‘Unless dropping of 50000 lbs daily…is assured, complete revision of plans will have to be made and large proportion of troops withdrawn to IMITA ridge posn. Any attempt then…to occupy KOKODA will be jeopardised beyond all reason’
—Wire from Major-General Arthur ‘Tubby’ Allen to New Guinea Force
About this time Brigadier Selwyn Porter was completing one of his critiques. It was a document of searing accuracy and unusual candour. Though of little use to front-line commanders—being more cerebral than practical—Porter’s ‘Notes on Recently Expressed Concepts of Tactics: HQ 30 Aust Inf Bde, 11th Oct 1942’, helped to explain Allen’s tribulations and offered a glimpse of the thoughts at the top of the Australian army.
‘It has been said,’ Porter observed, ‘that the first feature of our military organisation at the commencement of hostilities is disorganisation. Why should we be amazed at this, when we deliberately create our inflexible monster…?’1
Porter’s inflexible monster was alive and kicking. The disorganisation of supply threatened to blunt the counteroffensive. As the troops advanced, and the Australian carrier lines extended, so the flow of supplies faltered. Severe delays ensued, and the usual tantrums convulsed GHQ in Brisbane, where MacArthur persisted in failing to comprehend the enormous difficulties of the terrain. The last resorts of muddle through and trial and error still seemed to govern the supply strategy.
The villages of Nauro, Menari, Efogi and Myola were critical drop zones. Radio signals were meant to guide in the planes and, at the appointed time, bags of food would hurtle to earth. The pilots were instructed to aim for burnt patches of ground, or logs arranged as markings. Their maps were as good as useless. Where the planes missed the marked clearings, hundreds of bags came crashing through the canopy and free fell to the jungle floor. Occasionally they struck the men below—biscuit bombs killed or wounded several Australian soldiers.
Most airdrops still lacked parachutes, and a large percentage of supplies were lost. Virtually all the bags split open, biscuits were reduced to powder and sugar scattered over the jungle floor. ‘Many a man would sit down and spoon up as much as he could,’ recalls Bill Crooks.2 Cigarettes were the most sought after commodity: ‘The ration of two ounces of Log Cabin fine cut a smoker, a week, fell so short of needs that men took to smoking tea,’ said one soldier.3
Distributing such scarce resources was a fraught process. Each battalion second-in-command and three helpers were supposed to coordinate the link between the airdrops, the native head and the battalion. Salvaged supplies were thus channelled from the drop zone to the backs of carriers and then on to the battalions, where prized items like food and tobacco were shared out among the sub-units, and finally to the troops. Major Thomas Cotton, for example, of the 2/33rd Battalion, oversaw the distribution of food and cigarettes among his men, ‘with all its…arguments, and problems of equitable issue’.4 Looting seems to have been less prevalent than one might expect.
The inadequacy of airdrops placed a greater burden on indigenous carriers. They shouldered heavy weapons—including the first Vickers machine-guns—as well as ammunition, food, medical gear, signals equipment, and were detailed to retrieve scattered packages from the drop zones.
Despite Kienzle’s heroic efforts, sickness and desertions had heavily reduced the number of native carriers north of Uberi.5 In response, ANGAU took stern measures to maintain the supply of native labour. They ignored the law—honoured in the breach—that restricted the conscription of tribal carriers above a certain level. Where 8830 native labourers could be contracted for work on the Kokoda Track before the war, ANGAU now maintained some 9270 throughout New Guinea, and somehow had to find a further 4000. Many of these would be required on the Kokoda Track.
Tubby Allen had to ensure that airdrops and carrier teams coincided in time and place in order to feed and arm his 2000 men. In practice, this didn’t work, as Allen repeatedly made clear in a series of painful cables to General Herring, Rowell’s successor as commander of New Guinea Force in Port Moresby.
In the first four days of October 150 carriers deserted, Allen wrote. At the end of the first week, the counteroffensive threatened to grind to a temporary halt until supplies were brought in.
Allen imagined his demands were being heard, and acted on, in Port Moresby and Brisbane. They were not. It is a dispiriting fact that Allen’s men were, for a time, virtually cast adrift in the mountains by the incompetence and ignorance of his superior officers.
