Little Green Man

Thousands of feet above sea level tower the Owen Stanley mountains. Thick, jungly undergrowth, palms, bamboos, rotting and slimy vegetation cover their jagged flanks. Natives hoist themselves up the precipitous slopes by trailing liana vines. Waterfalls, gorges and limestone cliffs form freakish barriers. Strange, malicious insects infest the equatorial hell. It is one of the world's wildest jungles. Last week the Owen Stanley* range still stood. But the Japs, in less than a week's time, had negotiated it.

Australians, guarding the gap above Kokoda, had tried to stop them along the single narrow trail that leads over the mountains. The Japs' methods were those they had used in Malaya and Burma. Monkeylike troops, with heads, legs and bodies painted green, filtered through the jungles. And the Australians retreated. Said an Australian officer: "They kept outflanking us and getting behind us. They could see us but we couldn't see them."

On a smaller scale it appeared to be the same old story as Malaya--of allied troops that failed to adapt themselves adequately to jungle fighting. Some Japs carried hand grenades, had 2-in. mortars strapped to their legs, lugged flame throwers. And these impedimenta did not slow then down. Green men flowed through the green jungle.

When the Aussies located the enemy they fought the invaders with pistols, knives and bayonets. Allied planes machine-gunning snipers in treetops, sheared the trees until they looked like hedgerows. Allied bombers raided the Jap base at Buna, which barked back with newly emplaced ack-ack guns. The righting was the heaviest yet seen in New Guinea; casualties ran high. But still the Japs kept coming. They fought their way up and over the highest ridges, started downhill after the slowly retreating Australians.

Near the native settlement of Efogi, the Australians, commanded by Lieut. General Sidney Rowell, finally stopped them. From Efogi the single trail fans out into a number of trails that curve down through the rolling valley to the south coastal region. Only 14 miles away is a hard-surfaced road which leads into the Allied base of Port Moresby.

A seaborne Jap attack on the defenders of Port Moresby might be attempted to aid the overland attack. Even while Jap troops squirmed through the jungles, Jap warships slipped into Milne Bay and shelled that hard-held Allied position on the tip of New Guinea. Milne Bay reported only last week that the remnants of the recent Jap landing expedition there had finally been mopped up (no prisoners were taken).

Mad as hornets over recent reverses, busy as they were in the Solomons, the Japs buzzed around the hole they had punched through the jungles to Efogi. The defenders of Port Moresby, who had never expected them to get over the mountains, had a battle on their hands.

* In 1846-50, sailing in the South Pacific, H.M.S. Rattlesnake touched at New Guinea. Her commander: Captain Owen Stanley.

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