4.35 "Into the Green Hell" The New Guinea Campaign part 1

Guess who's back? Yep. We have a new WWII episode. I wasn't sure this day would arrive, but it has. In this episode we begin a four part look at one of the forgotten aspects of WWII in the Pacific. 

Transcript

4.35 "Into the Green Hell"

New Guinea Campaign part 1 

"July 15th, 1942. Dear Mum, arrived in Port Moresby yesterday. The heat hits you like walking into a furnace. Can't see ten feet through this green maze they call jungle. The boys are trying to keep spirits up, but I won't lie - we're all scared. None of us signed up expecting this."

"July 12th, 1942. Honorable Father, we have landed at Gona. The jungle here is unlike our training in Manchuria. It is a living wall that seems to breathe. But our spirits remain high. The Australians are soft city boys who have never faced the Emperor's soldiers. We will be in Port Moresby within two weeks."

By the end of 1942, these two young men would meet in battle on a muddy track that would change the course of the Pacific War. This is the American History Podcast, Season 4, Episode 35. I'm your host, Shawn Warswick, and welcome to "Into the Green Hell" - the first of four episodes on the New Guinea Campaign.

Introduction

The New Guinea Campaign doesn't get the attention of Guadalcanal or Iwo Jima, but it should. While history buffs can tell you about the flag raising on Mount Suribachi or the desperate fight for Henderson Field, mention Kokoda and you'll get blank stares. That's a tragedy, because this campaign was arguably more important than either of those famous battles.

This was where the Allies learned how to fight in the Pacific. Before New Guinea, American and Australian forces were stumbling through jungle warfare like blind men in a maze. The Japanese seemed invincible - masters of night attacks, jungle infiltration, and the kind of fanatical resistance that turned every bunker into a tomb. But in the fetid, disease-ridden mountains of New Guinea, the Allies finally cracked the code. They learned that Japanese soldiers could be beaten, that their tactics could be countered, and that modern firepower could triumph over bushido spirit - if you knew how to use it.

New Guinea became a laboratory of jungle warfare that would define every operation from here to Tokyo Bay. The techniques developed in these green hills - combined arms coordination in dense terrain, the use of native carriers, medical innovations for tropical diseases, air-ground cooperation in impossible conditions - these became the blueprint for victory across the Pacific. MacArthur's island-hopping strategy, the tactics that won at Leyte and Luzon, even the final assault on Japan itself - all of it traced back to lessons learned in New Guinea's unforgiving jungle.

And it was, quite simply, hell on earth. If you think the Western Front was bad, try fighting a war where the environment kills more men than the enemy does. Where a simple cut can become a death sentence, where supply lines stretch across hundreds of miles of roadless wilderness, and where visibility is measured in yards, not miles. The New Guinea jungle didn't take sides - it killed everyone with equal enthusiasm.

Today we're setting the stage for this forgotten campaign - following Japanese and Australian soldiers as they first encountered each other and the green hell that would consume them both. We'll see how overconfident Japanese veterans met desperate Australian militiamen on a muddy track that would determine the fate of a continent. The song of the week is "I'll Be Seeing You" by Tommy Dorsey - see you in a moment.

Act I: The Strategic Setup Through Human Eyes

It's March 1942, and in the Japanese stronghold of Rabaul, Colonel Kiyomi Yokoyama is studying maps of New Guinea with his staff officers. Yokoyama had been with the Emperor's forces since the conquest of Hong Kong. Like most Japanese officers, he was confident - perhaps overconfident.

Yokoyama, like most Japanese officers, viewed the coming operation with casual certainty. The Australians were shopkeepers and farmers who had never faced soldiers of the emperor. Surely the jungle would defeat them before the first shot was fired.

This wasn't arrogance speaking - it was experience. Japanese forces had rolled through Southeast Asia with stunning speed. Hong Kong fell in 18 days. Singapore, the supposedly impregnable British fortress, surrendered in just over two months. The Dutch East Indies collapsed in three months. Why should Australia be different?

For Japan, New Guinea represented the final piece of their defensive perimeter. Control of Port Moresby would give them airbases within bombing range of Australia's major cities. More importantly, it would complete their isolation of Australia from American aid. Japanese strategists believed that once Australia was cut off and under constant air attack, it would be forced to negotiate a separate peace.

General Hitoshi Imamura, commanding the Japanese Eighth Area Army, was even more optimistic. Once they took Port Moresby, they would bomb Sydney and Melbourne at will. The Australians would beg for peace within months - or so Japanese planners believed.