We can readily picture Tubby Allen, sitting in his jungle HQ, surrounded by his staff officers, peering at his inadequate maps, and constantly on the field telephone trying to drum up supplies. Back in Port Moresby we can see Herring, anxious to please Blamey, downplaying the supply crisis with long, convoluted messages, written in his tiny, cramped hand. And in turn we can see Blamey, ever anxious to please MacArthur, leavening the sitreps and Herring’s missives with a few bland platitudes before dispatching them to GHQ thoroughly rinsed of phrases of alarm and urgency. In Brisbane, the truth underwent its final humiliation: doused in MacArthuresque fantasy, filleted of the barest bones of a fact, the war was presented to the world in the bastardised state of ‘Doug’s Communiqué’, rendered fit for public consumption by dint of its very unreality, through the shattered mirror of the newspapers.
Two messages perfectly captured the void that existed between the reality at the front and the fantasy in the rear. On 7 October Allen sent a clear message to Herring:
Implementation of air dropping programme causing gravest concern…It would appear that air force cannot supply planes necessary to assure dropping of 50000 lbs daily…50000 lbs covers maintenance only and does NOT repeat NOT provide for building up a reserve…Unless dropping of 50000 lbs daily plus additional to build up a reserve is assured, complete revision of plans will have to be made and large proportion of troops withdrawn to IMITA ridge posn. Any attempt then…to occupy KOKODA will be jeopardised beyond all reason…Advance of whole force jeopardised if supplies can not be maintained by air.6
On the same day Blamey sent this update to MacArthur: ‘Allen is pushing forward steadily,’ he said. ‘We may not have a great deal of trouble to get to Kokoda…Everything is working very happily and co-operatively…’7
Their perceptions of reality were worlds apart. But the defence that Blamey was poorly informed does not withstand scrutiny. Allen’s situation reports flowed in daily to Port Moresby, often several times a day. And Blamey, after all, was exceptionally well briefed in other matters. In the same message to MacArthur, he gave a precise summary of the state of the Japanese troops: ‘complete demoralisation on the mountain top caused by their considerable sick rate, large number of casualties, and complete breakdown of their supply’.8
Are we to conclude, then, that Blamey possessed a more accurate idea of the Japanese supply situation than that of his Australian troops? Of course not: Allen kept Blamey eminently well informed. So why did Blamey ignore or downplay Allen’s problems?
It seems simply a case of Blamey the political soldier in action. Where the truth (in this case, the enemy’s collapse) redounded to his credit, or appeased GHQ, he let it flow; where it reflected badly on him (Allen’s severe supply difficulties) he amended or suppressed it. Ambitious politicians and line managers can be expected to make the facts more palatable to their superiors. This was rather different, however, as the lives of 2000 men relied on the truth—and their supplies—getting through.
The atmosphere got worse, tempers flared and Allen’s patience reached breaking point. On the 11th, Brigadiers Eather and Lloyd, commanders respectively of the 25th and 16th Brigades, met Tubby in his tent at Menari. Their main concern was the desertion rate of native carriers—‘whole success depends on efficiency of carriers’,9 noted Allen during this meeting—and the impatience in Brisbane and Port Moresby with the delays.
Allen was in a fraught state. GHQ’s confidence in his command was waning, as Blamey made clear that day: ‘Your orders [are]…to push on…and capture KOKODA,’ his wire said. ‘In view lack of serious opposition advance appears much too slow. You will press enemy with vigour. If you are feeling strain personal relief will be arranged. Please be frank about this. Dropping arranged only at MYOLA 12 Oct.’10
The last statement packed the power of a fused grenade. Allen had expressly ordered his supplies to be dropped at Efogi, not Myola, on the 12th. Furious, he wired Port Moresby, and was disturbed to hear from Herring of the last minute cancellation of airdrops at Efogi North. Herring confirmed that no supplies would be dropped at Efogi North ‘or any other place other than Myola’ tomorrow. Allen protested that supplies to Efogi were ‘a vital part of plan’. The sudden cancellation made ‘planning in forward area very difficult’.
In case Herring hadn’t got the message, Allen added: ‘If rations NOT rept NOT dropped at EFOGI NORTH today delay in advance must result…EFOGI NORTH vital as supply dropping base to supply Bn which will move forward…’ He concluded: ‘I hope you appreciate the dangerous shortage of carriers.’11
In the event, biscuit bombers dropped 3500 packages at Myola. Allen’s requests were completely ignored. They landed well forward of his tactical requirements, all over the swampy lakebed. Blamey himself had made this decision. Later that day some supplies were dropped near Efogi, but well below the required amount.
