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The 39th Battalion at Isurava
by Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Honner DSO MC
Commander, 39th Militia Battalion

While valour is remembered Isurava will not be forgotten, for it was there that Private Bruce Kingsbury of the 2/14th Battalion, in giving his life that his comrades and his country might live, won the Victoria Cross - the first Australian to earn that honour on Australian soil. But the travail and the glory of Isurava were shared by his battalion with the 39th, which had held if for a fortnight in the face of mounting Japanese pressure before the 2/14th came to the rescue.

The 2/14th marched over the Owen Stanley Mountains to Isurava as the spearhead of the cract 21st Brigade. Its officers and men were fresh and gighting fit after their rest at Myola; they had the supreme confidence engendered bu more than two years of solid training and my theri experience in the arduous Syrian campaign; and they were comforted but the assurance that somewhere behind them moved the rest of their brigade and the organised might of the A.I.F.

Two week earlier the 39th, sorely battered in their confused campaign against the invaders and seemingly cut off from hope of outside help, had fallen back in Isurava from the opposite direction. When the 2/14th joined them some of them were almost at the end of the tether after a month's fighting, but they were all hanging on grimly. As Major Russell (the historian of the 2/14th) reports, they were 'depleted by battle casualties and malaria, and suffering from exposure and exhaustiojn; but efficience and morale were at a high level'.

Indeed, the strangest feature of their story is that the weaker they became the stronger and the fiercer waxed their resolution to hold on at all costs until the long-promised relief should become a reality. In the testijng crucible of conflict, out of a welter of defeats and disasters, of mistakes and misforunes, of isolated successes and precipitate withdrawals, they were transformed by some strong catalyst of the spirit into a devoted band wherein every man's failing strength was fortified and magnified bu a burning resolve to stick by his mates.

Their intorductin to battle had not been a happy one. A week after the the Japanese had commenced the landing of an estimated 2,000 troops near Gona on the 21st July, 1942, 'Maroubra Force', commanded bu Lieutenant-Colonel Owen of the 39th, stood at Kokoda to hold the airfield - its only hope of rapid reinforcement or adequate supply. the defenders were about 80 strong - mainly the remnants of 'B' Company of the 39th and of the Papuan Infantry Battalion, including about twenty Papuans. 'B' Company's raw youngsters - the average of one of is sections was eighteen - were the only Australian troops who had yet made the laborious climb over the Owen Stanleys. Later, when a better route had been found through Myola and when the scaling of the steepest of the slippery slopes had been made easier by the construction of what Russell calls 'the golden stairs', it was still a frightful march, described by Osmar White, of the Sydney Daily Telegraph, as an:

'infantrymans's Calvary, where the pain of effort, the biting sweat, the hunger, the cheerless shivering nights were made dim by exhaustion's merciful drug . . . Surely no war was ever fought under worse conditions that these. Surely no war has ever demanded more of a man in fortitude. Even Gallipoli or Crete or the desert'.

After making that mountain crossing two of 'B' Company's platoons had hastened from Kokoda to meet the Japanese at Awala. They had survived a series of delaying actins at Wairopi, Gorari and Oivi - the last a bitterly contested battle in which their commander, Captain Templeton, had been killed; they had fought to the point of exhaustion - against the jungle perhaps more than against the Japanese; and they felt isolated in a green hell to which they had been condemned far from the succour of their friends and out of touch with that familiar world they dreaded they might never see again. High were their hearts lifted, then, when they saw troop-carriers, laden with the long-awaited reinforcements, fly down from the mountain passes, circle the Kokdoa airfield and come in to land; but those tantalising planes, without touching down, rose again in obedience to sme fantastic order from far away to carry their frustrated martial freight back to Port Moresby.

With them disappeared all hope of holding the airfield and avoiding the appalling mountain campaign of the ensuing months. That night the Japanese reached Kokoda and overran the Australian positions; attackers and defenders were intermingled in confused fighting; and Major Watson of the Papuan Infantry, who assimed command when Owen was mortally wounded, extricvated what he could of the force in the last of the darkness and withdrew it to Deniki.

