The main burden of the fight to force the Japanese to retreat over the Owen Stanley Ranges was left to the Australian Army.

If the Japanese successfully crossed the mountain range and had successfully invaded Port Moresby they were only a very short distance away from Australia. The Allied Forces had to defeat them before this could happen. This job was placed in the hands of the Australian Army, and the story of the Kokoda Track was now in action.

The Japanese had decided to invade Port Moresby with a fleet of ships, as Port Moresby if captured made Australia significantly easy to invade. This invasion was turned back by the Battle of the Coral Sea. As the Japanese first invasion of Port Moresby did not go through, the Japanese sent a fleet of 1,800 men to the Buna-Gona area on July 21, 1942, to determine whether or not the Kokoda Track was of any value to attack Port Moresby.

Major-General Tomitaro Horii's troops were confronted with hardly any opposition from the

General Horii's drive to the south came to a stop. When two 25-pounder guns were brought in on September 21, their first shots by these guns marked a turnaround for the advance of the Japanese troops in New Guinea.

Brigadier Porter relieved Potts and took command on September 10. Potts returned to Port Moresby to report the situation. By now the Australians had withdrawn to Ioribaiwa and were extremely tired, but with the arrival of Brigadier K. W. Eather's 25th Brigade on September 14, the Japanese were held at Ioribaiwa Ridge. Unable to make a worthwhile base for an offensive against the Japanese, Eather and Porter requested permission to withdraw to Imita Ridge. General Rowell approved this withdrawal, but stressed that "any further withdrawal is out of the question and Eather must fight it out at all costs."

On August 26, the Japanese landed at Milne Bay, and kept on progressing from Kokoda to Isurava. However, two days after all this happened the 21st Brigade, 7th division, moved up the Track from Port Moresby and relieved the extremely tired 39th Battalion. With the Japanese still around, the Austr

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Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)