But none of them had fought in New Guinea's jungle. None of them understood what they were walking into.

Two thousand miles south, in Melbourne's Spencer Street Station, 21-year-old Private Jack Thompson was kissing his girlfriend goodbye. Thompson was part of the 39th Battalion - militia troops the regulars called "chocos," short for chocolate soldiers. They'd melt when things got hot.

Thompson had joined up the previous year, expecting to spend his service doing weekend drills and maybe some coastal defense. He was a bank clerk from Hawthorn, had never been north of Albury, and certainly had never imagined he'd be heading to New Guinea.

His mother, Agnes, had packed his kit with the same care she'd use for a school excursion - extra socks, tooth powder, and a small Bible. Like thousands of other Australian mothers, she had no idea what New Guinea would do to her boy.

Alongside Thompson was Private Charlie Morrison, a 19-year-old farm boy from Gippsland. Morrison had lied about his age to enlist - he was actually only 18. In his final letters home, the fear showed through the bravado. His father had served in the Great War, and Morrison wondered what this new war would do to him.

Captain Bill Winning, a career soldier commanding one of the militia companies, watched these young men with growing dread. Winning had served on the Western Front in the first war. He knew what combat could do to green troops. But this wasn't France - this was something far worse.

These boys, he knew, were all that stood between the Japanese and Sydney. The thought terrified him.

The mathematics were terrifying, and every Australian leader knew it. If the Japanese took Port Moresby, their bombers could reach Brisbane, Sydney, even Melbourne. Australia's entire population was concentrated along that eastern coast. The fall of Port Moresby could mean the fall of Australia itself.

Prime Minister John Curtin had made this crystal clear in a secret briefing to military commanders: "Gentlemen, we are facing the possibility of invasion. If New Guinea falls, if Port Moresby falls, we may be looking at Japanese troops landing on Australian beaches within months."

The psychological impact was enormous. For the first time since European settlement, Australia faced the real possibility of foreign invasion. Mothers in Melbourne were already sending their children to relatives in the country. Some families were packing cars, ready to flee south if the worst happened.

Major General Basil Morris, commanding Australian forces in New Guinea, understood the stakes better than anyone. In a letter to his wife, he wrote: "The boys heading up the Kokoda Track aren't just defending Port Moresby. They're defending Australia itself. If they fail, we may all be speaking Japanese by Christmas."

As these young Australians sailed north in July 1942, many wrote what they feared might be their final letters home. Thompson managed to scribble a note to his mother, trying to sound confident while his hand shook. He promised to show the Japanese what Australian boys were made of, but privately he was terrified.

Morrison was more honest in his correspondence, admitting his fear to his father while explaining why they had to fight. If they didn't stop the Japanese in New Guinea, they'd be bombing Melbourne next. They couldn't let that happen.

Sergeant Bill Edgar, one of the few regulars in the battalion, tried to prepare the young militiamen for what was coming. Edgar had fought in the Middle East and knew something about warfare, though nothing about jungle fighting. These boys had no idea what they were walking into - hell, neither did he. But they had heart, and sometimes that was enough.

The ship's chaplain, Father John Davies, spent hours with the young soldiers, listening to confessions and fears. He'd never seen such a mixture of terror and determination. Boys who should have been worrying about dance halls and girlfriends were preparing to die for their country. It broke his heart and filled him with pride at the same time.

They had no idea they were sailing toward one of the most brutal environments on Earth.

Act II: First Contact with the Green Hell

To understand the New Guinea Campaign, you have to understand New Guinea itself. This wasn't just difficult terrain - it was an alien world that seemed designed to kill human beings.

Private Thompson's first night in the jungle was a revelation in misery. It was like being buried alive in a green coffin. The air was so thick you could barely breathe. Everything was wet, everything rotted, everything bit or stung or tried to kill you. The trees were so thick overhead that even at noon it felt like twilight.

The Japanese were discovering the same harsh truths. Sergeant Hiroshi Tanaka, part of the advance force, found that their training in Manchuria had taught them nothing of this place. The jungle was alive. It moved and breathed and watched. His men were already falling sick with fevers they couldn't name.

The humidity was crushing - often over 90 percent. Men would sweat through their uniforms in minutes. Everything metal rusted overnight. Food spoiled within hours. And the diseases - malaria, dengue fever, scrub typhus, dysentery - began claiming more lives than bullets ever would.

On July 21st, 1942, Japanese transport ships appeared off the beaches of Gona and Buna on New Guinea's northeast coast. Colonel Yokoyama watched his men wade ashore with satisfaction. The landing was unopposed. Local intelligence suggested the track to Port Moresby was lightly defended, if at all.

