Held at bay

Plans are ready to fly the Prime Minister, John Howard, high into the Owen Stanley Ranges of Papua New Guinea on August 14, to a village which is sometimes called Australia's Alamo. Ralph Honner, who had awful reason to know the place well, preferred to call it Australia's Thermopylae.

Honner was a soldier and scholar. Thermopylae was the battle celebrated as an example of heroic resistance against great odds. In 480BC, a small Greek force under the Spartan king Leonidas held the narrow Thermopylae pass for three days before being overwhelmed by a large invading Persian army. Honner knew that the defenders all died.

Honner recalled Thermopylae at the Battle of Isurava on the Kokoda Track in 1942, where he led a band of men most of whom were too young to vote but old enough to fight and die. A difference between Thermopylae and Isurava, Honner said, was: "We couldn't afford to die."

Death finally caught up with Lieutenant-Colonel Honner in 1994, and recognition finally catches up with what he and his men achieved when a monument is unveiled at Isurava on Wednesday week.

It was here that the 39th Militia Battalion faced Japanese divisions poised to take Port Moresby and to threaten Australia. The men - average age 18 years - had been called up for home defence before being sent north. They were frequently mocked as "chocolate soldiers" until, at Isurava, they won the admiration of AIF veterans newly arrived from the Middle East.

It was here that the Australians, retreating from Kokoda village and down to about 200 men fit enough to fight, made a stand and hung on until battle-trained reinforcements, mainly from the 2/14th Battalion, joined them.

Honner said of his men: "In the testing crucible of conflict ... they were transformed by some strong catalyst of the spirit into a devoted band wherein every man's failing strength was fortified and magnified by a burning resolve to stick by his mates."

The Isurava battle began on August 27. A day before, a Japanese force of 2000 men had landed at Milne Bay, about 400 kilometres to the south-east, with operation orders that began: "At the dead of night, quickly complete the landing in the enemy area and strike the white soldiers without remorse."

About 4500 Australians, including field artillery and RAAF squadrons of Kittyhawks and Hudson bombers, had defeated the invaders by September 8. The Japanese came so close to the prized Australian airstrips that RAAF Kittyhawks had to fire their machine guns on take-off, before retracting their wheels.

Field Marshal William Slim, commander of Allied forces in India and Burma, wrote: "We were greatly cheered by the news of the Australian victory at Milne Bay. This was the first-ever defeat of the Japanese on land. If the Australians had done it, so could we."

The defenders of Milne Bay are often overlooked in debate about the Papuan campaign. Angus Suthers, now 84, of Ermington, was happy to forget about his war with the 18th Brigade until he discovered that his grandchildren knew about the Battle of Hastings in 1066 but not about the Battle of Milne Bay in 1942. "My grandkids now know their history," he said this week.

Rex Cummins, now 91, of Mosman, said: "Kokoda has been exaggerated. Australians were still retreating down the track when we beat the Japanese at Milne Bay. Then the Japs were withdrawn and the Australians advanced. If the enemy had taken the Milne Bay airfield they would have made it to Port Moresby and would have made air raids down the Australian east coast."

In any case, the Papuan campaign is sometimes nominated as Australia's "coming of age". Australia has "come of age" often - at Federation; at Gallipoli; in 1931 when Prime Minister James Scullin insisted that an Australian, Isaac Isaacs, become governor-general, against the wishes of King George V; in 1934 when the Statute of Westminster recognised that the dominions had equal status with Britain; in 1947, with the postwar immigration program; in 1967 with the referendum that included indigenous Australians in the census; even in 2000, when the Olympic Games' opening ceremony told the Australian story without a trace of cultural cringe.

Australia certainly acted more independently in World War II than at Gallipoli, when we responded to the imperial call. In 1942, the Prime Minister, John Curtin, defied Winston Churchill and brought troops home. The returned men helped throw the Japanese back at Kokoda.

