Did The Kokoda Campaign Impact The Australian Troops On The Track

The nature of warfare of the Kokoda Campaign impacted the Australian troops on the track. The Kokoda track climbs from the hills north of Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea. The conditions of the Kokoda track highly affected the troops techniques to succeed during the war, as the fighting conditions were unlike anything that the Australian troops had ever experienced. In addition to this Australian service men had never been issued into the jungle before. Therefore making the Australian soldiers strangers to the jungle. Never the less, Japan had the advantage as they trained to be jungle fighters. Jungle Warfare states, “The Japanese said they were trained jungle fighters” (Australian Government, 2012) Neither Japan or Australia’s high commander

Both of the armies had their strengths and weaknesses, which therefore made it a challenging fight. When Prime Minister Robert Menzies announced on the radio that Australia had to go to war the nations youngest men rose up and followed in the fathers footstep. One out of 6 men were in there twenties. Prime Minister Robert Menzies states, “It is my melachonly duty to inform you that officially that in consequence of the persistence by Germany in the invasion of Poland, Great Britain had declared war upon here and that as a result, Australia is about war too.” (Lindsay, 2005, 12) The Prime Minister is informing Australia that they have to be apart of the war. The politicians had been warned by military leaders that they had done little and because of this it was the result that Australia was not prepared for war. Resulting in inefficient packing: no tents, blankets, mosquito repellent or medicine, they were exposed to tropical disease from the start, also the Austrian troops had to survive in one set of clothes, and could rarely take off their boots to air their feet, as they were so rushed in their preparation. (Lindsay, 2005, 12.) The Japanese Army were prepared to a certain extent as they had been trained to fight during the night, resulting in the Japanese soldiers finding their feet first. Never the less the Japanese was highly inefficient in the packing of their supplies. Clark

Kokoda 1942 - Australians in the Pacific War, quotes “Physically the young troops were in poor shape. Worn out by strenuous fighting and exhausting movement and weakened by lack of food, sleep and shelter.” (Kokoda 1942 - Australians in the Pacific War, 2007, 2) This proves that they troops were not physically ready for the battle. Kokoda 1942 - Australians in the Pacific War, quotes, “Gradually men dropped utterly exhausted - -just could not go on . You’d come to a group of men and say ‘come on!’ We must go.’ But it was physically impossible to move - many were laying down and been sick. We began to see tremendous efforts of the troop were going to make to help the leaser ones in. They found many troops lying exhausted, some ate and others played and some were sick, others just lay, some tried to eat but couldn’t.” (Kokoda 1942 - Australians in the Pacific War, 2007, 3) Therefore the troops were physically pushed to their breaking point. Both the Japanese and Australian troops were begging to suffer both physically and mentally. The effects of the battle effectively caused exhaustion and sickness. This included tropical disease of the region such as: dynestery, malaria, diarrhoea, pneumonia, tinea, hysteria and srubthphus. Many of these diseases flourished because of the continual exposure to wet and damp that the soldiers