Approved in general terms by Fantastique. I am trying to do some 'what-is-the-Australian-Army-doing' material to help round out the minor campaigns. Nothing to compare with Fantastiques amazing cornucopia of material, or Geoffs astounding work of course!
More on Kokoda and Milne Bay will follow in due course when I get time. Hey, it's spring here. That means fishing!
Cheers: Mark
The Papua New Guinea Campaign
Central War Room Summary Account
8 December 1941
Brigadier Morris, Commander 8th Military District, called up the New Guinea Volunteer Rifles
1942
21 January
Lae and Salamaua bombed by Japanese aircraft, 3 civil Ju-52 transports and 4 other civil aircraft destroyed at Lae, 12 civil aircraft destroyed at Salamaua.
27 January 1942
All white males 18-45 called up for service, precipitating a crisis between BGDR (soon promoted MAJGEN) Morris and the Administrator of Papua, Mr Murray
14 February 1942
Civil government ceased in Papua and New Guinea under authority of the War Cabinet.
Garrison:
30th Brigade Group
49th Queensland Bn (formed by dividing the 9/49th in to its components and filling it with new recruits. Bn ill-trained in consequence)
39th Victorian Bn (green, but well led)
53rd (NSW) Bn (hastily completed with pressed men, poorly led and badly trained)
13th Field Regt
23rd Heavy AA Battery (4 x 3.7 and 4 x 3 mobile guns)
Papuan Infantry Bn (a scouting group)
New Guinea Volunteer Rifles
8 March
Lae and Salamaua occupied by Japanese, numerous epic treks performed by small parties of NGVR, District Officers and civilians. Few Japanese moved beyond the devastated towns until 18 March
19 March Hollandia occupied by the enemy
15 April
MAJGEN Morris reported that airfields at Seven Mile, Kila, Bomana, Rorona and Laloki completed.
10-25 May
Japanese forces advance inland from Lae, driving back the NGVR and 2/5th Independent Company from the Nadzab area. Kanga Force starts to concentrate at Wau, but its forward elements are unable to stop the Japanese move into the Markham Valley. At this stage, Japanese forces in the Lae area number about 2000, with 300 at Salamaua. All Australian forces are inland and total about 700, of whom 450 are fit for service. The decision is taken to attack the Japanese base at Salamaua. After considerable effort at resupply and reinforcement, this attack is finally scheduled for late June
27-28 June The Salamaua Raid
The first Allied counterattack in the theatre was conducted by 120 men of the NGVR and 2/5th Independent Company. The force had to walk in over 30 miles of primary jungle tracks from Wau (walking distance about 55 miles). They attacked in seven parties. The attack caught the IJA garrison by surprise, but they reacted quickly. The bridge over the Kela creek was demolished and one of the two Japanese radio masts brought down, three trucks were destroyed and about 70 Japanese killed at Kela and Salamaua township. The attack on the airfield was less successful, although 30 Japanese were killed and three aircraft destroyed.
This successful raid against a surprised and unprepared Japanese garrison, and the most successful Kanga Force operation. Salamaua was immediately reinforced from Rabaul and a perimeter defence system built.
There were two smaller (and unsuccessful) raids over the next month, but the supply situation for Kanga Force was critical. Very few RAAF transport aircraft were available, and only operations by NEIAF Lodestars allowed the force to maintain its observation operations in the Markham Valley and Wau areas. Operations by NEIAF B-23 light bombers and RAAF Blenheims achieved little, but raised morale and began to teach harsh lessons about operations in this area. One B-23 was shot down over Lae on 6 July, but four other aircraft were lost due to weather conditions over this time.
24-30 July Fall of Wau
Saigon Maru delivered reinforcements and landing barges to Salamaua. The transport was attacked by 3 RAAF Blenheims and 2 NEIAF B-23. The ship was reported to have been hit and to have burned, but she was later noted in Rabaul undamaged. One RAAF Blenheim was shot down in this attack. These forces immediately began advancing on Wau, up the Bulolo Valley. Also on 14 July the IJA began advancing up the Markham Valley. Kanga Force was quite unable to stem these advances and fell back on to the head of the Bulldog Track (which went over the Owen Stanleys to the south coast) at Winima. Wau was burned.