In the demoniac moonlit battle, obscured by the shadows of the rubber trees and the rising mist and smoke, the waves of attack and counter-attack had surged through the bewildering gloom, losing direction and momentum and cohesion. Individuals and small groups from 'B' Company had been cut off and forced into the outer darkness of the jungle; and wounded and unwounded alike wandered for many days through an unfamiliar wilderness. Finding the main track some of them turned to rejoin their company. Others, striking it farther south, not knowing what had happened to their comrades - and in their low spirits perhaps little caring - pushed on over the mountains until they met fresh companies of the 39th moving up to support the survivors of Kokoda. With them they returned to the front - but in the meantime they had been posted as missing and branded as deserters.

To Denikealso came Major Cameron, Brigade Major the 30th Bridage, eager to fling the newly-arrived troops against the Japanese. On 8 August Captain Dean's 'C' Company, moving north, clashed with three companies of the enemy, Dean was killed and his company was forced back to Deniki. Away to the east Captain Bidstrup's 'D' Company was successful in a series of skirmishes and ambushes; but fresh enemy forces moving up from Oivi cut off one of his platoons, which he did not see again for two days, and harried his main body as he withdrew with the loss of eleven men - apart from the missing platoon whose commander, Lieutenant Crawford, had also been wounded.

Between these battles, wide to his west and east, and completely out of touch with them, Captain Symington with 'A' Company moved to occupy Kokoda, vacated that morning by the three companies encountered by Dean. One of those companies, with some machine-gun support, returned to Kokoda the next morning to dislodge Symington, who had already sent to Deniki a request for the droppoing of food and ammunition - he carried only tow day's rations and enough ammunition for one good fight. But no help was to come from Moresby or from Deniki; 'A' Company was on its own, and in the fighing that followed in never gave an inch. A Japanese officer's diary tells the story of attack after attack beaten off by the staunch Australians - one in the morning of the 9th, four in the rain-sodden darkness of the night. The final all-out attack started at mid-afternoon on the 10th and at nightfall Symington, his ammunition exhausted, ahd to withdraw the main body of his company, fourty-six strong. Lieutenant Neal and most of his platoon were left behind, still fighting, but they battled their way out to rejoin Symington on the 12th, the day that the supplies asked for three days ealier were dropped at Kokdoa - now for the benefit of the Japanese. On the 13th Symington's tired men joined 'B' Company at Isurava.

Early that mornig the enemy had attacked the three forward companies at Deniki - 'D', 'C', and 'E'. 'E' Company, a makeshift rifle company of machine-gunners under Captain Merritt, learning to use their unaccustomed Brens in battle, bore the bring of the attack for the next twenty-four hours; by the morning of the 14th it was still resisting stoutly, its strength reduced to 65. then the sound of firing died away and, with the lull, Cameron decided to withdraw. He quietly went to each sub-unit in turn telling it to pull back. In the confusion of the unexpedted move the battalion's equipment was forgotten and many men were left behind, including those commanded by Lieutenant Dalby of 'E' Company and Lieutenant Pentland of 'C' Company. Dalby and Pentland were to turn up eventually but the irreplaceable stores and supplies could not be retrieved - their loss was a grievous blow. the five comapnies dug in at Isurava using their bayonest, bully-beef tins and steel helmets - their tools were at Deniki whence they had withdrawn with what they stood up in, some without ever a shirt. To one of these I haded by spare shirt on my arrival on16 August.

On the 1st I had been appointed to command the 39th and, after flying from Western Australia to Port Moresby, I received my orders, as commander of 'Maroubra Force', to hold the enemy on the other side of the mountain until relieved bu the 21st Brigade. Beyond the ranges I found the rear elements of the force at Alola which commanded three routes to Kokoda. The main track ran north through Isurava and Deniki, high up along the western side of the steep Eora valley; another went west before turning north, roughly paralleling the Iurava track, along higher ground through Naro; and the third dropped east down acrss the deep valley, to swing north through Abuari and run along the eastern slope of the valley towards Pirivi. At Alola I left the Pauan Infantry with the task of patrolling the Naro and Abuari tracks, while I went forward to Isurava to take over from Cameron.

Isurava provided as good a delaying position as could be found on the main track. To the front and to the rear, tributary creeks blowed eastwards, down into the Eora valley, providing narrow obstacles with some view over them. They were bordered bu a belt of thick scrub, but between them were cleared spaces wither side of the track. In a flat clearing on the right was Isuraval village, commanding a track droppoing steeply down to Asigari in the Eora valley. Above the more extensive rolling clearing of long breass on the left was timber thickening into almost impenetrable jungle beyond. Forward of the front creek, and to the left of the northward track to Denike, was overgrown garden through which a path from the main track ran westwards towards the Naro ridge. If the enemy wanted to advance along the main track they would have to dislodge us. If they should try to outflank us they would face a stiff uphill climb from the Eora valley on our right or a tedious struggle through the dense jungle round our left. and if they should choose the easy way in from the flanks, along the tracks from Asigari and Naro, they would walk into our waiting fire.

