Kokoda Track campaign
In General Sir Thomas Blamey's reorganisation of the Australian Army in April 1942, Fairley was appointed director of medicine at Allied Land Forces Headquarters (LHQ) in Melbourne. Fairley was soon facing a series of medical emergencies caused by the Kokoda Track campaign. An epidemic of bacillary dysentery was headed off by Fairley's decision to rush all available supplies of sulphaguanadine to New Guinea. On Fairley's advice every man who complained of diarrhoea was given the drug and the epidemic was brought under control in ten days.