VERY HARD CAMPAIGN.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXII, Issue 296, 13 November 1942, Page 5

VERY HARD CAMPAIGN.

“I have spoken with the Australian soldiers who carried the war through the New Guinea hell country across the Owen Stanley Ranges and into tho enemy’s camps,” writes tho American United Press correspondent in New Guinea. “These men are still stained with slimy sludge. Their leather-tanned grim faces have marks which will hover wash away.” Delayed accounts of the fighting that culminated in the capture of Kokoda are now reaching Australia. The Australians reached Kokoda bearded, long haired, desperately tired, but still full of fight. For two months they had eaten only bully beef and biscuit. Once for five days the? lived on emergency rations. So close did the advance guard keep on the heels of the retreating Japanese that to have lighted fires for hot meals wou.d have disclosed their position to tho enemy. They possessed only tho clothes they wore. Their packs held just a ground-sheet, half a blanket and a messtin. Many soldiers discarded the luxury of toilet gear early in the campaign. Kokoda gave the first fresh meat, bread and vegetables in all the weary weeks of fighting. Here the Australian troops found a' Japanese memorial stake commemorating the first big batt’.o. for this important strategic base. It indicated that the main enemy force had been engaged there. The dropping of supplies by Allied planes ou to the Kokoda landing strip has eased considerably the supply problems of the Ausjtyalians. who are now fighting under better conditions than at any earlier stage of the campaign. A tribute to their courage was paid today by an American war correspondent, who writes: “I marvel that human endurance could _ conquer this country afoot, often in single file, against a formidable enemy. For instance, around Templeton’s crossing, where the last bitter hand-to-hand fighting occurred, the area is a geographical spider web, with the Japanese spider waiting, to pounce on its victims at every turn.”