Ralph Honner: Kokoda HeroRalph Honner: Kokoda Hero is the story of one of Australia's great World War II battalion commanders. Honner fought as a junior officer in the first and triumphant North African battles of Bardia, Tobruk and Derna. He then took part in the heartbreaking and disastrous campaigns in Greece and Crete where he was one of the last Australians to be evacuated by submarine-three months after Crete's fall. But it was during 1942, at Isurava on the Kokoda Trail and at the Japanese beachhead of Gona in Papua New Guinea, that Ralph Honner played a decisive role in the making of an Australian legend. Worshipped by his men, he was severely wounded in 1943 and, after a long convalescence, served Australia with distinction as a public servant, political figure and diplomat. Written by one of Australia's bestselling military history authors, who knew Ralph Honner and had access to his private letters and papers, Ralph Honner: Kokoda Hero contains gripping, action-packed descriptions of the fighting in North Africa, Greece, Crete and Papua New Guinea. The story of a remarkable man, it covers events from Honner's adolescence in the last vestiges of pioneering Australia through to his distinguished political and diplomatic career, spanning nearly a century of his nation's history. |
Contents
| 1 | |
| 19 | |
3 Its a confidence business | 36 |
4 These war correspondents amuse us | 61 |
5 The morning hate | 78 |
6 Gropers Albany | 94 |
7 Some untidy things | 137 |
8 A soldiers Calvary | 151 |
10 Once more unto the breeach | 206 |
11 The Koitaki factor | 246 |
12 This is not a mob | 259 |
13 The inevitable last act | 274 |
14 Leave my window open | 291 |
Notes | 316 |
Bibliography | 342 |
Index | 348 |
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Common terms and phrases
16th Brigade 2/11th Battalion 21st Brigade 39th Battalion 53rd Battalion 6th Division Adelaide April arrived artillery attack August Australian Infantry Bardia Battalion Unit Diary battle beach beachhead Blamey bombs campaign Captain capture casualties Catholic Crete Crete and Syria Damien Parer December Derna Dougherty enemy Eora fighting fire flank forward front Gavin Long German Gona Gona Mission Greece Greek ground Headquarters Honner letters ibid interview Melbourne interview Perth Isurava Italian Japanese Japs John Honner jungle killed kilometres Koitaki Kokoda Trail Lieutenant K.T. Johnson Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Louch machine-gun March Maroubra Force McRobbie metres military militia morning moved Neil McDonald night November officers ordered patrol perimeter Perivolia Perth Modern School platoon Port Moresby position posts Potts Ragged Bloody Heroes Ralph Honner Ralph to Marjory Retimo Richard Honner road Sanananda soldiers South Sydney tank Tobruk track troops Vasey Vasey’s village withdrawal wounded
Popular passages
Page iii - We few, we happy few, we band of brothers ; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother ; be he ne'er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition...
Page 186 - ... and grinned. The grin didn't mean anything — or did it? Templeton's Crossing was a dry camp with kunda bunks by the riverbank. We stayed the night and pushed on. I will never forget the scene as Eora came into sight halfway down the last ridge. Hundreds of men were standing about in mud that came up to their shins. The whole village, built of pandanus and grass, looked as if it were about to founder in the sea of mud. The huts leaned drunkenly. There were piles of broken-out ration boxes and...
Page 186 - There were piles of broken-out ration boxes and firewood half submerged. The men were slimed from head to foot, for weeks unshaven, their skins bloodless under their filth. Lines of exhausted carriers were squatting on the fringes of this congregation eating muddy rice off muddy banana leaves. Their woolly hair was plastered with rain and muck. Their eyes were rolling and bloodshot with the strain of long carrying. Some of them were still panting.
Page 152 - Physically the pathetically young warriors of the 39th were in poor shape. Worn out by strenuous fighting and exhausting movement, and weakened by lack of food and sleep and shelter, many of them had literally come to a standstill.
Page 250 - ... or brass — nay, than the very battle-field itself — has been the name of Leonidas. Two thousand three hundred years have sped since he braced himself to perish for his country's sake in that narrow, marshy coast road, under the brow of the wooded crags, with the sea by his side. Since that time how many hearts have glowed, how many arms have been nerved at the remembrance of the Pass of Thermopylae, and the defeat that was worth so much more than a victory ! THE ROCK OF THE CAPITOL.
Page 189 - Parer began to move along the lines of men, his 'eye fixed to the eyepiece of the box-like Newman camera'. 58 As Ralph passed on Brigadier Arnold Potts' commendation—Potts later wrote, 'their efforts represented gallantry, courage and fortitude of the highest order, and their fighting prowess was an inspiration to all who saw it' 59 —Parer also captured Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Honner's proud and dignified bearing.
Page 1 - ... unarmoured peasants. Yet the proportion of combatants slain in any battle decreased as much when firearms superseded the battleaxe and sword as when gas came to replace shell and the bullet. This antagonism to new weapons is mere conservatism, not chivalry. But chivalry, as in this example of Scipio's, is both rational and far-sighted, for it endows the side which shows it with a sense of superiority, and the side which falls short with a sense of inferiority. The advantage in the moral sphere...
Page 161 - Syrian campaign 21st Brigade's commander, Brigadier JES Stevens2 was promoted to the rank of MajorGeneral, and given command of the 4th Division. The vacant 21st Brigade command was given to the newly promoted Brigadier AW Potts.3 A grazier from Kojonup in Western Australia, Potts had served with the original 16th Battalion in France during the Great War, rising to the rank of Captain. By the end of the war he had won a Military Cross and been mentioned in despatches. With the outbreak of the Second...