How did this greatly commemorated Australian victory
become known as a trail?
Searching through contemporary copies of the Sydney Morning Herald shows that the word trail was never used at the time of the successful campaign. The same pages disclosed only two examples of Kokoda track (note track, not Track), but many instances of the use of the word track unaccompanied by Kokoda:
- To-night our troops were through Kokoda and on their way to Oivi, along a well-defined track…
- 4 Nov 1942
- Twenty miles further along the track to Buna…
- 4 Nov 1942
- Ten track miles from Kokoda…
- 5 Nov 1942
- Oivi is nine miles along the track from Kokoda to Buna.
- 6 Nov 1942
- The Australians, pushing the Japanese back along the Wairopi track…
- 17 Nov 1942
Then the first mentions of the Kokoda Track appear, though not yet with proper noun status:
- The enemy in New Guinea is dropping back steadily before Australians advancing along the Kokoda track…
- 18 Nov 1942
- Bottom right: Engineers build a bridge along the Kokoda track to Buna.
- 24 Nov 1942(Photograph Caption)
An interesting half-page account sub-titled Fighting Through the Owen Stanley Range appeared in the 30 January 1943 edition of the Sydney-based broadsheet. Claimed to be "taken from the notes of a soldier", the article mentions the word track on at least thirteen occasions, and the plural, tracks, twice. The word trail does not appear in that article, as it does not in any other.
Many, myself included, just assumed that the war propaganda machine of the United States later used a term common to them in a phrase to record and commemorate the Australian victory - not considering the idiom of their triumphant ally, the Australians. (Incidentally, commander of the Allied Land Forces, General Douglas McArthur, held the Australians' fighting ability in very low respect. When the 21st Brigade was reviewed by Australia's Commander-in-Chief at Koitaki shortly after the re-occupation of Kokoda, Blamey, on McArthur's insistence, accused the heroes of having "run like rabbits".)
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