David Horner, professor of strategic and defence studies at the Australian National University, does not like the "coming-of-age" analogy but says: "The Papuan campaign was the most important battle fought by Australians in relation to the direct security of Australia. If the Japanese had taken Port Moresby, it would have transformed the strategic situation and made it easier to attack Australia."

The Japanese armies had appeared invincible. The Australians withdrew from Isurava after four days but they had exhausted the attackers and their supplies. The Japanese were also pouring resources into Guadalcanal.

In the end, the closest the Japanese came to Port Moresby was Ioribaiwa, only 42 kilometres by air away. The Australians retook Kokoda on November 2 and the bloody beachheads of Buna, Gona and Sanananda in December and January, 1943. Australia was a safer place after that.

Footnotes: a service to commemorate Victory in the Pacific will be held on August 15 at the Kokoda Track Memorial Walkway, Concord.

A commemoration service for Battle of Australia Day will be held in Martin Place on September 4.

A service to mark the turning of the tide in Papua will be held on October 5 in Martin Place.

Patrick Lindsay's book, The Spirit of Kokoda, Then and Now, published by Hardie Grant Books, RRP $29.95, is launched in Sydney on Monday.

Hiding from history

Japan's refusal to confront its war crimes is a continuing cause of friction with its old enemies, writes Shane Green.

It has been described as the "forgotten holocaust", the terrible days at the end of 1937 when the Japanese Imperial Army marched into the Chinese city of Nanjing. At the end of the reign of terror that continued into the next year, it is estimated about 300,000 Chinese had been killed and about 20,000 women raped. The Nanjing Massacre, or the Rape of Nanjing, was one of the darkest moments of the Japanese march across Asia.

On a hot, still summer day in central Tokyo this week, a trickle of people were making their way through the museum at the Yasukuni Shrine, where Japan honours its war dead, including 14 A-class war criminals. The museum has just had an official reopening in a new, impressive building.

There are English translations to explain a series of displays that are essentially designed for local consumption. But while the museum has been refurbished, its thinking has not. When you reach the Nanjing Massacre section, it is difficult to believe you are reading about the same event. The museum display refers to the "Nanjing Incident" and maintains that the officer-in-charge, General Matsui, told his men "they were to observe military rules to the letter and that anyone committing unlawful acts would be severely punished". The display says that the Chinese were called on to surrender, but refused. "The Chinese were soundly defeated, suffering heavy casualties," it says. "Inside the city, residents were once again able to live their lives in peace."

It is said that victors get to write the history. But in Japan, it is a truism that has been regularly challenged, much to the chagrin of its Asian neighbours, and for that matter, Australia.

Japan's failure to offer a full apology for its war atrocities, and the glorification of its role in the war, have been a source of tension. Indeed, for many it remains the barrier to Japan's acceptance in the international community. Almost every year, there is the diplomatic brawl over revisionist Japanese textbooks, which upset states occupied by the Japanese.

In fairness, there are some signs this ultra-nationalist thinking may be receding, but at Yasukuni - meaning "peaceful country" - it continues to thrive. Apart from the "Nanjing Incident", the museum tells its version of the "Greater East Asian War", the Pacific War. It portrays Japan as a reluctant aggressor, a country forced into an offensive position by the United States, which had starved it of resources. Moreover, its noble intention was to liberate the people of Asia from colonial rule.

The museum also gives Japan credit for the postwar independence movements in Asia. "Once the desire for independence had been kindled under Japanese occupation, it did not die, even though Japan was ultimately defeated."

Beyond the words, the exhibits have their own impact. Among the most chilling is the plane of the Special Attack Force, the kamikaze, with its simple cross-hairs to guide a human missile to its target.

On August 15 - the anniversary of the end of the war - Yasukuni will again be the focus of international attention and anger when right-wing Japanese politicians make a pilgrimage to the shrine. The Japanese Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi, will be on summer holiday, having visited in May. But there will be one high-profile visitor. The Governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara, has announced he will attend. Ishihara is more than a big city mayor. He is popular and often talked about as a future prime minister.

He is also remembered for calling the Nanjing Massacre a "fabrication".