LEST WE FORGET: Recollections of the 1942 Papuan Battle

By Jay Hooper

This booklet is about some of the Australian soldiers who fought in the 1942 Papuan battle. The subject is approached at a "human" rather than a "military strategy" level. It is a story of the recollections of these men. Sometimes from personal war diaries. Sometimes supplemented from published war histories. Sometimes from letters or published

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jay Hooper
• Release date: Oct 18, 2021
• ISBN: 9780645283723

Jay Hooper

Jay Hooper is a past National President of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia. He is the author/co-author of numerous published professional and policy documents. He is not a historian nor a past serviceman. In his retirement, he accompanied his father, other veterans of the 1942 Kokoda battles, and their relatives on commemorative tours of the battlefields. He has attended numerous reunions and met many of the 1942 veterans. His father, Alan Hooper, served in 49th btn, Papuan Infantry Battalion, and ANGAU. He served the first 1,000 days without leave - much of it behind enemy lines in a remote jungle. Alan wrote two books on his war experience. He was a youth of the Great Depression. Jay has developed an interest in learning more about the generation of young men who so willingly exposed themselves to the brutality of war. He is at a stage of life where he has the time to digest the contents of his father's vast PNG library.

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Acknowledgements

The foundation of this book is the vast library, diary, and personal communications of my father. His collection includes books, booklets, letters, scraps of paper – often annotated and corrected in his shaky benign-tremor affected handwriting. The scope ranges from folders of letters from Kokoda historian Maclaren Hiari MBE, publications describing daily activities in 1942, and personal recollections published decades after the war. The authors are too numerous to acknowledge individually. Fortunately, it was an age when their thoughts were recorded in written words on paper. Their words survived being buried on a hard drive in the digital age.

Thanks to Ken Crooke, Kevan Dacey and Kev Horton for proofreading drafts.

Greg Ivey (PIB-NGIB-HQ-PIR Association), over many years, has been a great support in assisting my understanding of the history of the 1942 Papuan campaign. Greg volunteered my name as a potential speaker to the 2/14th battalion. This was the genesis of this book.

I acknowledge and appreciate the understanding of my wife, Lorraine, who, without complaint, tolerated the many hours that I spent in researching and massaging the many versions into a cogent book.

This book would not have existed without the encouragement and support of Dr Stanton Mellick OAM ED. Stan was the driving force that encouraged me to develop and publish my PowerPoint presentation to the 2/14th Battalion Annual Reunion. At 100 years of age, he was an amazing mentor. In the words of my mentor, "Tempus fugit" – when all else goes the written word remains.

Thank you Stan.

Foreword

Dr Stanton Mellick OAM ED

Thank you for sending your presentation to the 2/14th Battalion members. I have just finished reading the address you gave. Congratulations on a splendid grasp of so many details involved in giving such an address. Your respect, admiration and knowledge of personnel, engagements, places of combat and the always prevailing New Guinea people and localities are noteworthy. Being so is a tribute in itself to the engagements and people involved — so congratulations.

I rather wish the address could be printed in a booklet as it combines the history of the battles and the agony of those moments. Such research and compilation should be retained and be available in R.S.L. Libraries, public libraries and especially at the War Memorial in Canberra.

I passed through Buna shortly after the battle – half-mast coconut palms, large waterholes and mud everywhere, most of which had duckboards to enable us to travel them but the whole? Almost impassable. There was more than plenty of evidence of the