I glimpsed a kind of hell during the writing of this book. The Kokoda campaign—by which I include the battles of the Kokoda Track, Milne Bay and the Papuan beaches—is exceptional in military history. In terms of casualty numbers, of course, it was insignificant alongside the huge pitched battles for Europe and the Soviet Union. But such quantitative judgments mean little to the mother, father, wife, brother, sister or child of a dead soldier. What made this campaign uniquely grim was the proximity of the fighting and the extraordinary terrain over which the two armies clashed. It was indeed, at times, a ‘knife fight out of the stone age’, as historian Eric Bergerud wrote. The Kokoda campaign is distinguished for three other reasons: it was the first land defeat of the Japanese Imperial Army; it marked the start of the great roll-back of the Japanese troops from the southernmost point of the Pacific empire; and it was the battle that saved Australia from certain isolation—and possible invasion, as it was perceived at the time—in the Pacific War.
Against this backdrop, the heated argument over the correct name of the jungle path along which the Australians and the Japanese fought seems trivial. To my mind, a track is little different from a trail or path, and I have used these terms interchangeably. Where I formally identify it, I use ‘Kokoda Track’, because that is the preferred name of the Isurava Memorial and most soldiers. Incidentally, a research paper by Peter Provis on the subject, commissioned by the Australian War Memorial, concludes that ‘Trail’ is technically correct, but concedes that either may be used—for which clarity one is, I suppose, thankful.