31 July The Bulldog Track Campaign
The Bulldog Track ran from Wau to Bulldog, from where canoes could navigate the Lakekamu River to the south coast of Papua, about 155 miles NW of Port Moresby. This campaign was a miniature of the Kokoda Track fighting, the forces were much smaller. The country was a tangled mass of extremely steep and rugged mountains averaging 6-8000 and covered in primary rainforest. Tracks were extremely primitive and distances were measured in walking time, this being the rate at which a fit but unburdened local European used to walking in those mountains was able to move and not become exhausted. One hours walking time usually meant 2-4 hours for a heavily burdened soldier. If moving tactically, the time would at least double again. For sick or starved men a 'walking hour' could be days of hellish travel.
The country was known as Baum Country after Helmuth Baum, a just and gentle German who went bush in 1914 and who prospected barefoot through the area until 1919 when he reported in. He was murdered by Kukukuku tribesmen in 1931 on the Indiwi River, a tributary of the Lakekamu. Eric Feldt investigated this baffling country in 1931-32, trying to locate Baums killers, but was not able to. He was, however, able to establish a primitive walking route from Bulldog (on the Lakekamu river) to Kudjeri, 10 hours walk to Kaisenek, near Wau.
At this stage, Kanga Force was about 600 men of whom 300 were effectives. It was composed of mostly NGVR and 2/5th Independent company troops, but mustered men from no fewer than 11 other units among its manpower. These had mostly been flown or walked in via the Bulldog Track for specialist functions. Kanga Force was a reconnaissance force above all, although it could and had mounted raids on the Japanese.
The main job after the fall of Wau was to move 100 civilians and their own 300 sick and non-combat capable personnel safely to Bulldog.
Driving on Wau was the Horito Force composed of 750 IJA. Again, this was a scratch composite force based on a company of the 124th Infantry Regiment Group (Kawaguchi Force) which had reformed at Palau after service in Borneo and the Philippines. The force was made up mostly of reinforcement drafts and was very lightly equipped.
1 August The Bulldog Head Action
After taking the ruins of Wau the day before, elements of the Horito Force probed out from the Wau-Bulolo road, along the Bulldog Track. These were ambushed by Kanga Force 3 hours walking time NE towards Kaisenik, 8 Japanese being killed. The Japanese moved about 200 men in to the area overnight, and attacked the Kanga Force positions just after dawn. With 80 men, Kanga Force beat off the first attack for the loss of 12 men, but was then forced to withdraw from its blocking position when NGVR scouts reported that the Japanese were flanking them. They fell back to a position dominating the Bulolo river crossing about a walking hour SW of Winima. This took the Japanese three days to get to, due to occasional sniping by NGVR native soldiers.
5-8 August Battle of Winima Crossing
This position covered the Bulldog Track as it crossed the upper reaches of the Bulolo. The Japanese approached this position cautiously and spent most of 5 August scouting it out. The position could not easily be flanked, and a frontal attack across the Bulolo was out of the question. The Japanese therefore brought up two mortars and began firing in to the position, a difficult task in the heavy forest. After a day, they located a crossing point two miles away from the Australian positions. They put about 60 troops across the river at this point and began working back towards the Kanga Force position. This resulted in a diversion of 30 additional troops from the main position to join the 12 NGVR troops opposing the Japanese who had crossed the river. The result was a series of brief, savage and bloody hand to hand actions in four foot to ten foot forest (this being the distance one could see in the conditions). By the end of 7 August, nearly 20 Kanga Force men had been killed, and about the same number of Japanese. It was decided to evacuate this position at night as the numbers holding it were declining rapidly. Most importantly, while the dead could be left, each wounded man (of who there were now over 30) required two Fuzzy-Wuzzy Angel porters to assist him, and each stretcher-borne wounded needed up to 12 in Baum country. Kanga Force was running out of porters, but still had to cover the civilians, sick and wounded, who were retreating at a snails pace over wild and tangled country using a barely marked track.
The senior fit officer, Captain Minchin (2/5 Independent Company) organised the fittest of his men, about 150, and briefed them. They had to conduct a fighting withdrawal to cover the civilians and sick with little hope of porter assistance if they were wounded. These men were offered the choice of remaining with the force of pulling back. To a man they remained. One runner was sent to warn the main body of what they were going to do, and that they should place such reserves of ammunition and food as they had in pre-planned places. The Japanese flanking movement having been halted by night, the position was abandoned early in the morning of the 8th, and the force began to move down the Bulldog track to another position outside Kudjeru, near the airstrip there.