Physically the pathetically young warriors of the 39th were in poor shape. Worn out by strenusus fighting and exhausting movement, and weakened by lack of food and sleep and shelter, many of them had literally come to a standstill. Practically every day torrential rains fell all through the afternoon and night, cascading into the cheerless weapon-pits and soaking the clothes they wore - the only ones they had. In these they shivered through the long chill vigil of the lonely nights when they were required to stand awake and alert but still and silent. Only the morning brought a gleam of comfort - a turn at sleepign and forgetting, a chance, perahps, to lie and dri in the warmth of the glowing day. But little light filtered through the leaf-roofed murk where Merritt's men guarded the fron creek cliff, pale ghosts crouching in the dank-dripping half-dark, hidden from the healing of the searching sun.

Wounded spirits rather than wan bodies lay in need of healing where the somewhat down-hearted remnant of 'B' Company held the high ground on the left. Wearty from the loingest fighting, it has lost its first two commanders and, through the defection of those unhappy 'deserters' now back in its ranks, its good name. Cameron recommended that it should be disbanded and its men allotted to other companies because, in his view, its morale was so low that it was finished as a fighting force. It stood where the main attack could be expected to fall - where in fact it did fall and finally hammered down the Isurava defence. Shoud I leave the key to our stronghold in such frail hands? I felt that to replace these unfortunates with another company could be the final lethal act of contempt, destroying where I should be building. I appointed Lieutenant French to the most dangerous sector to hold - the post of honour. When the testing hour did come 'B' Company bor the heaviest burden and held on doggedly to erase for ever that early slur.

Already there was a burgeoning confidence born of the first scattered battles which had exploded the myths of Japanese super-soldiers currently used as bogies to frighten young Australians. And the men of the 39th saw themselves for the first time as parts of a united battalion ready to do battle on an organised plan, as schemes for mutual support and local couter-attack were evolved and prctised. They were cheered, also, by the return of comrades given up as lost; Dalby had come in from Deniki before my arrival, Pentland soon after it; five more struggled in on the 17th and another six on the 19th. Finally there was a promise of relief on the 21st. All the news seemed good news, and courage feeds on hope.

But soon there was disquieting news too - of heavy enemy reinforcement ahead of us, of grave supply difficulties behind us. I knew that relief could not come for mnay days and I was determined never to ask for it. I was equally determined that there should be no more precipitate retreats - that we should 'stand and fight' - orders I had heard myself at more than one pass in Greece including famed Thermopylae. At Isurava the green-clad slopes and valley6s, the tumbling torrents bright in the morning sunlight, the keen, crisp mountain air - even the sound of a place name like far-seen Pirivi - were all reminiscent of the glory that was Greece. Isurava could yet be Australia's Thermopylae -but no spi of the barbarians would see its defenders, like the Lacedaemonians under Leonidas, engaged in gymastic exercises ro combing their long hair. by day their silence and the secret trees concealed them, and they showed no light and made no sound to mark them in the dark and quiet of the night. It would cost the enemy a fight to find them.

To hinder and give warning of the enemy's approach, listening posts were placed beyond the constant murmur of the front creek; and a platoon-strong patrol , provided by each company, in turn, from its fittest men, barred the track three-quarters of an hour down towards Deniki. Bidstrup's first patrol after after the retreat to Isurava killed hald-a-dozen men of No 1 Company of No 1 Battalion of the 144th Japanese Regiment. A few days later, in an hour long skirmish finishing at a quarter to twelve, the 39th's standing patrol lost one man killed and one wounded, but selw at least two of the enemy whose still corpses lay in view along the track. When this news came through to Isurava, Chaplain Earl, who had acquired a spade from Alola, shouldered it and hurried out to the forward patrol. There he found that Private Hourigtan had been killed at a listening-post well forward of the main position; but the devoted and intrepid priest marched out alone through No-Man's Land, administered the last rites, dug a grave and buried the dead men. The enemy were still about but he returned unscathed just before they re-opened fire at a quarter past one and showed themselves again with a hundred yards of our post.

