Most of the writing, lessons and history of the Kokoda Trail campaign focuses on the combat. This episode continues our miniseries looking at the planning considerations for providing health support for sick and wounded soldiers.
Casualty evacuation in reverse
Because senior planners hoped to recapture Kokoda’s airstrip quickly, the initial medical concept was to send casualties forward to Kokoda for air‑lift rather than back along the tortuous track. When the Japanese held the airfield, wounded men were forced to wait close to the front until stretcher‑bearers and Papuan carriers could haul them rearward under fire—often days later. To what degree was this wishful thinking, relying on the only plan that could be logistically supported?
Jungle surgery on the move
Doctors such as Capt “Doc” Vernon and Capt Shearer performed everything a modern hospital would—amputations, chest drains, morphine infusions—but in mosquito‑infested scrub, sometimes within and mortar rifle range. Like many Australian soldiers, they improvised – bully‑beef tins became kidney bowls, helmets became bedpans, and bamboo litters replaced bulky Army stretchers that jammed on the foliage of the Track.
Medical Logistics
The 14th Field Ambulance landed in Port Moresby without vehicles, drivers or enough quinine, plaster of Paris or blankets. Air-dropped medical equipment frequently missed the DZ or shattered on impact; glass morphine vials were thrown out of aircraft in sacks. At Myola only 5,000 rations awaited Brigadier Arnold Potts, limiting the rations that could be given to soldiers and decreasing the soldier’s resistance to disease. The personnel requirement for medical evacuation was much larger than the number of personnel available and this was a constant problem.
Disease, and “waifs & strays”
Combat wounds were only part of the medical burden. Malaria, dysentery and “bloody flux” ravaged under‑conditioned militia who had barely acclimatised after leaving Queensland. Some men, exhausted and scared, drifted between dressing stations feigning diarrhoea or even inflicting their own wounds.
Leadership and the medical constraints
Potts’ headquarters struggled to observe, orient, decide and act faster than Maj‑Gen Horii’s advancing South Seas Force. The need to guard stretcher lines, protect non‑combatant medics and find fresh carriers continually shaped his tactical options. When the withdrawal from Isurava began, doctors faced very difficult decisions around the expectant casualties. We listen to CAPT Stan Bissett as he describes the night his brother ‘Butch’ is severely wounded and later dies of wounds.
Lessons for future operations
For today’s planners contemplating large‑scale combat operations without air supremacy—whether in Papua, the Pacific or another jungle—the Kokoda medical story offers sobering lessons: site casualty treatment facilities far enough back to survive a sudden enemy advance; rehearse foot, vehicle and riverine evacuation; stockpile lightweight splints, intravenous drugs and mosquito nets; train every soldier in prolonged field care; and don’t assume rotary‑wing rescue be available. Medical evacuation from jungle operations could be as difficult as it was in 1942.
This is an amazing story of dedication and devotion to duty by the soldiers and medics of the Field Ambulances, conducting jungle surgery under arduous conditions and sometimes within range of enemy fire.
This is part of our Kokoda Podcast series, looking at the Battalions, the 39th and 53rd, the two 2nd AIF battalions that fought at Isurava, the 2/14th and 2/16th and the mobilisation, training, doctrine and leadership, focusing on the Battle of Isurava.
