Kokoda Paperback – Import, 27 July 2005

SUMMARY of ReviewHam's Kokoda is an excellent account of the Kokoda Track and battles in Papua. The reader will gain an excellent understanding of the torturous conditions of this battle, as well as the disorganized and egotistical leadership involved in the Pacific theater during the outset of the war. Ham uses an exceptionally large list of superior sources, including journals and government documents, to ground his facts, while also interjecting moments of poignancy with personal letters and diary entries of the soldiers who risked and sometimes lost life and limb for their respective countries. US readers should be prepared, Ham does not sugarcoat the facts, which I at times found hard to swallow. My only two complaints are with Ham's poorly laid out statistics, and his ineffective maps. That said, those complaints should not deter you from reading this fascinating, eloquent account of a battle that is far too often overlooked.FULL REVIEW:"Today you will be in action, and tomorrow night you may be dead." Blamey to the troops heading to the front.Extremes mark the battles on the Kokoda Track, in which Australian, US, and Japanese soldiers found themselves closely interspersed between dense foliage, torrential rain, and cesspool swamps. The altitude, thick vegetation, horrendous weather, prevalence of tropical diseases, isolation and lack of supplies make the guerilla and siege warfare in Papua in 1941 a battle that rivals Guadalcanal and Midway; the shear gore is more reminiscent of the Siege of Stalingrad, or perhaps even the most famous war of attrition - Verdun of World War I.Paul Ham, an author I have grown to admire, has compiled a detailed account of one of the Pacific front's most despicable battles. Pulling from a myriad of sources from three counties, including the diaries of Japanese and Australian soldiers, Ham takes the reader on a journey that begins with the Japanese storming the island at Port Moresby. The brutality of the Japanese coupled with the ill-prepared Australian and US allies make for a devastating confrontation between the two forces. But for the tactile retreat over the traitorous mountain pass, the Australians would have been obliterated, and this part of the island would likely have been lost to the Japanese.As the pendulum of war swings, suddenly it is the Japanese on the defensive, being pushed back over the pass. Eventually US troops arrive on the island to aid the Australians, unfortunately their initial performance proves to be less than admirable. With time, however, the Australians - and the US troops - repel the Japanese off the island.My extremely brief summary does an incredible disservice to the astonishing detail Ham distills into a cogent, compelling, and candid history book. Ham, author of Sandakan, is not shy with words, speaking frankly about the conditions of the battle, the foibles of the leadership, and the ruthlessness both sides assumed to combat the other. Ham strikes a balance in providing the reader with enough details to make his point, but not so many details that it becomes hard to see the rainforest through the banyan trees.Highlighting his aptitude for handling sensitive subjects, Ham masterfully addresses cannibalism, a taboo topic. (Ham also discusses cannibalism in Sandakan). Whether talking about the Papua headhunters or Japanese soldiers butchering Australian and Japanese corpses, Ham exquisitely covers anthropophagy on this tiny island, as it relates to WWII, covering the reaction to Australian troops confronted with seeing their compatriots' flesh stored in bully tins for later consumption, to many Japanese soldiers' very personal struggle with eating flesh to avoid starving to death.Having read several of Ham's books, I found this books to read as though Ham was more personally invested in this story. He is less politically guarded in this account, noting the weaknesses in the American forces, the mistakes of Blamey, and his opinions of the Japanese. Though never crossing an inappropriate line, I did find his treatment of the US troops to be a bit alienating. I have no doubt that Ham's research has led him to draw conclusions (conclusions based on facts backed up by citations); however, I found some of his discussions on the US troops to seems demeaning, almost with an air of "they were nothing but trouble." Ham does praise several superior US troops and brass, which actually underscores his criticisms of the Americans as balanced though still hard for this American to swallow. As many other authors have pointed out, at the beginning of the Pacific front, the American's were making more mistakes than they were progress. (Consider American author Ronald H. Spector's  Eagle Against the Sun: The American War With Japan , which clearly establishes the allies' poor leadership, lousy chain of command, political compromises, and the allies' negligence in assessing the strength and weakness of the Japanese in the early theaters of the Pacific war.).Ham's treatment of the US troops involvement ultimately has not swayed my opinions of Kokoda negatively; however, my two points of contention are with his treatment of statistics and casualty rates at the end of the book, and Ham's poorly designed maps.In the final chapter titled "The End" (Page 518) Ham lists casualty rates, however he bounces between those of the Australians, US, and Japanese, and doesn't even compare apples to apples. For example: "The Allies [US and AUS I assume] suffered 7500 killed and wounded at Gona, Buna and Sanananda. The Australians 7th Division lost 5905 men in the month between 25 November and 23 December..."followed by an explanation of how those troops were replaced. The immediate next paragraph: "Of the 14,500 American soldiers who served at Buna and Sanananda, 930 were killed and 1918 wounded - a casualty rate of 20 percent (double that of Guadacanal)." My issue here, Guadacanal is an entire front, similar to Kokoda, while Buna and Sanananda are skirmishes within a front. As you go further the statistics become more jumbled, "Total Allied [US and AUS I assume] deaths in Papua numbered 3095 and 5418 were wounded - 8513 battled causalities. An additional 8700 US [Why was AUS listed later?] troops succumbed to disease in Papua... A total of 625 Australians were killed in the Kokoda Track battles." My point is, the organization of the causalities and disease stats was jumbled, requiring me to actually get a piece of paper and create a chart to make sense of the numbers. Personally, I would have preferred a graph or chart to accompany the paragraphs dealing with the very important bits of information.Ham is sparing with his use of maps, which is understandable given the guerilla type warfare that much of Kokoda resembled; however, when Ham does provide maps, they are challenging to interpret. I found Ham's use of small, faint arrows to be hard to follow, rather than a more solid line. His amorphous "positions" plotted on the maps were slightly better then the arrows, but it was hard to determine the army's general movement. Another helpful thing would have been if Ham had provided a small icon-map showing the entire island with each zoomed-in map, highlighting on that small icon-map where the close-up is located within the island and South Pacific. Without this reference, I had to flip back to the maps in the beginning of the book to constantly remind myself where on the island the maps correlate. Also irritating is the page split on the map on page xiv, which is literally split exactly in the section where the entire track is laid out. The fact that the map wasn't adjusted to avoid this from happening is really unfortunate, making it necessary for me to consult other maps and sources outside of Kokoda to get a better sense of the track.Really, my issue with Ham's maps and statistics was not overall distracting, and certainly didn't hinder the narrative. This highly readable account of an underwritten battle is well worth a read. Even if you are not familiar with military history, or with the Pacific front of WWII, this book is easy to pick up, straight forward to follow, and is filled with emotionally impactful stories that make the war relevant to every human. Though I didn't enjoy this book as much as Ham's  Sandakan: The Untold story of the Sandakan Death Marches  and  1914: The Year the World Ended , I highly recommend people interested in the Pacific war, Australian military history, or the South Pacific history get this book from the library.Tags: WWII, Pacific War, Papua, Port Moresby, Kokoda, Australian Army, US Army, Japanese Army, Military History, Guerilla Warfare, General MacArthur, General Blamey, Cannibalism, Tropical Warfare, Mountain Warfare, Disease and War, Non-Fiction, 1940's Eagle Against the Sun: The American War With JapanSandakan: The Untold story of the Sandakan Death Marches1914: The Year the World Ended