It was just after this that a diarist of the No 3 Battalion of the 144th Regiment wrote that 'the enemy are young, vigorous and brave', and went on the next day to say, 'I don't know whether it is because the No 1 Battalion have had so many casualties but all ranks of commanders seem to have lsot some of the offensive spirit'. Whatever the reason, only desultory skirmishing between patrols went on while the Japanese were concentrating, at Kokoda and Deniki, their force for the drive over the mountains to Port Moresby - the six battalions of the 144th and 41st Regiments with a mountain artillery battalion and two engineer untis equipped to fight as mountain infantry.

Then, in the morning of the 26th - the anniversary of historic Crecy that tested the skill and courage of our forbears against an outnumbering foe - the great Japanese offensive started, apparently led from Deniki by the 144th Regiment, less No 2 Battalion which had been detached from the main force to move up the eastern side of the Eora valley towards Abuary. At midday the full fury of the attack burst on Lieutenant Simonson's partrol, and the platood standing bu as next for patrol duty hurried out under Lieutenant Sword of 'D' Company to support the forward troops.

Simultaneously with the attack on Simonson's men, the enemy mountain artillery bombarded Isurava village whose huts could be seen down the Deniki track. 'C' Company suffered, and Chaplain Earl buried
two more of his dwindling flock. When, after a five-hour battle, the reinforced forward patrol had beaten off the main attack, Simonson pushed the enemy back and advanced 200 yards along the track towards Deniki
in an attempt to locate and destroy their guns. But he decided that they were at least another 300 yards ahead and, unable to make further progress against increasing resistance, he retuned to the security of his patrol position.

While the main Japanese thrust was contained by Simonson, other enemy forces moved up into the more difficult high ground to the west and advanced southwards through it, keeping clear of the apparen perils of the track. To assist them in their assault on Isuarava the bombardment, which had died down early in the afternoon with the failure of the first attacks, reopened on the 39th's main positions at half-past three and continued till five o'clock. As the shelling again ceased, Japanese infantry came down the Naro track through the cover of the high-grassed garden beyond the front creek.

A hundred yards forward of our front line the sentry of a listening-post, beside the Deniki track, ambushed the leading bunched patrol. He emptied his Tommy-gun magazine into them at a range of two or three yards, then, seeing a larger force swarming down through the garden, jumped across the track and crashed recklessly over the steep hillside, hurtling and slithyering to the rocky creek-bed far below, there to begin the long laborious climb back to regain 'C' Company's lines next morning. The other two members of the listening post, stationed some distance farther south - to keep him in sight and to keep themselves in view from our forward posts - seeing that he no longer needed their protection, raced back along the track and over the creek crossing already coming under enemy fire.

When Sword had left to join Simonson, Lieutenant Clarke had mustered a platoon from 'C' Company to stand by as next for duty. In the afternoon he had taken out his reconnainssance party of sectin-leaders and seconds-in-command to view the forward battle, and he was returning soon after five o'clock when he clashed with the Japanese force in the garden. His gallant band swept into a spontaneous charge that drove the enemy bakc in headlong flight. He and one of his men killed eight of the Japanese as they hunted them down through the long grass while the light lasted. by dusk they had cleared the whole garden, driving the surviving enemy back into the gloomy jungle without loss to themselves; and they returned in high spirits by way of the creek crossing which their prompt and vigorous action had made safe again.

On reaching their company lines they found new faces there. That morning Brigadier Potts of the 21st Brigade, now commanding Maroubra Force, had signalled 7th Division that the relief of the 39th Battalion by the 2/14th was to commence that day, part of his signal reading:

'Condition of the 39th Battalion men weak due continuous work lack warm clothing blankets shelter curtailed rations and wet every night.'

As a first step in the relief, Captain Dickenson's 'C' Company of the 2/14th, in the late afternoon, took over from 'C' Company of the 39th the right forward locality that included Isurava village and covered the Asigari track.

That night, more of the Japanese filtered through the timber to the line of the creek in front of 'E' Company while Simonson and Sword still barred the easier approach along the Deniki track. There in the dripping darkness the silent tide of the attackers flowed undetected round the defending posts. Then all hell broke loose as they stormed over the two staunch platoons, lurching round the gnarled tree-roots and leaping over the ambuscading pits, shooting, stabbing, hacking, in a sudden surge of blind and blazing fury that broke and ebbed back into the deep dark from which it sprang, leaving its jetsam of death stranded behind it. Our casualties - a few wounded, including Simonson - returnded to Isurava, the track having remained open since Clarke had cleared the garden.

