The Kokoda Track | Australians in World War II | The Pacific War | Into the Mountains | The stand at

The Kokoda Track | Australians in World War II | The Pacific War | Into the Mountains | The stand at Isurava

In late August both the Australians and the Japanese were greatly reinforced and prepared for a decisive battle at Isurava. While the Japanese were victorious they failed to achieve their main objective - the total destruction of Maroubra Force...

good to listen to the operation in audio, click on next phase, to continue with each part of the story...some other operations in audio too..

 

Nice one, thanks!

 

appreciated, good for schools educational history ...

 

Just did a quick wiki search on it, And according to them after the Buno-Gona battles the 39th out of a force normally numbering 600-800 men had just 30 able bodied men, The rest wounded, dead or struck down with disease, Can any one shed any light on this?

 

How much light do you need?

The "nominal" roll
http://www.39battalion.org/ROLL.pdf

The casualties(no mention is given about disease casualties)
http://www.39battalion.org/CASUALTIES.html

The 39th Infantry Battalion's War Diaries
http://www.awm.gov.au/collection/records/awm52/diary.asp?levelID=1012

 

Cheers mate, Have to say of the 30 odd able bodied man thing is true then those battles and many others really did come down to the wire.

 

One decimated battalion. I'd have thought by wars end or its disbandment no members would have been there from day one?

 

Who knows, I know that one of the RAAF bomber squadrons by effect was killed 5 times over, 460th RAAF squadron with normal flight crew of 200 suffered 1,018 casualties but they did fly more sorties then any other Aussie squadron and dropped more bombs (by weight) then any other squadron in all of the Bomber command.

 

Sort of inversely decimated actually given that the original term meant that 10% of the unit was lost (actually executed) and that unit was down to 5% of it's initial strength. Another way of looking at it was that it was decimated over 29 times. (.9**28 ~.052)

 

The 39th was disbanded on the 3rd July 1943. Those who had been conscripted were transferred to the 36th Battalion (Militia), while those who had volunteered for overseas service were sent to the 2/2nd Battalion (AIF). Both of these units saw further service in New Guinea.