I bought this book in anticipation of walking the Kokoda Trail myself and only having the faintest of ideas of what the campaign involved.The book provided extremely informative descriptions from the build-up to the campaign through to its conclusion. It also provides accounts from all perspectives: the politicians, high command, through the ranks to the soldiers on the ground from both the Australian and Japanese sides. It quotes extensively from diaries and papers from the campaign and integrates these well into the history. The writing is gripping without being sensationalist.It is an excellent read for anyone interested in the Pacific Campaigns of World War II or in walking the Kokoda Trail.

An excellent account of one of Australia's most important campaigns in our military history. Paul Ham writes well and makes reading a pleasure.

I had never heard of kokoda but after reading this book unlikely to forget it.Fearsome bravery of the diggers.

I am a Pacific War history buff and can never seem to get enough of it, but after reading "Kokoda" opened a new area of reading for me. It was so interesting I would pull out my iPad to Google Earth to see the exact area of the "Kokoda Trail". Excellent read and prompted me to more Kindle books in that area such as "Coastwatchers, then "The Naval Battles for Guadalcanal", Then "the Japanese Destroyer Captain" and am now reading "The Airman and the Headhunters"! I make it a point to check the areas on "Google Earth" for locations and to get as exact as I can the areas that I'm reading about. Some of them were written by Australians or Australians and/or their families were interviewed. I would recommend these books to anyone who has this interest!