But at first light on the 27th the enemy swarmed through the garden and the tree-hidden high ground across the creek from 'E' Company. The clearing of the morning mists was marked by the first shots in the long fire-fight that was to shatter the days and startle the nights till Isurava fell.; and it was impossible now for Clarke's platoon to cross the creek to relieve or reinforce the forward patrol. Sword reported his men in good heart and I instructed him to maintain his delaying role until his position should become untenable. As the day wore on and the enemy pressure increased around us I decided that Sword's men were needed more urgently at Isurava than down the track; but when I attempted to recall them - by way of the Eora valley - the signal line was dead; two-fifths of the battalion's fittest men were cut off.

Indeed, three-fifths of the fittest were now abandoned in that deep silence of the green mountains out beyond the strident chatter of machine-guns and the roar of exploding bombs; for Pentland had vanished into the forest with 'C' Company's most mobile troops on a mission ordered by Force headquarters. Potts, one of the most aggressive leaders of the A.I.F., had been first forced by a crippling lack of supply and then ordered by higher authority to remain on the defensive - to withhold his projected attack on Kokoda. But his keen military mind had never ceased the search for ways and means of reaching that objective. A few days earlier, at his request, the 39th had sent a reconnaissance patrol off on the three-hour climb from the garden beyond the front to the Naro ridge, and thence along the other side of that north-running supur to spy out the promised land - Kokoda. The following day the patrol had returned with the required route information and a panoramic sketch of the Kokoda area. Then, with the battle closing in on Isurava I was instructed to send a platoon of the 39th off on the same route as far as the juchtion of the westward track from the garden with the north-south Naro track, there to bar any enemy approach towards Alola. Pentland was not asked to fight his way through the Japnanese-filled garden, but filed straight up the hill from 'B' Company's lines on the high ground, cutting his way through the jungle to cross the creek higher up and swing round behind the besiegers on to the track to the Naro ridge.

Late in the morning of the 27th I received another order - to replace Pentland's patrol with a platoon from Dickenson's company, so that Pentland would not be left behind on the complete relief of the 39th by the 2/14th the following day. Lieutenant Davis, guided by the 39th's intelligence sergeant, Buchecker, attempted to lead this platoon out along the route pioneered by Pentland; but on the other side of the creek the patrol found the jungle alive with Japanese. They tried to fight their way through. One of Davis's men was killed. Davis himself was wounded and started to make his way back unassisted, but he must have been intercepted for he was never seen again.

In the meantime the gallant partnership of Earl and Shera, the 39th's chaplain and medical officer, hearing the louder noise of battle where they knew the patrol had gone, seized a stretcher and sallied out, unescorted, to give what aid they could. They found Buchecker with a shattered thigh, place him on the stretcher and carried him away from the fight, through the jungle, across the creek and down through our perimeter to safety. The leaderless patrol, unable to make any progress, also fough its way back, closely pressed by the enemy, who followed it over the creek and occupied the timber above 'B' Company.

Since early morning the Japanese had been probing at 'E' Company and the 2/14th's 'C' Company covering the front on either side of the Deniki track where it crossed the creek. 'E' Company was without its strongest men - out on the foward patrol. To replace them Sergeant Kerslake with the remainder of the 39th's 'C' Company - after Pentland's Naro patrol had gone - was posted in 'E' Company's reserve platoon with a counter-penetration role. At the same time Sergeant Murray's reserve platton of 'A' Company, the rear right company, became the battalion reserve, ready to rush to the assistance of 'E' 'B', or 'D' Companies holding the left flank from front to rear.

With the situation apparently well under control I went to the rear creek - outside the perimeter but our only water supply - for a wash and a shave. There were about half-a-dozen of us there, including Merritt. A breathless runner brought me a message that the enemy had broken into 'E' Company's position. I looked over at the unsuspectin Merritt. It seemed a pity to disturb him. 'Captain Merritt', I said, 'when you've finished your shave will you go to your company. The Japs have broken through your perimeter'. Merritt didn't appreciate the Drake touch. An astonished look hung for an instant on his half-shaved face; then it lifted like a starters's barrier and he was off like a racehorse.

