Chapter 18 - Conclusion

Summary

The monument known as the Lion of Macedon on the battlefield of Chaeronea marks the victory of Phillip II of Macedon over the Greeks in 338 BC. In the ancient world a trophy was raised on the battlefield by the victor – never the vanquished. Now the vanquished do the same, and in 2002, at Isurava, Australia erected four granite pillars to a defeat. The sentiment, however, is different. One of the pillars has ‘sacrifice’ carved on it, and the Isurava monument conveys something of the feeling of the earth mound containing the remains of Spartan, Beotian and Theban dead at the Greek defeat of Thermopylae in 480 BC – a battle to which Isurava has been compared. An important part of the Thermopylae tradition, however, is that the Greeks were defeated fighting against overwhelming odds, which was not the case for the Australians at Isurava, nor elsewhere on the Kokoda Track.

The heart of the Kokoda myth is that the Australians were defeated on the Kokoda Track from July to September 1942 because they were greatly outnumbered. Japanese records show that this is untrue. The Papuans and Australians were outnumbered by one and a half to one up to First Kokoda. At Second Kokoda and Deniki they were slightly outnumbered, and at Isurava there was one Australian for each Japanese engaged. During the retreat from Eora to Efogi the Japanese superiority was at its highest, at close to two to one for five days from 1 September. At Efogi the two sides were about equal strength, and at the last Australian defeat at Ioribawa it was the Australians who outnumbered the Japanese almost two to one.