Attack on the Black Cat Track. Max Carmichael
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in the Huon Gulf region, the battalion had been placed in various locations, watching and reporting all they saw. However, it was in no position to offer any serious resistance to the determined and well-trained Japanese. As a result, when the Japanese invasion force arrived at Salamaua the NGVR group in location could do little but destroy some installations and supplies before making a hasty withdrawal inland, leaving the Japanese in complete control of the village.
The threat posed by the Japanese presence at Salamaua had not been overlooked by Allied command. However, in March 1942 the defence of Port Moresby, Japanese landings at Milne Bay and their advance along the Kokoda Track were assessed as being the greater threat. As a result, troops could not be spared to reinforce the NGVR.
For the next two months the NGVR continued watching and reporting Japanese activity. It was not until May, after the Allied naval victory at the Coral Sea, that Allied command could finally afford to pay the Salamaua area of operations any additional attention. The force earmarked to address the Japanese presence at Salamaua was titled ‘Kanga Force’.
Kanga Force was raised in April 1942, and was comprised of the 1st and 2/5th Independent Companies. These were commando units and had a combined total strength of around 500 officers and men. Commando units were designed for small-scale operations behind enemy lines, but for the Salamaua campaign Kanga Force was to be deployed in a more conventional infantry role. For this task Kanga Force was reinforced with approximately 200 soldiers from the NGVR, making a total force of around 700.
In late May 1942, the two commando companies of Kanga Force were flown in to Wau to link up with their NGVR elements. Almost as soon as the commandos landed at Wau, Kanga Force began operating against the Japanese in the Salamaua region. It was an unequal contest. Allied command at this stage of the war estimated the Japanese had a force of around 2000 soldiers at Lae, and a further 250 troops as a garrison force at Salamaua. Kanga Force was soon to reassess this estimation of the enemy presence to include a further 1000 Japanese troops at the village of Mubo.
By August 1942, the Japanese had landed more men and supplies at Salamaua, and Kanga Force withdrew to Wau, from where they continued to harass the Japanese. The Australian soldiers who took part in this campaign soon began to see themselves as ‘forgotten men’. They were fighting the same brave and determined enemy that faced other Australians at Kokoda and Milne Bay, but they were receiving a fraction of the support afforded to those campaigns. War photographer Damien Parer tried his hardest to publicise their plight, but while he did achieve a measure of public awareness, he also created some controversy when his newspaper published a photograph taken from a hidden Australian observation post that overlooked Japanese positions. The photograph compromised the Australian post and resulted in Japanese attacks against it. Parer’s other efforts to bring the campaign to the attention of Allied command were unsuccessful, and Kanga Force continued its lonely campaign.
As the Japanese probed inland toward Wau, the Black Cat Track became the scene of numerous clashes with the Australians. The soldiers of both sides, and the local carriers who supported them, soon found that the track had not softened with age. The same conditions that had bedevilled pre-war prospectors now presented an additional major stress to the already stressful occupation of war. Aside from the actions of the enemy, the weight of equipment requirements, combined with the climatic and geographic conditions, became a major operational factor. The soldiers carried their weapons, sufficient ammunition for immediate use, and other equipment, a total weight of around approximately thirty kilos. The carriers laboured under loads that were often over fifty kilos. These working conditions, combined with an almost constant lack of food (both sides prioritised the carriage of ammunition), weakened the men and slowed movement for Australian and Japanese alike. An average rate of advance for a patrol was about five to six kilometres per day.
During the course of the battle, communications between fighting units and their commanders was a vital aspect to both the Australians and the Japanese. However, the geographic and climatic conditions adversely affected the communication systems employed by both sides, creating constant command and control issues. Radio communications were uncertain at best, making tactical coordination difficult, often impossible. Both sides were frequently reduced to the use of ‘runners’ to carry information from one group to another, a means that was open to disruption by enemy action. Under these conditions Kanga Force and the Japanese conducted an almost private vicious war of attrition. The way this struggle was fought would only be changed by events far away from the Black Cat Track.
In light of the various setbacks suffered by Japanese forces, Japanese high command had devised a revised strategy. This strategy aimed to preserve Japanese conquests and to provide an outer defence to the Japanese home lands. Pivotal to this strategy was their positions in New Guinea, where they controlled significant areas to the north of the Owen Stanley Range and west of the mountains to the coast region of Morobe. Under this new strategy the capture of Wau was essential to Japanese plans, and as a result Kanga Force was identified as a major threat and was to be destroyed.
Throughout the campaign both sides had been faced with a similar dilemma, that of logistic supply. However, as the Japanese intentions for Wau developed, the issue of logistic supply became a critical element for success.
The Australians were totally reliant on a difficult and dangerous air supply route across the Owen Stanley Range. This route was subject to interruption by Japanese fighter aircraft, and more regularly by weather conditions over the Owen Stanleys. The Japanese, on the other hand, placed their reliance on the sea. They sent convoys of ships bearing reinforcements and materiel from Rabaul bound for Lae and Salamaua. These convoys were subject to merciless Allied air attacks. In a series of engagements that were to have a dramatic influence on the outcome of the battle for Wau, these convoys were either defeated in detail, or suffered such loss that the cargo they were able to deliver was unable to sustain the force detailed to attack Wau and to destroy Kanga Force. It was during the battle for the convoys that an event took place that was to add further mystique to the Black Cat Track.
On 8 January 1943, a United States Air Force B-17E Flying Fortress aircraft piloted by Lieutenant Ray Dau was engaged on a bombing mission against a Japanese convoy near Lae. As Dau’s aircraft commenced its bombing run it was hit by anti-aircraft fire, and then attacked by enemy fighter aircraft. Several of Dau’s crew were wounded in these attacks and the aircraft’s engines damaged. Losing height, Dau piloted his damaged craft toward Wau, however he was forced to crash-land on the side of a mountain in the Wau valley. The aircraft broke its back on impact and every member of the crew suffered injury — two of the members were critically injured and later died. Luckily, the crash had been seen by the Australian troops at Wau and a rescue mission was successfully mounted, the surviving airmen then evacuated to Port Moresby. The Australians salvaged the aircraft’s .50 calibre machine guns and added them to the defences at the Wau airstrip. The remainder of the wreck was abandoned.
It was shortly after Dau’s crash-landing that the Japanese began to martial its forces to advance on Wau. This activity placed Kanga Force in a situation that was beyond its capabilities to manage, a fact that was quickly recognised by New Guinea Force Headquarters. Orders were issued to reinforce the beleaguered force.
The AIF’s 17th Brigade, veterans of the campaigns in the Middle East and Greece, were ordered to deploy to Wau to counter the Japanese advance. Time was of the essence, so to ensure the Brigade arrived in time to affect the course of the battle, it was decided they should be deployed by air from Port Moresby directly to Wau. The Japanese had considered that an air move was an option for the Allies, but believed that such a deployment was beyond their enemy’s capability. This assessment was incorrect, but only just.
The operational aim of the Allies New Guinea Command for the air deployment was to deliver the AIF’s 17th Brigade group of infantry and artillery soldiers with their equipment and supplies into Wau, and to evacuate the wounded to Port Moresby.3 However, due to competing priorities, only fourteen C-47 Dakota transport aircraft were allocated to the 17th Brigade’s task. As the load capacity of the C-47 Dakota was about twenty-seven men with their weapons and personal equipment, or 4500 kilograms of cargo, deploying a brigade of approximately 2000 men with fourteen aircraft was a major challenge.
Using a shuttle service between Port Moresby