10-11 August 1942 Battle of Kudjeru
This was a confused delaying action fought between a loose agglomeration of about a company of Australian troops (100 men and about 50 in reserve) and twice that number of Japanese. The IJA had brought up a 70mm gun and some mortars, and these decided the issue. Captain Minchins force was outflanked and forced to retire. Losses on both sides were about 20 men.
The withdrawal which followed was a waking nightmare in which about half of Minchins remaining troops were lost. It took the form of a continual delaying action, with innumerable small stands to slow down the Japanese. men died defending a rotting log during this delaying action. Kudjeru to Dead Chinaman was about 20 walking hours. Minchins tiny force delayed the Japanese march so that it took them nearly ten days to force him back to sketchy prepared positions at Dead Chinaman.
20-22 August Battle of Dead Chinaman
Once they arrived, Minchins Combat Skeletons for so the 70-odd survivors styled themselves were met by the first AIF reinforcements to reach the area, elements of a company of 6th Division. These AIF veterans were contemptuous of the volunteers and AMF, until they saw the survivors of Minchins force. Minchin took one look at the positions occupied by the AIF troops and immediately understood that they had no knowledge of Japanese infantry tactics. He overrode the AIF Major present and redeployed the force to meet a standard stop-and-flank Japanese assault, and informed that AIF that they would be able to hold for 24-36 hours because this was a ridge position. Minchin sent a runner back to Bulldog to have them move supplies forward to a position he knew an hours walk from the airstrip at which he informed the astonished AIF Major that the force would be able to finally stop the Japanese. When questioned about this, Minchin drew a mud map of the logistics situation, noting that the Australian force was now at a resupply point while the Japanese were 20 walking hours from the Kudjeri strip, and were in a condition approximating that of his survivors.
The battle commenced the next day after the Japanese moved up, and went as Minchin predicted. His Volunteers and AMF held the centre and repulsed two determined Japanese attacks, but the AIF troops screening the flanks did not fare so well, the Japanese had superior jungle experience and easily forced them back with substantial losses. Minchins remaining men, now down to less than 50, cut their way out. There was considerable dissatisfaction with the performance of the AIF troops, who had taken very high losses. This was widely reported in the media along with pictures of the action, to the chagrin of the AIF.
The force fell back towards Bulldog. The airstrip had (by jungle standards) an ample stock of supplies, and was held by a scratch company of AMF. One platoon of AIF had also arrived, and tensions between the two were high. However, Minchins orders had been followed, and good positions prepared on a creekline about 2 miles form the strip.
Minchin also prepare a surprise. He detached his 12 fittest men and 8 AIF soldiers on to a diverging track to Yagi, with instructions to move across the ravines and wild country to attack the Japanese dump at Middle Camp, 4 walking hours back towards Kudjeri from Dead Chinaman.
The Battle of Bulldog 26-30 August
This action was again commanded by Captain Minchin, on the basis that he knew more than anyone else about the enemy and the country. The Japanese had barely 200 men and were very short of all supplies, as well as being exhausted and sick. Minchin had been carefully judging their decline as he covered the retreat of the refugees from Lae and Wau to Bulldog. They had been successfully evacuated by canoe (wounded, women and children had gone by air in the priceless Dutch Lodestars) over the previous few days.
The battle commenced with the usual Japanese frontal probes, which Minchin met with interlocking machine gun fire and two determined counterattacks. This response discommoded the Japanese, and days lull ensued. Their usual envelopment was brought up short by the AMF and AIF having already moved forward until they were on the Japanese flanks themselves. Again, this disoriented the Japanese, who became bogged down in three days of small actions to try and clear their flanks. All of a sudden, they were defending, which was what Minchin wanted.
On 30 August the news reached the Japanese that their staging camp at Middle Camp had been attacked and burned. This essentially cut their supply line, and they started to retreat. Minchin pressed his forces to the limit in pursuit, but they were at the end of their tether barely 30 of his 150 originals remained alive and able to walk. His fresher troops were not well acclimatised, but performed well until the end of their supplies was reached at Dead Chinaman, which he reached on 10 September. The best news of this period was the rejoining of the raiding party. All were sick and exhausted, but astonishingly, none had died. At this point, both forces became separated by about 15-20 miles of mountains.
Conclusion
This tiny campaign prevented the Japanese from fully securing the Wau area and played critical a role in allowing Kanga Force back into the Wau area in 1943. In doing so, it gave the IJA one more area to guard, and eventually became another running sore for them in Papua-New Guinea. Minchin was decorated for his actions, as he had displayed conspicuous gallantry at Kudjeri, Dead Chinaman and Bulldog.
