page_title: Australian Army during World War II
section_title: Papuan campaign
hierarchical_section_title: Australian Army during World War II / Campaigns / Papuan campaign
caption_attribution_description: English: 1943-01-07. PAPUA, GIROPA POINT. MEMBERS OF 2/12TH INFANTRY BATTALION ADVANCE AS GENERAL STUART M3 LIGHT TANKS MANNED BY B SQUADRON, 2/6TH ARMOURED REGIMENT, BLAST JAPANESE PILLBOXES IN THE FINAL ASSAULT ON BUNA. NOTE MACHINE GUN ON TANK CLEARING TREETOPS OF SNIPERS BY SYSTEMATIC SPRAYING OF TREES AS THE INFANTRY MOVES FORWARD. THIS TANK, IN ONE MORNING'S FIGHTING, FIRED 10,000 ROUNDS OF MACHINE GUN AMMUNITION. THE PHOTOGRAPH WAS TAKEN DURING ACTUAL FIGHTING. NEAREST THE TANK IS CORPORAL G. G. FLETCHER, AND NEXT TO THE TREE (CENTRE) CORPORAL M. D. CROKER. (NEGATIVE BY GEORGE SILK).
context_page_description: The Australian Army was the largest service in the Australian military during World War II. Prior to the outbreak of war the Australian Army was split into the small full-time Permanent Military Forces and the larger part-time Militia. Following the outbreak of war, on 14 September 1939 Prime Minister Robert Menzies announced that 40,000 members of the Militia would be called up for training and a 20,000-strong expeditionary force, designated the Second Australian Imperial Force, would be formed for overseas service. Meanwhile, conscription was introduced in October 1939 to keep the Militia at strength as its members volunteered for the AIF. The Australian Army subsequently made an important contribution to the Allied campaigns in the Mediterranean, the Middle East and North Africa fighting the Germans, Italians and Vichy French during 1940 and 1941, and later in the jungles of the South West Pacific Area fighting the Japanese between late 1941 and 1945. Following the Japanese surrender Australian Army units were deployed as occupation forces across the South West Pacific. Meanwhile, the Army contributed troops to the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in Japan from 1946.
context_section_description: Japanese forces first landed on the mainland of New Guinea on 8 March 1942 when they invaded Lae and Salamaua to secure bases for the defence of the important base they were developing at Rabaul. In response, Australian guerrillas from the New Guinea Volunteer Rifles established observation posts around the Japanese beachheads and the 2/5th Independent Company successfully raided Salamaua on 29 June. After the Battle of the Coral Sea frustrated the Japanese plan to capture Port Moresby via an amphibious landing, they attempted to capture the town by landing Major General Tomitarō Horii's South Seas Force at Buna on the north coast of Papua and advancing overland using the Kokoda Track to cross the rugged Owen Stanley Range. The Kokoda Track campaign began on 22 July when the Japanese began their advance, opposed by an ill-prepared Militia brigade designated "Maroubra Force". This force was successful in delaying the South Seas Force but was unable to halt it.
  In late August and early September 1942 Australian forces at Milne Bay inflicted the first notable land defeat of the war upon the Japanese. After the Japanese landed a unit of Special Naval Landing Forces to capture the airbases that the Allies had established in the area, two brigades of Australian troops—the Militia 7th and AIF 18th—designated "Milne Force", supported by two RAAF fighter squadrons and US Army engineers, launched a counter-attack. Outnumbered, lacking supplies and suffering heavy casualties, the Japanese were forced to withdraw. The victory helped raise Allied morale across the Pacific Theatre, especially on the Kokoda Track where the Japanese had continued to make progress throughout August.
  On 26 August two AIF battalions from the 7th Division reinforced the remnants of Maroubra Force but the Japanese continued to advance along the Kokoda Track and by 16 September they reached the village of Ioribaiwa near Port Moresby.  After several weeks of exhausting fighting and heavy losses, the Japanese troops were within 32 kilometres (20 mi) of Port Moresby. Yet supply problems made any further advance impossible, and the Japanese began to fear an Allied counter-landing at Buna. Following reverses at the hands of US forces on Guadalcanal the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters decided they could not support fronts on both New Guinea and Guadalcanal. Horii was subsequently ordered to withdraw his troops on the Kokoda Track until the issue at Guadalcanal was decided.
  After this, the Australian forces were heavily reinforced by the 7th Division's 21st and 25th Brigades. Supported logistically by native Papuans who were recruited by the Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit, often forcibly, to carry supplies and evacuate wounded personnel, the Australians pursued the Japanese back along the Kokoda Track. In early November, they had been forced into a small bridgehead on the north coast of Papua. Australian and US forces attacked the Japanese bridgehead in Papua in late November 1942. The Allied force consisted of the exhausted 7th Division and the inexperienced and ill-trained US 32nd Infantry Division, and was short of artillery and supplies. Due to a lack of supporting weapons and MacArthur and Blamey's insistence on a rapid advance the Allied tactics during the battle were centred on infantry assaults on the Japanese fortifications. These resulted in heavy casualties and the area was not secured until 22 January 1943.
  Throughout the fighting in Papua, most of the Australian personnel captured by Japanese troops were murdered. In response, for the remainder of the war Australian soldiers generally did not attempt to capture Japanese personnel and aggressively sought to kill their Japanese opponents including some that had surrendered. Following the defeats in Papua and Guadalcanal the Japanese withdrew to a defensive perimeter in the Territory of New Guinea. Meanwhile, during the fighting in 1942–43 the Australian Army increasingly developed a tactical superiority over the Japanese in jungle warfare.
  The Papuan campaign led to a significant reform 
caption: Australian Stuart light tanks and infantry in action at Buna.
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