1942 The Kokoda Trail - Strategic Command WW2 Pacific Theater

Port Moresby in New Guinea was one of Japan’s key objectives at the start of the war due to its proximity to Australia and its potential to serve both as a naval base and also as a launching pad for air attacks and possibly even an invasion of Australia.

Following their defeat at the battle of Coral Sea in the first week of May 1942, the Japanese cancelled their plans for an amphibious assault on Port Moresby and this left them with just one option: a direct overland advance via the forbidding Owen Stanley Range.

Over the mountains and through the jungle the Japanese advanced along the narrow and rugged Kokoda Trail, ignoring their losses to sickness and the danger they were in from having left their supply columns far behind.

Facing the Japanese invaders was a much smaller force of Australian Militia, men who had only trained for war in their part-time and who in theory should have been no match for the far more numerous Imperial warriors who had hitherto swept all before them. But it was not to be, for these Australian Militia soon proved to the world that they knew how to fight and beat the Japanese at their own game in the jungle. Defying malaria and dysentery as much as the enemy, in hard fighting the Australian forces eventually drove the Japanese back up the Kokoda Trail, back the way they had come.

Income in this scenario is deliberately low to reflect the poor supply conditions faced by both sides in this campaign. Therefore it will be often wise to withdraw a battered unit behind a stronger one, and also to spend your MPPs with caution so there are sufficient to reinforce a key unit when it really counts. Both sides will receive reinforcements until the end of 1942. (Stock Scenario)