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The Battle for Isurava : Fighting in the clouds of the Owen Stanley 1942

‘You are trying to survive, shirt torn, arse out of your pants, whiskers a mile long, hungry … you carry your boots because there’s no skin on your feet. But when you look around at some of the others – hell! They look crook! … you dig a number of holes in the ground and bury your dead. Nothing would be said, but you think ‘maybe it will be my turn next’.

Within 24 hours of the Japanese invasion of northern New Guinea at Gona in July 1942, the Australian militiamen of ‘B’ Company, 39th Battalion, spent four weeks fighting a delaying action against a crack Japanese force outnumbered by three to one. By mid-August, the rest of the battalion had arrived, and these men took up a position at Isurava, in the heart of the cloud covered mountains and jungles of the Owen Stanley Range.

The battle for Isurava would be the defining battle of the Kokoda Campaign and has rightfully been described as Australia’s Thermopylae. It was here that Australia’s first Victoria Cross in the Pacific war was awarded when the Japanese conducted several ferocious attacks against the Australian perimetre.

The outnumbered and poorly equipped Australians managed to hold back the Japanese advance for almost a week; only then did these battle scared and weary men begin a month long fighting withdraw towards Ioribaiwa Ridge just north of Port Morsby. However, their sacrifice provided time for the Australian 25th Brigade to be brought forward — finally forcing the Japanese to withdrawal just as they glimpsed the lights of Port Morseby.

Using diaries, letters and other first-hand accounts and following on from The Battles for Kokoda Plateau, leading military historian David W Cameron continues his detailed and riveting account of the war in the Owen Stanleys in 1942.


Author:

  • David W. Cameron

Narrator:

  • Steve Shanahan

Format:

  • Audiobook

Duration:

  • 14 h 57 min

Language:

English

Categories:

  • History
  • Military history

More by David W. Cameron

Skip the list
  1. Saving Port Moresby : Fighting at the end of the Kokoda Track

    David W. Cameron

    audiobook
  2. Retaking Kokoda : The Battles for Templeton's Crossing, Eora Creek and the Oivi-Gorari positions

    David W. Cameron

    audiobook
  3. The Battles for Kokoda Plateau

    David W. Cameron

    audiobook

  • 4 books

    David W. Cameron

    David W. Cameron completed his PhD in 1995 and was subsequently awarded an Australian Research Council (ARC) Post Doctoral Fellowship at the Australian National University, followed by an ARC QEII Fellowship at the University of Sydney. He has published a number of books on Australian military history and science and over sixty research papers in internationally peer reviewed journals. David's passion for recording the overarching history of Gallipoli has resulted in six books on the subject. He is also internationally known as an expert on primate and human evolution and has a degree in both archaeology and palaeoanthropology. David was born in 1961 in Darlinghurst and grew up in Bondi before moving to Campbelltown in the early 1970’s when it was still a ‘town’. He graduated with 1st Class Honours from the University of Sydney (Prehistory) in 1989 and with a PhD from the Australian National University (Palaeoanthropology) in 1995. He was formerly an Australian Research Council QEII Fellow at the Department of Anatomy & Histology at the University of Sydney. He has conducted numerous international archaeological and paleoanthropological excavations in Europe, Middle East and Asia. David is married with three children (and two dogs).

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