Bolstered by the arrival of the 53rd Infantry Battalion in early August, Maroubra Force then successfully fought to delay the Japanese advance through the Owen Stanley Range, before being reinforced by Second Australian Imperial Force troops from the 21st Brigade and finally halting the Japanese around Ioribaiwa. The 25th Brigade, later reinforced by the 16th Brigade, then pursued the Japanese north from Ioribaiwa as the Japanese withdrew back to their beachheads at Buna, Gona and Sanananda on the Papuan north coast. Within sources dealing with the fighting in New Guinea, Maroubra Force remains an enigmatic entity. While authors such as Eustace Keogh, Brune and McCarthy largely fall silent on the formation after the Battle of Ioribaiwa in mid-September, Chant states that Maroubra Force later participated in the fighting around Gona. Nevertheless, the last mention of the Maroubra codename in the New Guinea Force Headquarters War Diary appears on 28 October.