World Battlefronts: Little Offensive

Prime Minister John Curtin this week proclaimed publicly what everyone had guessed privately: Australia could not possibly embark on a large-scale offensive for at least six months. “Until then, a basically holding policy will dominate tactics. There is no intention to sacrifice troops until Australia has the resources necessary for a successful offensive.”

But the Australians at least had launched a little offensive—if retaking, against no opposition, a few miles of recently lost backyard could be dignified by that term. By last fortnight, when some Japs pushed southward across the precipitous Owen Stanley Mountain Range, the Japanese were only 32 miles from vital Port Moresby. Some uneasy observers began to believe the unpredictable Japs might try to take well-defended Port Moresby by land, using only the troops and supplies that could be hauled along the “impassable” one-man jungle-&-mountain path. It would be an audacious gesture, but Australian troops had already had a bitter taste of Jap audacity in the milder jungles of Malaya (where 17,000 Australians were taken prisoner).

Wearing khaki uniforms dyed green, newly arrived crack Australian Imperial troops (including the famed “rats” who holed in for eight months at Tobruk) launched their little offensive last week. At mountain peak No. 3 (of the six between Port Moresby and the gap at the top of the range) they seeped through and outflanked the foremost Jap positions. But the Japs, softened by strafing and bombing raids, had already withdrawn.

The Australians ceased to marvel at the Jap miracle of bringing one 37-mm. gun over those mountains. In fact, they discovered they could bring heavier 25-pounders themselves when they decided to go forward over the smaller peaks. The Japs had dug trenches, set up machine-gun nests in the roots of trees, piled up log barricades—but evidently thought better of their plan to defend their foremost ridge, 88 long miles over the mountains from their Buna supply base.

Next day the Australians pushed forward, but found no Japs, except some coolies who had been killed by strafing. At week’s end the Australians had crossed two more ridges to reach Efogi (see map, p, 34), but still no Japs. Nearing the gap. the Aussies made “light contact” with Jap patrols, but where and when the battle of the Owen Stanley Mountains would be joined, nobody knew. The Australians crept forward more cautiously, lest they fall into a Jap trap.

Port Moresby (and Australia, which it protects) could breathe easier. The Japs were now more than 50 miles, or 30 hours’ walking, away.