More on Kokoda and Milne Bay will follow in due course when I get time. Hey, it's spring here. That means fishing!
Cheers: Mark
The Papua New Guinea Campaign
Central War Room Summary Account
8 December 1941
Brigadier Morris, Commander 8th Military District, called up the New Guinea Volunteer Rifles
1942
21 January
Lae and Salamaua bombed by Japanese aircraft, 3 civil Ju-52 transports and 4 other civil aircraft destroyed at Lae, 12 civil aircraft destroyed at Salamaua.
27 January 1942
All white males 18-45 called up for service, precipitating a crisis between BGDR (soon promoted MAJGEN) Morris and the Administrator of Papua, Mr Murray
14 February 1942
Civil government ceased in Papua and New Guinea under authority of the War Cabinet.
Garrison:
30th Brigade Group
49th Queensland Bn (formed by dividing the 9/49th in to its components and filling it with new recruits. Bn ill-trained in consequence)
39th Victorian Bn (green, but well led)
53rd (NSW) Bn (hastily completed with pressed men, poorly led and badly trained)
13th Field Regt
23rd Heavy AA Battery (4 x 3.7 and 4 x 3 mobile guns)
Papuan Infantry Bn (a scouting group)
New Guinea Volunteer Rifles
8 March
Lae and Salamaua occupied by Japanese, numerous epic treks performed by small parties of NGVR, District Officers and civilians. Few Japanese moved beyond the devastated towns until 18 March
19 March Hollandia occupied by the enemy
15 April
MAJGEN Morris reported that airfields at Seven Mile, Kila, Bomana, Rorona and Laloki completed.
10-25 May
Japanese forces advance inland from Lae, driving back the NGVR and 2/5th Independent Company from the Nadzab area. Kanga Force starts to concentrate at Wau, but its forward elements are unable to stop the Japanese move into the Markham Valley. At this stage, Japanese forces in the Lae area number about 2000, with 300 at Salamaua. All Australian forces are inland and total about 700, of whom 450 are fit for service. The decision is taken to attack the Japanese base at Salamaua. After considerable effort at resupply and reinforcement, this attack is finally scheduled for late June
27-28 June The Salamaua Raid
The first Allied counterattack in the theatre was conducted by 120 men of the NGVR and 2/5th Independent Company. The force had to walk in over 30 miles of primary jungle tracks from Wau (walking distance about 55 miles). They attacked in seven parties. The attack caught the IJA garrison by surprise, but they reacted quickly. The bridge over the Kela creek was demolished and one of the two Japanese radio masts brought down, three trucks were destroyed and about 70 Japanese killed at Kela and Salamaua township. The attack on the airfield was less successful, although 30 Japanese were killed and three aircraft destroyed.
This successful raid against a surprised and unprepared Japanese garrison, and the most successful Kanga Force operation. Salamaua was immediately reinforced from Rabaul and a perimeter defence system built.
There were two smaller (and unsuccessful) raids over the next month, but the supply situation for Kanga Force was critical. Very few RAAF transport aircraft were available, and only operations by NEIAF Lodestars allowed the force to maintain its observation operations in the Markham Valley and Wau areas. Operations by NEIAF B-23 light bombers and RAAF Blenheims achieved little, but raised morale and began to teach harsh lessons about operations in this area. One B-23 was shot down over Lae on 6 July, but four other aircraft were lost due to weather conditions over this time.
24-30 July Fall of Wau
Saigon Maru delivered reinforcements and landing barges to Salamaua. The transport was attacked by 3 RAAF Blenheims and 2 NEIAF B-23. The ship was reported to have been hit and to have burned, but she was later noted in Rabaul undamaged. One RAAF Blenheim was shot down in this attack. These forces immediately began advancing on Wau, up the Bulolo Valley. Also on 14 July the IJA began advancing up the Markham Valley. Kanga Force was quite unable to stem these advances and fell back on to the head of the Bulldog Track (which went over the Owen Stanleys to the south coast) at Winima. Wau was burned.
