Battles of Buna - Gona - Sananada

[Blackblue]

Originally Posted by A Potts

Tim,

Really great of you to reply. I believe that the 49th was mainly a Brisbane Unit. I as his grandson still live in Brisbane (Coorparoo).

My mother died recently and I have inherited a photo album of him in Port Moresby (all about 1941). I hope it may be of some significance to the unit. I would be glad to pass it on.

I have many photos.

My email is apottsy@hotmail.com

I would love to meet anyone from his unit in the war. My grandad's name was Jim Buchan. He served in the HQ Battalion.

Cheers,
Aaron Potts

Hi Aaron,
I am sure the unit would be interested. I have not been on the Forum for some time and have recently been posted out. If you contact the unit on 07 33327782 and ask for SGT Gary Saunderson to contact you I am sure he can help.

Rgds

Tim

[Warlord]

I finished reading, around a month ago, the volume of Aussie Oficial History covering events between Darwin and the end in Papua, and I can truly say that the fighting there was as vicious as it gets, and I´m 95% convinced that together with the campaign in Northern Burma, make up the toughest fighting in WW2 outside some of the Götterdämerung in the Eastern Front. Let´s remember that had the Nip pierced the Owen Stanley Barrier through the Kokoda Track, and outflanked it via Milne Bay, the end result would have been the fall of Moresby and the subsequent invasion of Australia.

The NGVR and the Papuan Battalion in the first place, and the Militia units afterwards, had to stop the Nip roller outnumbered and almost without any significant hardware worth its place in a modern army arsenal, taking terrific losses but standing their ground long enough to fulfill their mission of buying time, in God forgotten places like Oivi, Gorari and Kokoda itself, and even behind the lines at Lae and Salamaua, with the likes of Kanga Force.

Then came the veteran brigades just in from the Middle East and Ceylon, which took their turn at the Jap piecemeal, thrown into battle in a do-or-die hurry, battalion by battalion, never fighting together as cohesive units, and taking appalling casualty rates as a result, but in exchange, stopping the tide and turning it on its way back over and around the Owen Stanleys.

Only then came Buna, Gona and Sanananda, where allied units, both Aussie and American, now with the benefit of strength, had to lay siege in unmentionable conditions and terrain to a cunning and treacherous foe, specially suited for fighting on the defensive from superbly constructed defenses, taking a great deal of casualties from all enemies, but finally expelling the yellow menace from Papua.

Everlasting honor to the brave, proud, but at the same time humble defenders of Papua, pawns in the struggle for freedom.

[Herakles]

The initial Australian force in New Guinea was the Militia (CMF). Technically they shouldn't have been there at all but there was no-one else. They went there hopelessly under-trained and many without rifles.

Their performance there varied a lot - from downright incompetence to extraordinary bravery. That they were a Militia meant that official recognition was usually denied them.

Fighting in New Guinea was certainly some of the hardest in the Pacific campaign. Undoubtedly Sanananda was a hell on earth. That the Australians never achieved the recognition they so deserved was primarily due to MacArthur whose press releases always praised American troops and ignored Australian ones.

Which is why afterwards Australian troops were only ever used for mopping up in the region rather than being given a decent fight. This still rankles many older Australians and why the collective opinion of MacArthur is not positive.