Lieutenant Saburo Hirano led his platoon inland, following what the maps called the Kokoda Track. It was barely a path - something the local Papuans had used for centuries to cross the mountains. To call it a road would be generous. It was a muddy, root-tangled nightmare that climbed straight up into the clouds.

Hirano and his men expected to reach Port Moresby in ten days. The track was difficult, but the enemy appeared to be nonexistent. They couldn't have been more wrong.

In Port Moresby, Australian intelligence picked up reports of the Japanese landing within hours. Major General Basil Morris, commanding Australian forces in New Guinea, faced a terrible choice. He had exactly one battalion of militia troops - the 39th - to defend the most important strategic position in the Southwest Pacific.

The decision was made quickly: the 39th would move up the Kokoda Track and fight a delaying action. They weren't expected to stop the Japanese - just slow them down long enough for reinforcements to arrive.

Captain Winning gathered his men at their forward base. Looking at these young faces - clerks and shop assistants and farm boys who'd never fired a shot in anger - he gave them the situation straight. The Japanese outnumbered them at least three to one. They were experienced jungle fighters. The Australians were not. But that track was the only way to Port Moresby, and Port Moresby was the only thing standing between the enemy and Australia.

Thompson and the other militiamen understood they were walking into a fight they probably couldn't win. But what choice did they have? Their families were counting on them.

The first Australian patrols began moving up the Kokoda Track on July 22nd. Within hours, they encountered the realities that would define this campaign. The track wasn't just difficult - it was barely passable. In places, it climbed at angles of 45 degrees or more. In others, it disappeared into swamps that could swallow a man whole.

Thompson's first day on the track was a nightmare of endurance. They were climbing what felt like a vertical wall of mud and roots. Visibility was so poor you couldn't see the man in front of you half the time. Pack straps cut into shoulders, and they'd only gone a few miles. How were they supposed to fight at the end of this ordeal?

The Japanese were learning the same harsh lessons. Hirano's platoon, supposedly the advance guard of a swift advance, found themselves crawling up muddy slopes on their hands and knees. Men began collapsing from exhaustion within the first day.

The maps, Hirano realized, were lies. This wasn't a road. This wasn't even a path. This was a test from the gods themselves.

On July 23rd, 1942, at a tiny village called Awala, the first shots of the Kokoda Campaign were fired. A Japanese patrol, moving down the track, ran into an Australian forward position. The engagement lasted only minutes, but it changed everything.

Thompson was in that first contact. The Australians heard the Japanese before they saw them - voices speaking Japanese, equipment rattling. Lieutenant Templeton held up his hand for the patrol to freeze. Then suddenly there they were, not fifty yards away through the trees. Someone fired - no one ever knew who - and then everyone was shooting.

The firefight was chaos. In the thick jungle, visibility was limited to just a few yards. Men fired at muzzle flashes, at sounds, at shadows that might have been enemy soldiers or might have been trees. The acrid smell of cordite mixed with the humid jungle air.

Morrison, crouched behind a fallen log, couldn't see what he was shooting at. The jungle was alive with noise - gunfire, shouting in Japanese and English, branches breaking. His hands shook so badly he could barely hold his rifle, but somehow he kept firing.

From the Japanese side, Sergeant Tanaka observed that the Australians appeared like ghosts from the jungle. They fought with desperate courage, but you could see the fear in their young faces. These were not the hardened soldiers the Japanese had expected, but they didn't break and run as predicted.

The skirmish lasted perhaps twenty minutes. When it ended, three Australians were wounded and one Japanese soldier was dead. Both sides pulled back to assess the situation, but the psychological impact was enormous.

Lieutenant Templeton, commanding the Australian patrol, understood that enemy contact was now confirmed. Japanese troops were well-trained and aggressive, but they could be fought. The Australian militiamen had performed better than expected under fire, though they were clearly inexperienced.

The first Australian casualties were devastating to morale. These young militiamen had trained together, grown up together in many cases. Seeing their mates wounded and bleeding brought home the reality of what they were facing.

Thompson helped carry wounded Private Kelly back down the track to the aid station. Kelly was just a kid from Brunswick who'd worked in his dad's butcher shop. Now he had a bullet in his shoulder and kept asking if he was going to die. How do you answer that kind of question?

The Japanese were learning their own harsh lessons. The thick jungle that they'd expected to provide concealment also limited their ability to use their superior numbers and tactics. Tanaka noted that they couldn't see the enemy until they were almost on top of them. Their night attack methods would be useless here. This would be a different kind of war.