The counteroffensive stalled, as Allen warned it would. Graver news was in store for him: up ahead Japanese reinforcements were arriving at Templeton’s Crossing and Eora Creek.
In Blamey’s mind, Allen had become the reason, not the remedy, for the delay. Tubby was now a marked man, maligned by his own commanders in the rear even as he struggled to supply his troops.
He replied to Blamey on 12 October, with a message painfully revealing of his difficulties:
My outline plan…is to capture KOKODA as soon as possible. Apparently it has been misunderstood. Nothing is being left undone in order to carry out your wishes…The most serious opposition to rapid advance is terrain. The second is maintenance of supplies through lack of native carriers. Reserve supplies have NOT rept NOT been adequate…
This country is much tougher than any previous theatre and cannot be appreciated until seen. From all reports the worst is NORTH of MYOLA. The vigour with which we press the enemy is dependant on the physical endurance of the men and the availability of supplies…However I feel somewhat disappointed on behalf of all ranks that you are dissatisfied with the very fine effort they have made.
Allen couldn’t resist a sly retort at Blamey’s questioning his fitness: ‘Our men have been pleased so far with regard to my personal physical fitness…am not repeat not feeling the strain. I never felt fitter nor able to think straighter.’12
This did little to appease his persecutors.
‘I am very delighted that you are fit and well,’ Blamey replied. ‘It is essential that you should retain your fitness. Having some knowledge of mountain conditions, I know that great strain under which you are working.’13 Blamey casually added that Vasey was ready to relieve him, ‘after you have done a fair tour…and then you could replace him again’.14
Blamey’s knowledge of mountain conditions had involved a tour of the Greek foothills. He had not seen combat in Greece; on the contrary, he spent a good deal of his time there finding a suitable beach for the evacuation. In any case, the Greek conditions were hardly comparable to the Owen Stanleys. But neither the absurdity of the allusion nor Blamey’s disingenuous concern were as infuriating as his oddly puerile game of one-upmanship and political manoeuvring in a time of war.
The next day, after another harassing message from Port Moresby, Allen said: ‘I am more afraid of the stab in the back than I am of the Japs.’ Rowell had said something very similar before his demise.
By the second week of October, Lloyd’s men began the phased relief of the 25th Brigade—the latter had fought the battle of Ioribaiwa and pursued the enemy as far as Efogi.
These men were much diminished physically. Disease ravaged their ranks. Dysentery—from mild diarrhoea to the worst amoebic variety, with the constant passage of blood and mucus—was universal. In Port Moresby some troops had caught malaria and the fever now manifested itself. They lacked adequate food supplies and ammunition.
One battalion’s Anglican padre, the tremendously proportioned Donald Redding, had weighed 20 stone (127 kilograms) when he started out; within two weeks he’d lost about five stone.15
The brigade’s casualty list to 13 October showed the devastation wrought by illness. In battle the unit had suffered 183 killed or wounded (all ranks). Disease, by contrast, had incapacitated or killed 769 men.
Many were mentally spent, and had ‘receded into themselves’, said Bill Crooks. ‘Looking back, I think it was a little psychotic too…Most were scared of the strangeness and eerie continual darkness…we felt hemmed in…beneath us on the track was a slimy ooze of stinking death.’16
A few showed signs of total nervous breakdown, but these cases were surprisingly rare.17 Older soldiers and untrained men were more vulnerable to nervous collapse. ‘Our less strong soldiers, many medal winners in the desert, [experienced] total nervous breakdown,’ observed Crooks. ‘A man could be driven to weeping frustration knowing that he could not keep going. His comrades…would be looking at him in disgust and abject pity. And they would also feel hate, knowing that there would be one less to help take a turn carrying the section machine gun and ammo, one less to take a turn on the patrols.’
Some men resorted to desperate measures. There were a few cases of self-inflicted wounds, reported battalion medical orderlies in October. A wound in the hand or foot, or ‘tattooed with powder marks’ was instantly suspicious. Some men were wrongly accused, and medical orderlies were ordered to report, ‘FACTS only’. They were ‘NOT justified…in making or recording any supposition concerning the wound’.18
Having relieved most of the advance troops, the fresh 16th Brigade took up the pursuit of the enemy.