20 November 1942

Australians attacking Gona are reduced to eating emergency rations as supplies fail to keep pace with the advance.

Leading troops fall back to about 1.5km from Jap front lines to wait for aerial supplies to reach them. Their commander orders them to build up a base of ammunition, rations and medical supplies while they gathered intelligence on the Jap strengths and positions.

At night the Diggers can hear trucks behind the Japanese lines and motor boats moving to and from the store as Japs receive supplies and reinforcements by sea.

19 November 1942

The Australians begin their attack against the Japanese defenders at Gona. The Diggers had suffered badly from the gruelling months of jungle warfare that each of the attacking units had endured. Each was about one third of its normal fighting strength.

The Diggers leading the advance run into Jap snipers about 1.5km south of Gona Mission, losing six killed in the initial clashes. They settle down to lay siege to the well-concealed Jap defences, forced the endure the pestilent swamp conditions.

18 November 1942

The Allied intelligence on the Japanese troop numbers defending the northern beachheads and the extent of their defences is greatly inaccurate.

Early estimates claim around 2000 Japanese are defending Gona, Buna and Sanananda. The real figure is at least three times that number.

And the intelligence reported that the area’s coastal swampland would preclude the construction of any substantial strongholds. The reality was that the determined Japanese had, over the past four months, built heavily fortified bunkers, connected by zig-zag trenches and cleverly concealed by tree trunks and foliage.

They also prepared deadly fields of fire emanating from the fortifications, supported by a cluster of hidden snipers.

17 November 1942

2/33^rd Battalion, leading the Australian advance on the Japanese beachheads, reaches Amboga River but is held up as the river is in flood.

The Diggers begin preparations for crossing but the first troops don’t reach the northern bank, totally saturated, until the following morning.

16 November 1942

The 2/33^rd Battalion reaches Awala, where back in July the first contact was made with the Japanese advance by members of the Papuan Infantry Battalion, led by Major Watson and some members of the 39^th Battalion led by Lt Seekamp.

At Awala, the Australians are met by troops of the US 126^th Regiment who had marched over the Owen Stanleys via the Kapa Kapa Track through Jaure, east of the Kokoda Track.

Unprepared for the conditions, poorly supplied and ravaged by malaria, dengue fever, bush typhus, dysentery and food poisoning, the Americans took 42 days to reach the north coast and didn’t see a Japanese soldier during the trip.

They were nicknamed the ‘ghost battalion’ and were unfit for combat. Nevertheless they would fight in the forthcoming battle at Buna.