As reports of the first contact reached commanders on both sides, the magnitude of what was beginning became clear. This wasn't going to be a quick march to Port Moresby. This was going to be a grinding, brutal campaign where every mile would be paid for in blood.

Colonel Yokoyama, still confident but now more cautious, sent a message to Rabaul: "Enemy resistance encountered. Advancing more carefully. Still expect to reach objective within planned timeframe." But privately, in his diary, he wrote: "The jungle is our greatest enemy. It fights for no one and shows mercy to none."

Act III: The Human Cost Begins to Show

The first major engagement came at Kokoda village itself, a small administrative post that gave the track its name. The village sat in a clearing at about 1,200 feet elevation - high enough to be cool at night, important enough to be worth fighting for.

The Japanese attack came at night, which terrified the young Australians. This was their first taste of Japanese night fighting tactics - sudden, violent, and designed to create maximum confusion and panic.

The attack began just after midnight on July 29th. Japanese troops had infiltrated to within fifty yards of the Australian positions before launching their assault. The sound was unlike anything the young militiamen had ever experienced.

Private Thompson was on sentry duty when the attack began: "It started with whistles and shouts in Japanese. Then they came out of the jungle like demons. I couldn't see them properly - just muzzle flashes and shadows. We fired at sounds, at movements, at nothing. Half the time I was shooting at trees."

The Japanese had perfected night attacks in China and Southeast Asia, but the New Guinea jungle presented new challenges. Hirano, leading one of the assault groups, discovered that the darkness that should have been their ally became their enemy. They couldn't see their own men, let alone distinguish them from the Australians. The jungle swallowed their battle cries.

The battle raged for hours. Australian mortars, firing blind into the jungle, created enormous flashes that lit up the battlefield like lightning. In those brief moments of illumination, defenders could see Japanese soldiers advancing through the undergrowth, sometimes just yards away.

Morrison, manning a Bren gun position, changed magazines so many times he lost count. His barrel glowed red hot, but he kept firing. What else could he do?

Captain Winning moved between his positions, trying to maintain some semblance of command and control in the chaos. Command and control in a jungle night battle was almost impossible. You couldn't see your own men, couldn't coordinate fire, couldn't even tell if orders were being followed. It was every section for itself.

The Australians held the perimeter for most of the night, but by dawn it was clear they were outnumbered and outflanked. Japanese troops had worked around their flanks during the night and were now behind the main position. The order came to withdraw - the first of many retreats that would earn the campaign its reputation as a fighting withdrawal.

But withdrawal on the Kokoda Track wasn't like retreat on a European battlefield. There was nowhere to go but back down that impossible path, carrying wounded men who couldn't walk, abandoning equipment they couldn't carry.

Sergeant Edgar faced the nightmare of evacuating twelve wounded men who couldn't walk. The track was so narrow they could only move single file. Every step was agony for the wounded, and they knew the Japanese were right behind them. But they weren't leaving anyone behind.

It was here that the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels entered the story - Papuan natives who risked their lives to carry wounded Australians to safety. The name sounds almost comical now, but to the men they saved, these carriers were literally angels.

Private Jim Morrison of the 39th Battalion was hit in the leg and couldn't walk. A Papuan carrier, who couldn't have weighed more than 120 pounds, picked him up and carried him for miles down that bloody track. The man saved Morrison's life, though Morrison never even learned his name.

The Papuan carriers weren't just helping from kindness - many had seen Japanese treatment of local populations and had chosen sides. Tanaka noted in his observations that the natives feared the Japanese forces. They ran when they saw Japanese soldiers coming. This was unfortunate, as the Japanese needed their help with supplies and intelligence.

One Papuan carrier, interviewed years after the war, explained their motivation simply: Japanese soldiers were cruel to their people, beating them and taking their food. Australian soldiers treated them like men. They helped the Australians because the Australians were good to them.

The loss of Kokoda village sent shockwaves through Australian command. Port Moresby was now directly threatened, and the militia battalion was clearly outmatched. Urgent calls went out for reinforcements, but help was still weeks away.

Major General Morris understood the crisis. The 39th Battalion had fought well but was forced to withdraw from Kokoda. Japanese strength was estimated at 2,000-3,000 troops. Without immediate reinforcement, they risked losing Port Moresby entirely.

The Japanese were suffering too, though they were better at hiding it. Their supply lines, stretched thin across hundreds of miles of jungle, began to break down almost immediately. Men were falling sick with diseases they had no medicine for.