Odd parties of the enemy were already bursting through the thinly-held timber to be shot down in the open; and wary-eyed messengers to and from 'B' and 'E' Companies were repeatedly running the headlong gauntlet of these intruding groups. Then, in the middle of the afternoon, the intermittent bombardment was suddenly intensified. As the precise Japanese diarist of No. 3 Battalion records it:

'At 1538 our guns all join it together and the attack and advance begins along the whole front.'

Mortar bombs and mountain-gun shells burst among the tree-tops or slashed through to the quaking earth where the thunder of their explosion was magnified in the close confines of the jungle thickets. Heavy maching-guns - the dread 'wood-peckers' - chopped through the trees, cleaving their own lanes of fire to tear at the defences. Ans while bombs and bullets crashed and rettled in an unceasing clamour that re-echoed from the affrighted hills, the enveloping forest erupted into violent action as Nippon's screaming warriors streamed out of its shadows to the assault. No pygmy figures of fun thes, but hardy men of war - tall veterans of unflinching valour and powerful physique, trained in the mountains of their homeland and the jungles of the East for just such desperate warfare as they waged this day.

Across the creek they swept in a swift thrust that sliced through 'E' Company's thin front line, cut off Dalby's left platoon and a section of the right platoon and, swarming behind them, forced them forward out of their posts. Through the widening breach poured another flood of the attackers to swirl round the remainder of the right platoon from the rear. They were me with Bren-gun and Tommy-gun, with bayonet and grenade; but still they came, to close with the buffet of fist and boot and rifle-butt, the steel of crashing helmets and of straining, strangling fingers. In this vicious fighting, man to man and hand to hand, Merritt's men were in imminent peril of annhilation. But two quick counter-attacks turned that furious tide. Kerslake's counter-penetration platoon drove out the enemy breaking through the gap and closed it against further in-roads. Murray's mobile reserve raced up to recapture Dalby's position and was immediately successful. the intruders were hurled back towards the creek, but the relentless conflict in the shadows went on through the waning afternoon until, at nightfall, contact was re-established with Dalby's lost platoon which, encircled and outnumbered, had gallantly carried on the fight.

To the left 'B' Company was reeling under ever heavier blows. Its forward platoons had occupied advanced positions near the timber edge to obtain some cover from it and to force the infiltration Japanese deeper into the denser forest; but the violence of the enemy onset pressed them back to a better line prepared slightly to the rear to give them more open killing space on an occasion such as this. There they held, fighting bagnificently, while the enemy came on in reckless waves, regardless of the casualties that soon cluttered that short stretch of open ground.

Through the long hours to sunset French's men became familiar with the vocal routine employed by the Japanese in launching their attacks from thick cover. A platoon or company attack was heralded by a shouted order from the rear , echoed by subordinat commanders farther forward, and then succeeded by a wave of noisy chattering right along the front, almost as if the men in the leading sections were assuring each other that they were all starting out together to die. And as the chatter ceased they crashed from their concealment, leaping to the attack in a co-ordinated line.

In a larger-scale attack, by two or more companies, a system of chanting the orders forward from the rear was used, apparently with secitons emerging from the forest in which they could hear but could not see each other. Away in the distance a powerful voice chanted an order of half-a-dozen to a dozen words. Somewhat nearer, three or four voices were loudly lifted together in similar half-sung phrases; and on a closer, wider line a dozen junior commanders took up the refrain in unison. Thenright along the gront the final, urgent order rose from half a hundred throats, to be followed by the impressive sight of the serried ranks of Nippon, rushing to their doom. As they were mown down and it became apparent that to fight on would result only in heavier losses, the news somehow filtered back into the forest. From its dark recesses a clear bugle call rung out, and the suviving attackers turned and vanished into their jungle fastness as swiftly as they had come.

These incessant assaults were slowly sapping 'B' Company's strength - and at the end of the day, when the heaviest attack of all rolled in over French's men, their endurance was stretched almost to breaking-popint. Lieutenant Garland, their second-in-command, reported that they were unlikely to hold much longer unless reinforced. I have him a message for French that he would have hold - there was only battalion headquarters behind hem. But in the light of the enemy's obviously superior strength I reconginsed that it would be only a matter of time before our small garrison was overrun - in the evening, the night, or next morning. there was only one source of quick reinforcement to forestall disaster.

