Word: kokoda
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Green-clad Australian troops swept on to the Gap atop New Guinea's Owen Stanley Mountain Range, neared Kokoda, which had been occupied by the Japs in August. But Lieut. General Sydney Fairbairn Rowell's crack Imperial troops had not yet found the main Jap forces which were supposed to be threatening Port Moresby. U.S. pilots strafed and bombed villages further along which the enemy had been known to occupy. General Rowell ordered up supplies, guns, ammunition, more troops, prepared to strengthen his positions along one of the world's wildest jungle-&-mountain trails, just in case...
...Moresby, last major base north of Australia, observers believed today, and only supply difficulties have slowed it down after 10 days of steady progress. Australian ground forces have reached the peak areas of the Owen Stanley Mountains near the gap leading across trails to the advanced Japanese base at Kokoda...
...MacARTHUR'S HEADQUARTERS, AUSTRALIA--Australian troops, pushing northward through New Guinea without Japanese opposition, Shave penetrated the 6,170-foot high Owen Stanley mountain gap to the point where it drops downhill toward the Japanese base at Kokoda, front dispatches said tonight...
Australians, guarding the gap above Kokoda, had tried to stop them along the single narrow trail that leads over the mountains. The Japs' methods were those they had used in Malaya and Burma. Monkeylike troops, with heads, legs and bodies painted green, filtered through the jungles. And the Australians retreated. Said an Australian officer: "They kept outflanking us and getting behind us. They could see us but we couldn't see them...
...military man in Port Moresby was foolish enough to think that this was a victory. There would be more Japs. They had Kokoda and they would probably try to force the pass. The threat to Port Moresby would be serious. If the enemy made his objective, he would have pushed the Allies a good 350 miles farther away from Japanese bases on New Guinea and New Britain. So Douglas MacArthur's ground soldiers were out to stop him short of the pass, while his airmen, with what strength they had, pecked at his new position on the northern coast...