{"id":5280,"date":"2014-09-27T15:08:31","date_gmt":"2014-09-27T21:08:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/?p=5280"},"modified":"2014-09-27T15:08:31","modified_gmt":"2014-09-27T21:08:31","slug":"this-week-in-the-war-21-27-september-1942-the-kokoda-trail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/?p=5280","title":{"rendered":"This week in the War, 21–27 September 1942: The Kokoda Trail"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"25-pounder<\/a>

25-pounder gun of the Royal Australian Artillery being pulled through the jungle, Kokoda Trail, Owen Stanley Range, Papua New Guinea, September 1942 [Public domain, Australian War Memorial 026850]<\/p><\/div>This week in the war, 25 September 1942, the Australians launched a counter-offensive along the Kokoda Trail, the path over the Owen Stanley mountains in Papua New Guinea, and attacked Ioribaiwa. Japanese forces were overwhelmed and, two days later, they began a rapid withdrawal.<\/p>\n

The Kokoda Trail (or Track) campaign\u00a0started in\u00a0July 1942, when the Japanese landed in northern New Guinea and began their march southward along the Kokoda Trail towards the capital city of Port Moresby. The Japanese plan was to capture the whole of Papua New Guinea, thereby preventing Australia and New Zealand from receiving supplies and reinforcements\u00a0from the United States. The campaign ended in November 1942 when the Americans and Australians attacked the Japanese beachheads in the north, at Buna and Gona—–culminating in the Battle of Buna-Gona.<\/p>\n

The Japanese suffered a 75% casualty rate during their retreat,\u00a0with starvation, typhoid, and malaria taking an enormous\u00a0a toll. Many Australians at the time\u00a0credited the Kokoda victory with saving their country from imminent invasion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week in the war, 25 September 1942, the Australians launched a counter-offensive along the Kokoda Trail, the path over the Owen Stanley mountains in Papua New Guinea, and attacked Ioribaiwa. Japanese forces were overwhelmed and, two days later, they … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[771,772,767,768,769,770],"class_list":["post-5280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world-war-ii","tag-buna","tag-gona","tag-kokoda-track","tag-kokoda-trail","tag-owen-stanley-mountains","tag-papua-new-guinea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5280"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5285,"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5280\/revisions\/5285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}