Hirano found that they were advancing, but at what cost? Half his men could barely stand. The jungle was taking more soldiers than the enemy. How could anyone fight a war in a place that killed everyone equally?

Colonel Yokoyama, commanding the Japanese advance, was beginning to understand what his men faced. Casualties from disease exceeded combat losses by three to one. Jungle conditions were worse than anticipated. They were still advancing, but progress was much slower than planned.

As both sides settled into what they now realized would be a prolonged campaign, the human stories became more poignant. These were young men, far from home, facing death in a place that seemed designed to kill them.

Thompson found himself thinking about his girlfriend every day. Her letters were the only thing keeping him sane in this green hell. If something happened to him, he wanted her to know that he loved her and was fighting for her and for Australia.

On the Japanese side, Tanaka thought constantly of his wife Yuki. The jungle was like nothing they'd trained for - a living thing that hated all men equally. But they fought on for the Emperor and for Japan. If he didn't return, he hoped she would remember him with honor.

These weren't professional soldiers - they were ordinary men caught up in extraordinary circumstances, learning that war in the jungle was unlike anything anyone had prepared them for.

On August 29th, the Australians suffered a devastating blow. Lieutenant Colonel William Owen, commanding the 39th Battalion, was killed by a Japanese sniper while scouting positions near Isurava. Owen had been the steady hand holding the battalion together, the experienced officer these young militiamen looked to for leadership.

The death of their commanding officer shattered what remained of the battalion's confidence. Owen had been a father figure to many of these young men, a regular army officer who had treated the despised militia with respect and turned them into something resembling soldiers.

Thompson was nearby when Owen was shot. The Colonel was studying the Japanese positions through his binoculars when the shot rang out. He just crumpled. They dragged him back, but he was already gone. That night, half the boys were crying. Owen was the only reason they'd held together this long.

Owen's death created a crisis of command that rippled through the entire force. Captain Winning, suddenly thrust into battalion command, knew these boys were now looking to him for leadership he wasn't sure he could provide. Owen had known how to turn these militia boys into soldiers. Winning was just trying to keep them alive.

The Japanese, observing the Australian positions, noticed the change immediately. Tanaka observed that the enemy's resistance had become less coordinated since they'd killed the Australian commander. The young soldiers fought bravely but without direction. Perhaps now they could break them.

But the Australians refused to break. Despite their losses, despite their fear, despite being outnumbered and outgunned, they continued fighting. Morrison and the others understood what would happen if they failed. The Japanese would be bombing Melbourne within weeks. Their families were counting on them. They couldn't let them down, no matter what it cost.

By September 1942, both armies were learning the terrible arithmetic of jungle warfare. For every casualty from combat, there were five from disease and exhaustion. Men were dying of infections from simple cuts, of fevers that burned them alive, of exhaustion so complete they simply lay down and never got up.

Private Thompson, now a veteran of several engagements, wrote home: "I don't know how to explain this place to you, Mum. It's not like the war films. Half the time you can't even see the enemy. The jungle kills more men than the Japs do. We're all walking skeletons now, but we keep going because we have to."

The Japanese were suffering the same fate. Colonel Yokoyama's confident predictions of a quick victory were replaced by increasingly desperate requests for reinforcements and supplies. His men were starving, sick, and dying in a green hell that showed no mercy to anyone.

Closing

As September turned to October 1942, both sides dug in for what they now realized would be a long, brutal campaign. The quick victory both had expected had turned into a grinding war of attrition fought in conditions that tested the limits of human endurance.

Thompson and his mates knew now that this wasn't going to end quickly. The Japanese were tough, but they were suffering just like the Australians. The jungle didn't take sides - it just killed everyone it could reach. But they'd keep fighting, because Australia was counting on them.

Colonel Yokoyama's earlier confidence was now replaced by grim determination. They had come too far to turn back now. The Emperor expected victory, and they would achieve it, whatever the cost. But this jungle... this jungle might be the death of them all.

Next time on the American History Podcast, we'll follow these same men deeper into the green hell as the campaign reaches its climax on the Kokoda Track. The episode is called "The Track of Ghosts," and you won't want to miss it.

The New Guinea Campaign would ultimately teach both sides lessons that would reshape the entire Pacific War. But first, they had to survive the jungle that was determined to kill them all.

This has been the American History Podcast. I'm your host. Until next time, remember that history isn't just about the famous battles and great leaders - it's about ordinary people facing extraordinary circumstances, and finding courage they never knew they had.