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Conference report: "Kokoda : Beyond the Legend" |
- By Nick-D
On 6 and 7 September I attended the Australian War Memorial (AWM) conference "Kokoda : Beyond the Legend". This conference was conducted to mark the 70th anniversary of the Kokoda Track campaign during World War II, and was focused mainly on the Pacific War during 1942. The conference featured an impressive cast of Australian and international military historians, including Antony Beevor, David Horner, Richard B. Frank, Edward J. Drea and John B. Lundstrom, as well as several less famous, but well regarded, specialist historians of the fighting in New Guinea (most notably, Mark Johnson and Philip Bradley as well as several of the AWM's historians).
As some background for non-Australian readers, the AWM has the dual mission of serving as the main point of commemoration for the casualties of Australia's wars and fostering improved understanding of the country's military history. It has historically interpreted the later task as involving publishing (generally) unvarnished and scholarly military history, as well as supporting other historians who want to take a 'warts and all approach'. As a result, it was appropriate that this conference - which covers the best-known Australian campaign of World War II - was focused on countering some of the myths which have sprung up about the events of 1942. In the last couple of decades many books and TV series have promoted a romantic and overly dramatic view of Kokoda, with the result that many Australians believe that the campaign saved the country from Japanese invasion (it didn't) and that that the Australian Army units and commanders fought well but were betrayed by Douglas MacArthur and senior Australian Army officers (while they generally made the best of very difficult circumstances, some commanders and units failed, the Japanese also generally performed well and the campaign was a learning experience for the senior Allied commanders).