31 July The Bulldog Track Campaign
The Bulldog Track ran from Wau to Bulldog, from where canoes could navigate the Lakekamu River to the south coast of Papua, about 155 miles NW of Port Moresby. This campaign was a miniature of the Kokoda Track fighting, the forces were much smaller. The country was a tangled mass of extremely steep and rugged mountains averaging 6-8000 and covered in primary rainforest. Tracks were extremely primitive and distances were measured in walking time, this being the rate at which a fit but unburdened local European used to walking in those mountains was able to move and not become exhausted. One hours walking time usually meant 2-4 hours for a heavily burdened soldier. If moving tactically, the time would at least double again. For sick or starved men a 'walking hour' could be days of hellish travel.
The country was known as Baum Country after Helmuth Baum, a just and gentle German who went bush in 1914 and who prospected barefoot through the area until 1919 when he reported in. He was murdered by Kukukuku tribesmen in 1931 on the Indiwi River, a tributary of the Lakekamu. Eric Feldt investigated this baffling country in 1931-32, trying to locate Baums killers, but was not able to. He was, however, able to establish a primitive walking route from Bulldog (on the Lakekamu river) to Kudjeri, 10 hours walk to Kaisenek, near Wau.
At this stage, Kanga Force was about 600 men of whom 300 were effectives. It was composed of mostly NGVR and 2/5th Independent company troops, but mustered men from no fewer than 11 other units among its manpower. These had mostly been flown or walked in via the Bulldog Track for specialist functions. Kanga Force was a reconnaissance force above all, although it could and had mounted raids on the Japanese.
The main job after the fall of Wau was to move 100 civilians and their own 300 sick and non-combat capable personnel safely to Bulldog.
Driving on Wau was the Horito Force composed of 750 IJA. Again, this was a scratch composite force based on a company of the 124th Infantry Regiment Group (Kawaguchi Force) which had reformed at Palau after service in Borneo and the Philippines. The force was made up mostly of reinforcement drafts and was very lightly equipped.
1 August The Bulldog Head Action
After taking the ruins of Wau the day before, elements of the Horito Force probed out from the Wau-Bulolo road, along the Bulldog Track. These were ambushed by Kanga Force 3 hours walking time NE towards Kaisenik, 8 Japanese being killed. The Japanese moved about 200 men in to the area overnight, and attacked the Kanga Force positions just after dawn. With 80 men, Kanga Force beat off the first attack for the loss of 12 men, but was then forced to withdraw from its blocking position when NGVR scouts reported that the Japanese were flanking them. They fell back to a position dominating the Bulolo river crossing about a walking hour SW of Winima. This took the Japanese three days to get to, due to occasional sniping by NGVR native soldiers.
5-8 August Battle of Winima Crossing
This position covered the Bulldog Track as it crossed the upper reaches of the Bulolo. The Japanese approached this position cautiously and spent most of 5 August scouting it out. The position could not easily be flanked, and a frontal attack across the Bulolo was out of the question. The Japanese therefore brought up two mortars and began firing in to the position, a difficult task in the heavy forest. After a day, they located a crossing point two miles away from the Australian positions. They put about 60 troops across the river at this point and began working back towards the Kanga Force position. This resulted in a diversion of 30 additional troops from the main position to join the 12 NGVR troops opposing the Japanese who had crossed the river. The result was a series of brief, savage and bloody hand to hand actions in four foot to ten foot forest (this being the distance one could see in the conditions). By the end of 7 August, nearly 20 Kanga Force men had been killed, and about the same number of Japanese. It was decided to evacuate this position at night as the numbers holding it were declining rapidly. Most importantly, while the dead could be left, each wounded man (of who there were now over 30) required two Fuzzy-Wuzzy Angel porters to assist him, and each stretcher-borne wounded needed up to 12 in Baum country. Kanga Force was running out of porters, but still had to cover the civilians, sick and wounded, who were retreating at a snails pace over wild and tangled country using a barely marked track.
The senior fit officer, Captain Minchin (2/5 Independent Company) organised the fittest of his men, about 150, and briefed them. They had to conduct a fighting withdrawal to cover the civilians and sick with little hope of porter assistance if they were wounded. These men were offered the choice of remaining with the force of pulling back. To a man they remained. One runner was sent to warn the main body of what they were going to do, and that they should place such reserves of ammunition and food as they had in pre-planned places. The Japanese flanking movement having been halted by night, the position was abandoned early in the morning of the 8th, and the force began to move down the Bulldog track to another position outside Kudjeru, near the airstrip there.
10-11 August 1942 Battle of Kudjeru
This was a confused delaying action fought between a loose agglomeration of about a company of Australian troops (100 men and about 50 in reserve) and twice that number of Japanese. The IJA had brought up a 70mm gun and some mortars, and these decided the issue. Captain Minchins force was outflanked and forced to retire. Losses on both sides were about 20 men.
