10 Australian Battles That Broke Japanese Commanders

Australian soldiers fought some of the most decisive land battles of the entire Pacific War, and this countdown ranks the ten engagements where the AIF and the militia turned back Imperial Japan in the jungles of Papua, the mountains of New Guinea, and the burning oil coast of Borneo. From the first land defeat Japan ever suffered on Australian-defended ground to the surrender of an entire Japanese army in the northern jungles, these are the battles that broke the myth of Japanese invincibility and rewrote the war in the South-West Pacific. Witness the astonishing stand of the 39th Battalion at Isurava — the "Chocolate Soldiers," teenagers and men in their forties, thrown into the Kokoda Track against Major General Tomitaro Horii's 5,000 veterans of the China campaigns. Follow Major General Cyril Clowes and the defenders of Milne Bay as they inflict on Japan the first outright land defeat of the Pacific War, closing the door on any seaborne assault against Port Moresby. See the Australian 9th Division claw their way up Sattelberg, the 3,000-foot Lutheran mission mountain from which every Allied ship in Finschhafen could be seen, and the Australian 7th Division advance along Shaggy Ridge — a 7,000-foot knife-edge spine so narrow that only two men could walk it side by side, with hundreds of feet of jungle-choked ravine falling away on either flank. From the Bismarck Sea, where Australian airmen and code-breakers helped destroy an entire 16-ship Japanese convoy carrying 7,000 troops of the 51st Division, to the uphill airstrip at Wau where transport pilots gunned their engines to the summit as the enemy closed on the runway, to the coconut-log bunkers of Buna and Gona that Colonel Yosuke Yokoyama swore were impregnable, to the eleven-month grinding campaign at Aitape–Wewak that ended with Lieutenant General Hatazo Adachi personally surrendering his sword — these are the ten battles that defined Australia's Pacific War and the men who fought them. Video Chapters: 00:00 - #10 Balikpapan 07:55 - #9 Aitape–Wewak 15:27 - #8 Shaggy Ridge 22:13 - #7 Sattelberg 29:49 - #6 Bismarck Sea 36:21 - #5 Wau 42:11 - #4 Buna–Gona 48:55 - #3 Templeton's Crossing 54:57 - #2 Isurava 01:02:50 - #1 Milne Bay #WW2 #AustralianArmy #PacificWar #KokodaTrack #NewGuineaCampaign #MilitaryHistory #AIF #ANZAC Disclaimer: The narratives presented in this channel are based on historical records and period accounts, which can be searched in the war memorial websites. Some passages may contain slight dramatic adaptations for the sake of narrative fluidity. This content is strictly documentary and educational in nature and does not necessarily reflect the personal opinions or beliefs of the channel creators.