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Originally Posted by Racoon
...Does anyone have any cool tidbits on WWII??
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Not many folks even know about the Buna Campaign in Papua New Guinea.
My father was there, just outside the town of Port Moresby on the southern side of PNG, in the eastern "tail" of that huge island. Down the "spine" of that tail runs the Owen Stanley mountains--they are compression ridge mountains, some of the highest and "ridgiest" in the world. On the northern side of the island was the village of Buna.
On maps held by both the Japanese and the British, there was marked a light wiggly line that connected Buna on the north coast to Port Moresby on the south coast. Both parties assumed this marked a road through the mountains. Both parties were dead, freakin' wrong!!! It came from hand scribbled notes from a missionary a century earlier. It was a foot path.
The Japanese landed massively at Buna with artillery, trucks and arms designed for mountain travel. They were totally unprepared for what they found. The "road" went straight up 45 degree cliffs to peaks where the night time temps were around freezing--then went straight down 45 degree cliffs to valleys with 110 degree heat, 100% humidity, dense jungle, raging cataract streams, and buggy-bitey thingies that would kill you before you hit the ground.
Then you repeat over the next hogback ridge. And the next. And the next... They took apart their trucks and weapons and pulled them up and let them down on ropes. Pulled them up, let them down.
Meanwhile, General McArthur using Brit maps, send Americans and Australians into Port Moresby and up the "road" into the jungly mountains to meet the Japanese. They soon faced the same freakin' problems!!! The Japs and the Brits lost upward of 80% of their troops, mostly to disease, bugs, snakes, cataracts and falls. Men went crazy, screaming into the jungle never to be found again. There was no road. It was just a native footpath.
Finally, the Japanese cut their loses and retreated to Buna. The British and Americans finally landed on the
north beach and defeated them at ungodly high losses--The Allies lost maybe three to one. Many casualties were flown over the Owen Stanley mountains to the Seven Mile airstrip just inland from Port Moresby. There, my father, Johnnie Finch Thompson, was a medic in the American field hospital unit. And did he
ever bring home some stories...
WWII: How Close Were We?
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