The withdrawal which followed was a waking nightmare in which about half of Minchins remaining troops were lost. It took the form of a continual delaying action, with innumerable small stands to slow down the Japanese. men died defending a rotting log during this delaying action. Kudjeru to Dead Chinaman was about 20 walking hours. Minchins tiny force delayed the Japanese march so that it took them nearly ten days to force him back to sketchy prepared positions at Dead Chinaman.
20-22 August Battle of Dead Chinaman
Once they arrived, Minchins Combat Skeletons for so the 70-odd survivors styled themselves were met by the first AIF reinforcements to reach the area, elements of a company of 6th Division. These AIF veterans were contemptuous of the volunteers and AMF, until they saw the survivors of Minchins force. Minchin took one look at the positions occupied by the AIF troops and immediately understood that they had no knowledge of Japanese infantry tactics. He overrode the AIF Major present and redeployed the force to meet a standard stop-and-flank Japanese assault, and informed that AIF that they would be able to hold for 24-36 hours because this was a ridge position. Minchin sent a runner back to Bulldog to have them move supplies forward to a position he knew an hours walk from the airstrip at which he informed the astonished AIF Major that the force would be able to finally stop the Japanese. When questioned about this, Minchin drew a mud map of the logistics situation, noting that the Australian force was now at a resupply point while the Japanese were 20 walking hours from the Kudjeri strip, and were in a condition approximating that of his survivors.
The battle commenced the next day after the Japanese moved up, and went as Minchin predicted. His Volunteers and AMF held the centre and repulsed two determined Japanese attacks, but the AIF troops screening the flanks did not fare so well, the Japanese had superior jungle experience and easily forced them back with substantial losses. Minchins remaining men, now down to less than 50, cut their way out. There was considerable dissatisfaction with the performance of the AIF troops, who had taken very high losses. This was widely reported in the media along with pictures of the action, to the chagrin of the AIF.
The force fell back towards Bulldog. The airstrip had (by jungle standards) an ample stock of supplies, and was held by a scratch company of AMF. One platoon of AIF had also arrived, and tensions between the two were high. However, Minchins orders had been followed, and good positions prepared on a creekline about 2 miles form the strip.
Minchin also prepare a surprise. He detached his 12 fittest men and 8 AIF soldiers on to a diverging track to Yagi, with instructions to move across the ravines and wild country to attack the Japanese dump at Middle Camp, 4 walking hours back towards Kudjeri from Dead Chinaman.
The Battle of Bulldog 26-30 August
This action was again commanded by Captain Minchin, on the basis that he knew more than anyone else about the enemy and the country. The Japanese had barely 200 men and were very short of all supplies, as well as being exhausted and sick. Minchin had been carefully judging their decline as he covered the retreat of the refugees from Lae and Wau to Bulldog. They had been successfully evacuated by canoe (wounded, women and children had gone by air in the priceless Dutch Lodestars) over the previous few days.
The battle commenced with the usual Japanese frontal probes, which Minchin met with interlocking machine gun fire and two determined counterattacks. This response discommoded the Japanese, and days lull ensued. Their usual envelopment was brought up short by the AMF and AIF having already moved forward until they were on the Japanese flanks themselves. Again, this disoriented the Japanese, who became bogged down in three days of small actions to try and clear their flanks. All of a sudden, they were defending, which was what Minchin wanted.
On 30 August the news reached the Japanese that their staging camp at Middle Camp had been attacked and burned. This essentially cut their supply line, and they started to retreat. Minchin pressed his forces to the limit in pursuit, but they were at the end of their tether barely 30 of his 150 originals remained alive and able to walk. His fresher troops were not well acclimatised, but performed well until the end of their supplies was reached at Dead Chinaman, which he reached on 10 September. The best news of this period was the rejoining of the raiding party. All were sick and exhausted, but astonishingly, none had died. At this point, both forces became separated by about 15-20 miles of mountains.
Conclusion
This tiny campaign prevented the Japanese from fully securing the Wau area and played critical a role in allowing Kanga Force back into the Wau area in 1943. In doing so, it gave the IJA one more area to guard, and eventually became another running sore for them in Papua-New Guinea. Minchin was decorated for his actions, as he had displayed conspicuous gallantry at Kudjeri, Dead Chinaman and Bulldog.
