I have always been annoyed by the widespread impression that ‘the Japs got within 30 miles of Moresby before they were stopped.’ The Japanese did get within 30 miles of Moresby – but in such numbers, with such equipment and such forlorn hope of support and supply that they might just as well have been within 300 miles of it. Their halting near the village of Eoribaiwa [Ioribaiwa] was not a feat of defence. It was a law of nature. The Owen-Stanley range, trumpeted as ‘impenetrable’, proved impenetrable – at least for sufficient troops, artillery and supplies to attack a strongly held garrison area.
Similarly, I have always been annoyed by the prevailing belief that the Australian troops rallied magnificently and, beating the Jap at his own game, fought their way inch by inch back to Kokoda and eventually to Buna, Gona and Sanananda, in the face of desperate opposition. The Australian soldier needs no fictions nor propaganda to justify him as a fighting man.
The Japanese fell back through the range from Eoribaiwa [Ioribaiwa] because their efforts to establish supply were doomed to failure from the start. They fell back because they were exhausted, diseased and starving. They had no combat air support, no artillery except a few mountain guns hauled in pieces up and down muddy precipices, no transport planes to drop them food.