Wartime 48 - Summer 2009

Kokoda - Then & Now

Featured articles:

• The Kokoda campaign Wartime looks in detail at this seminal event. It deals with the Australian and the Japanese experience of the fighting and with the efforts to record the campaign.
• Kokoda then and now by Hank Nelson. For Australians a different war from what they had so far known in world wars was being fought in Papua and New Guinea.
• The Greyhounds of Kokoda by Karl James.  The 39th Battalion was seen as heroic but the 53rd Battalion was derided; the clues lay in the circumstances of their formation.
• Lost hero by Nick Fletcher.  He enlisted under an assumed name, fought bravely, and then ...
• Hospitals of death by Steven Bullard. The Japanese medical system in 1942—43 created immense suffering for staff and soldiers alike.
• Kokoda 'Track' or 'Trail' by Karl James.  Both terms were used during the war and were not thought to be mutually exclusive.
• Sending the news home by Ian Jackson.  A photographer on the Kokoda front line died trying the capture the action.
• Walking the Trail by Bill James.  The landscape is alive with memories old and new.
• A taste of defeat selected and translated by Haruki Yoshida.  The recollections of retreating Japanese soldiers in Papua tell a tale of men in extremity
• War birds and pin-up girls by Majella Edwards.  During the Second World War images of attractive girls adorned the noses of many Australia aircraft.
• The warrior leader by John Essex-Clark.  How Frank Hassett led 3RAR to victory at Maryang San in the Korean War.
• Our first VC! by Peter Burness.  We all know it was Jacka ... wasn’t it?