In the middle of the afternood Captain Nye had arrived with 'B' Company of the 2/14th, not to strengthen the defenders but with orders to push through to relieve Pentland on the Naro track. Davis had already found Pentland's route through French's lines impassable, so Nye's company started to cut its way west through jungle bordering the creek to the rear of our perimeter. It was with considerable misgiving that I watched this formidable force march out of our lines just as the big offensive was commencing. When 'B' Company was so sorely pressed at sunset I resolved to recall Nye if he could still be reached. Fortunatley the jungle was so thick that two hours of laborious slashing had not taken the head of his column more than a couple of hundred yards - his rear troops were hardly off the track.

They quickly returned to take part in the fight and I do not remember anything more heartening than the sight of their confident deployment. Their splendid phusique and bearing, and their cool automatic efficiency - even the assembly-line touch as two platoon mortar-men stepped one on either side of the track to pluck bombs from the haversacks of the riflemen filing past them without checking their pace - made a lasting impression on me. And they were to prove even better than they looked.

I sent their first platoon to strengthen 'E' Company's left, and the second to 'D' Company's right to close the pincers from either flank on the enemy still endangering 'B' Company; and the pressure had already eased when the third platoon was placed under French's command. It was dark by the time the three strengthened companies had consolidated their positions, and the firing died away to a silence that seemed strangely eerie after the twelve-hour tumult. And the peace of the night was broken only by an occasional stealthy foray - as when one of Dickenson's men was bayoneted without seeing his assailant.

The 28th - the third day of the Isurava battle - dawned with the 39th full of confidence and hope. the day of the long-awaited relief had arrived - a week late but the more welcome for that. And strong reinforcements had marched in to ensure the rescue of the 200 sick and weary men to which the battalion had been reduced. Captain Cameron's 'D' Company of the 2/14th had come in the previous evening and now took over 'E' Company's sector, Merrit's two platoons digging in on its left to link with 'B' Company. Nye's three separated platoons were reunited under his operational command and relieved French's men who moved to the left to cover Bidstrup's right flank in place of Sword's missing platoon.

There were already four times as many men holding our front and flanks as there had been the previous day; and when 'A' Company arrived it was possible for the first time to provide a powerful reserve. So Isurava seemed secure when Lirutenant-Colonel Key of the 2/14th marched in at midday and took command, relieving the 39th which was due to leave for Port Moresby. But I told Key I considered the holding of Isurava against the strenght of the enemy had shown the previous day would need more than one battalion and I would not leave him in the lurch. The two of us then convinced Potts that the 39th must be allowed to stay and fight.

The 39th retained responsibility for only the quiet rear-half of the perimeter, Merritt's company being withdrawn from its front sector and placed in reserve. From this day forward the story and the golory of Isurava belong overwhelmingly to the gallant 2/14th. They estimated that by nightfall on the 28th they had infliced 350 casualties on the enemy; and a Japanese officer wrote in his diary:

'The enemy is gradually being outflanked; but his resistance is very strong and our casualties great. The outcome of the battle is difficult to foresee.'

On the 29th the Japanese commander, concerned about his losses and the dealy to his plans - Isurava should have been taken and its defenders annihilated three days earlier - thre two more battalions into the attack. All day long the noise of battle rolled across the front and ever deeper around the flanks. And, in the slow fading of the agternoon, up our of the Eora valley rose a desperate assault - right to the smoking muzzles of the guns of 'A' Company of the 39th and 'C' Company of the 2/14th. For an anxious time, as heavy fire cracked about my ears where I waited, ready, in in my weapon pit behind 'A' Company, it seemed that the Japanese might burst through; but their exhausting climb had taken some of the fire out of them and the dogged resistance did the rest - they were thrown back, defeated, into the valley.

But the enemy had broken through at the front and, to prevent further penetration along the main track, Key had been forced to commit all his reserves - parts of 'A' Company, Headquarters Company, and Battalion Headquarters of the 2/14th, and 'E' Company of the 39th. It was in the desperate fighting here that Kingsbury, dying, won undying praise.

With Isurava so hard-pressed, Potts ordered 'C' Company of the 53rd Battalion, which had been resting at Alola for some twelve days, to go forward to provide Key with a fresh reserve. But it never reached Isurava. Half-way there, at Isurava Rest House, it grew weary of the march and decided to go not farther.

