Kokoda Track

Location of the Kokoda Track

Kokoda Trail from 1942, turned slightly to the left so that northeast is at the top of the picture.

Brook crossing the Kokoda Trail

The Kokoda Track (also Kokoda Trail or Kokoda Path ) is a bush trail between the Yodda Kokoda gold fields and the south coast of Papua New Guinea . It leads over 96 km from Kokoda over the Owen Stanley Mountains to Port Moresby , the capital of Papua New Guinea.

He became famous during World War II when the Japanese army marched across the track on Port Moresby. Today the track is used for tourism. It leads up to an altitude of 2190 meters, runs through a tropical rainforest and can be hiked in five to six days.

history

The Kokoda Track connects the north and south coasts of Papua New Guinea. At first it was used by adventurers who reached the Yodda Kokoda gold fields through it.

After their attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the Japanese advanced rapidly across the Pacific towards Australia. The advance of the Japanese Navy on Port Moresby was stopped in the Battle of the Coral Sea , which led to a different plan of advance. The army was to march to Port Moresby via the Kokoda Track. On July 21, 1942, the Japanese landed and overran the Australian defenses along the track. The Australian army command had already planned a final defensive battle immediately before Port Moresby when the Japanese advance stopped on September 16 at Ioribiwa, within sight of Port Moresby. Plans to make the track usable for vehicles had turned out to be impracticable and the soldiers' air supply was hardly sufficient. Supply shortages and the fear of an Allied landing at Buna, which would lock them up in interior New Guinea, ultimately led to the withdrawal of the Japanese. Australian troops pursued them along the Kokoda Track and trapped them in a small beachhead on the north coast in early November. The bridgehead was captured in January 1943. The costly and cruel battles are portrayed in the Australian feature film Kokoda - the 39th Battalion from 2006.

literature

• Peer Brune: A Bastard of a Place. The Australians in Papua. Kokoda- Milne Bay - Gona - Buna - Sanananda . Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, New South Wales, Australia 2003, ISBN 1-74114-403-5 .

Web links

• Kokoda Track Authority

Individual evidence

1. ^ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung GmbH: Papua New Guinea: It's a mud! September 10, 2017. Retrieved September 10, 2017 . 
2. ↑ Steven Bullard (translator): Japanese army operations in the South Pacific Area New Britain and Papua campaigns, 1942–43. 2007, pp. 182-184.
3. ↑ John Moremon: Kokoda, 1942: Australian counter-attack. In: Remembering the War in New Guinea. 2003. Retrieved August 16, 2013.
4. ↑ Kokoda - The 39th Battalion. 2016, accessed August 17, 2018 .