography of Kokoda

The Owen Stanley mountain range is the last part of the central mountain chain that runs the length of the island of Papua New Guinea. It effectively divides the island from north to south. The range reaches more than 4,000 metres at Mount Victoria, its highest point.

The Kokoda Track is the easiest pass across the range. Before the war, the track was used as a mail route.

The terrain of the Owen Stanley Range is characterised by very steep razorback ridges and deep gullies with creeks and waterfalls. The jungle is extremely dense and difficult to move through. Frequent rain, heavy mist and low cloud reduce visibility.

The Kokoda Track crosses the Owen Stanley Range at the narrowest and lowest point. This made travelling along the track easier for troops in some ways. But this area is low lying land which is crossed with streams and receives heavy rain. Troops often found themselves struggling through heavy, slippery mud. When flooded, no movement by land is possible between the village of Kokoda and the sea.

Kingsley Norris, the senior medical officer of the 7th Division, who walked the Kokoda Track, gave this description:

Imagine an area of approximately one hundred miles long. Crumple and fold this into a series of ridges, each rising higher and higher until seven thousand feet is reached, then declining in ridges to three thousand feet. Cover this thickly with jungle, short trees and tall trees, tangled with great, entwining savage vines. Through an oppression of this density, cut a little native track, two or three feet wide, up the ridges, over the spurs, round gorges and down across swiftly-flowing, happy mountain streams. Where the track clambers up the mountain sides, cut steps – big steps, little steps, steep steps – or clear the soil from the tree roots.

About midday, and through the night, pour water over the forest, so that the steps become broken, and a continual yellow stream flows downwards, and the few level areas become pools and puddles of putrid black mud. In the high ridges above Myola, drip this water day and night over the track through a foetid forest grotesque with moss and glowing phosphorescent fungi. Such is the ... route for ten days to be covered from [Ower's Corner] to Deniki.

Today, it takes about 50 hours to walk 96 km of the Kokoda Track. The hiking rate is about 2 km/hr, and as slow as 1 km/hr in some parts. A normal brisk walking speed on flat ground is about 6 km/hr. Learn more about visiting the Kokoda Track.

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