Fortunately there were men of sterner stuff about. Into Alola, along the track from Naro, marched a scarecrow crew of haggard, hungry men. Simonson's and Sword's platoons had been out for four days. After a long day and a night and another day of battle, with the enemy cutting them off from Isurava and their telephone line severed, they had fought their way up the mountain-side, across the path of the advancing Japanese, to join Pentland's platoon on the Naro ridge. It was a murderous climb, the sharp scrub tearing their uniforms and their hands and hides, and the rocky outcrops cutting the boots from their lacerated feet. Pentland's men were in not much better shape - they had been forced to cut a path through the jungle for the first part of their climb. When they had not been relieved on the second day, as arranged, or even on the third day, hunger had forced the three platoons to retire to Alola. A corporal of the 2/16th told me afterwards, 'It was enough to make a many weep to see those poor skinny bastards hobble in on their bleeding feet'. They were greeted with the news that the 39th and the 2/14th were fighting for their lives. Without a word, or a thought for the food their stomachs craved, they turned and huttied off to Isurava as fast as their crippled feet could carry them.

There were other hearts in frail frames at Alola. When, on the 27th, the complete relief of the 39th was ordered for the following day, I had sent back, under Lieutenant Johnston, the weakest of the battalion's sick to have them one stage ahead of the long march to Moresby - they were too feeble for the fast-moving fighting expected at the front. But they, too, learnt of the plight of their comrades at Isurava; and all who could walk spontaneously volunteered to return to battle. Johnston must have had very mixed feelings as he led his weak and tottering cohort of the crippled and the sick past the reluctant 53rd company reclining in peaceful unconcern beside the track at the rest house.

Unprepared for such an apparition, I was surprosed to see a grimy, bearded figure leading in a tattered line at twilight. I did not recognise him till he saluted and announced: 'Sword, Sir, reporting in from patrol'. There was more than mere formality in my answering salute. Pentland and his gaunt gang were with him, too; and then came the pale Johnston and the last stumbling reinforcement of the stout-hearted sick - fit for the hospital, yet worthy of Valhalla. Key had a reserve again.

All day his men had fought like heroes, and at night they stood ringed by a scattered rampart of the enemy dead. but it was a narrowing rampart. Bitterly had they constested every minute of that day-long battle and every yard of that desperate battlefield, causing the enemy another 550 casualties; but they had lost vital ground on the left, and faced the prospect of annhilation if they tried to cling to Isurava which was now worth nothing in itself. The enemy could be delayed and destroyed on another line.

That night the two battalions moved back to new positions at Isurava Rest House, and the next morning the 39th's sick were again sent off, leaving the battalion 150 strong. the first Japanese onslaught - again from the high ground on the west - fell on French's 'B' Company, its good name now restored but its strength depleted to only thirteen men. Its forward posts of three men each were overrun and their defenders all killed, but they went down fighting, checking the enemy long enough to enable the remainder of the company to hold them till Symington's 'A' Company was rushed up to beat off the attack. the 39th came under heavy fire in two more attacks before the withdrawal of the whole force in the late afternoon.

After such a sustained and valiant effort that withdrawal was a heart-breaking experience - a back-breaking one, too, for the tired troops struggling and slipping and falling through the darkness as they climed 'on with toil of hear and knees and hands thro' the gorge' under the added burden of the wounded they carried on rough litters, built from poles and vines - concerned, in the extremity of their exhaustion, only for the broken bodies of those in worse straits than themselves.

The 39th had only one more fight in the mountains - on September 1st, when it covered the withdrawal of Maroubra Force across Eora Creek. Half the battalion, which had been spread out on the other side ot hold the Japanese back, lost only one man wounded in the final perilous crossing of the creek under the covering fire of the other companies. Then the 39th provided long-range left flank protection for the Force until, in the late afternoon of the 5th, it handed over its positions at Efogi to the newly-arriving 2/27th and started off at last on its march to Moresby.

As it left, Potts sent a message of appreciation for the splendid service the 39th had given under his command. From the inspiring leader of a magnificent brigade this was a valued tribute, and I passed it on at my first battalioin parade, at Menari, the next morning. As I glanced along the steady lines of pallid and emaciated men with sunken eyes and shrunken frames that testified to the hardships they had long endured, I saw no hangdog look - only the proud bearing of tired veterans who had looked death and disaster in the face, and had not failed.

Published in the Australian Army Journal, 1967