How did a friendly fire incident occur between Charlie company, 2/14th and Battalion HQ during the battle of Isurava? This episode, look at the factors that lead to the tragic incident that occurred during the Battle of Isurava. The incident occurred during the
It turned what had been an orderly withdrawal in contact into a ‘shambles’. A critical turning point in the battle, and yet it is rarely mentioned in the classic books on the Kokoda Campaign.
The episode discusses –
1. How good were the maps the Australians had at Isurava?
Maps are critical for navigating and for understanding the tactical implications of the terrain on which battel will occur. At Isurava, there was remarkably little available as far as topographical information goes. This is the first contributing factor for the friendly fire incident. The Company Commander would have struggle to orientate himself to the ground and the tactical situation as he attempted to fulfill his orders to conduct an attack on the Japanese attempting to infiltrate the position.
The comparison above highlights the inadequacy of the mapping. There is no track leading to Abuari, which was the route that the Japanese attempted to use to cut the Australians off from their withdrawal route. The Japanese had much better maps, having bought them in Canberra and Port Moresby before the war.
2. How was the 2/14th prepared for combat in Papua?
There was no training in the actual Jungle. The War Diaries of the 2/16th and 2/14th talk about close country exercises. The war diary also mentions the Training Memorandum from lessons learnt from Malaya. This is probably the document prepared by MAJGEN Bennett, which was very superficially and mostly of little use.
3. How much experience did they have in operating in the jungle?
There was little experience in Jungle Fighting, however, the 21st BDE was very experienced in desert combat, having performed very well in the Middle East. The dire nature of the Kokoda campaign meant that the troops were given no time to acclimatise and conduct mission specific training – critically learning to live, patrol and fight in the Jungle. Critically, jungle warfare doctrine had not been developed, as none of the lessons from Malaya had been systematically captured and synthesised into training material for the Brigades. Our mini-series with Dr Adrian Threlfall looks at how Jungle Warfare doctrine was developed in the Australian Army and how the Jungle Warfare Training Centre at Canungra was founded – important steps in the development of the Army’s jungle warfare fighting capability.
LTCOL Key was commissioned the militia in 1927 and served in the 52nd Battalion. After the war began, he was seconded to 17th BDE HQ and joined the 2nd AIF on the 1st of November 1939. He attended the Middle East Tactical School Course and the Middle East Combined Training Centre Course before promoting to temporary LTCOL on the 14th of January, 1942 when he took command of the 2/14th. He returned to Australia from the Middle East in March 1942 and was briefly seconded to 21st BDE HQ, before returning as CO of the 2/14th.
A tragic incident, with dire ramifications for the Battalion, which was no fault of anyone within the Battalion. The 2/14th Battalion was a combat proven Battalion, having fought at Tobruk, Syria and Lebanon. They deserved better preparation for the vastly different conditions of Jungle Warfare.
To read more about Friendly Fire incidents, read LTCOL Robert Stevenson’s Not so Friendly Fire: An Australian Taxonomy for Fratricide.
