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Extract from a speech delivered by His Excellency, Major General Michael Jeffery AC CVO MC on the occasion of the official unveiling of the A.W. Potts Kokoda Track Memorial Statue at Apex Park, Kojonup, Western Australia on 6 May 2007.

Tough and resolute, Arnold encouraged initiative in his troops, and he was renowned for his thorough approach to training. His men not only respected him as their leader, they trusted his decisions and knew that they would be well-represented by him in the higher councils of the military command chain.

In August 1941, Arnold was promoted Lieutenant Colonel to command the 2/16th but this was short-lived. With the return of the 7th Division to Australia prior to the Pacific Campaign, Arnold in April 1942 was promoted temporary brigadier to command the 21st AIF Brigade comprising the famous 2/14th, 2/16th and 2/27th Battalions.

After the naval battles of Coral Sea and Midway in May-June 1942 had prevented a sea borne assault on Port Moresby, the Japanese High Command had determined on an overland assault on Moresby via the Kokoda Track, in conjunction with an amphibious attack on Milne Bay to capture its important airfields. The 13,500 Japanese troops who landed at Gona on 21 July and fought the Kokoda campaign were strong, fit and battle-hardened. Most had been in action since 1937 and were expert in jungle warfare.

The Supreme Allied Commander in the South West Pacific, General Douglas MacArthur knew that if the little-known Kokoda Airfield was seized by the enemy, then Port Moresby would be under direct threat, along with his future plans for an offensive against the major Japanese base in Rabaul. This clearly was not acceptable.

MacArthur therefore ordered immediate action from the Commander Allied Land Forces, General Sir Thomas Blamey, who in turn directed Major General Basil Morris, the local commander in New Guinea, to prevent Japanese access across the Track by defending the Kokoda area, roughly half way between Port Moresby and the northern coastal village of Buna. To do so, Morris rushed Maroubra Force - two largely untrained and ill-equipped militia battalions – the 39th and 53rd – to the area.

These troops had been employed as wharf labourers and on other manual tasks before finding themselves rushed forward, poorly equipped and trained to meet a tough and battle experienced foe.
To its everlasting credit, the 39th was the first to move and acquitted itself brilliantly from its first contact with the enemy north of Kokoda village. However, skirmishing and several fierce assaults by the Japanese caused the outnumbered Australians to fall back through Kokoda. The 39th soon re-took the village but after two days a renewed Japanese offensive forced the Australians to withdraw. Kokoda was captured by the Japanese on July 29.

Conditions at this point are best summed up Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Honner, Commanding Officer of the 39th Battalion:

“Physically, the pathetically young warriors of the 39th were in poor shape. Worn out by strenuous fighting and exhausting movement, and weakened by lack of food and sleep and shelter, many of them had literally come to a standstill. Practically every day, torrential rains fell all through the afternoon and night, cascading into their cheerless weapon pits and soaking the only clothes they had.”

But although desperate, greatly outnumbered and under-resourced, the resistance was such that, according to captured documents, the Japanese believed they had defeated a force more than 1,200 strong when, in fact, they were facing just 77 Australian troops.

With the Kokoda Airfield now lost, the newly-appointed New Guinea Commander, Lieutenant General Sydney Rowell, immediately dispatched the 21st Brigade to re-take the village of Kokoda. Potts reached Alola, some 10 km south of Kokoda, on the Owen Stanley Range on 23 August and immediately took command of the remnants of the exhausted Maroubra Force. On 26 August, he reinforced the 39th Battalion with his own 2/14th; fit, tanned and superbly trained from the Syrian Desert. Although outnumbered five to one and without supplies of food and ammunition, they held Isurava for four days of bitter fighting against fanatical Japanese attacks where hand-to-hand combat using bayonet, boot and grenade was a regular occurrence.

In deciding his future course of action, Arnold elected to conduct a fighting withdrawal rather than obeying impossible orders from higher command to move forward and attack a greatly superior and better armed enemy. He formulated a tenacious withdrawal strategy with carefully planned ambushes and vicious limited assaults as the appropriate tactic. The commanding officer of the 2/27th Battalion, Lieutenant Colonel Geoff Cooper, recalls Arnold’s astute leadership:

“It rapidly changed from a situation where the Australian Force Headquarters thought attacks against the enemy with the loss of few men would destroy the Japanese and remove the threat, to a situation where a major threat from the enemy with a fairly complete freedom of movement was in danger of overrunning our force and reaching Moresby. Arnold Potts understood this. The withdrawal was a delaying tactic he had to employ; and he did it well. He had to concentrate his force, hold as long as possible, make minor counter-attacks and not get overrun. He had to destroy, delay and then set up and do it all over again.”

When Arnold and his now greatly diminished 2/14th and 2/16th Battalions withdrew to Mission Ridge (Brigade Hill) roughly 30 km south of Kokoda Village, he was then reinforced by his 2/27th Battalion. Under the most trying conditions, he fought a short desperate brigade defensive battle that inflicted further delay upon the Japanese. With heavy casualties on both sides, this critical hold-up in time finally exhausted the tenuous supply line of the enemy commander, General Horri, who had necessarily relied on a strategy of speed with its attendant risks to his logistics to capture Port Moresby.

Demoralised, starving and diseased the Japanese withdrew back along the Track, vigorously followed up by fresh battle-trained troops of the 25th and 16th Brigades. More heavy fighting was to follow, but the threat to Port Moresby was over.

Meanwhile by 16 September, Arnold and his 21st Brigade had been withdrawn to Sogeri at the start of the Kokoda Track some 46 km from Port Moresby, to re-form, re-fit and prepare for further action.

Yet, sadly, Potts’ success would go unrecognised. Fighting in conditions so terrible and beyond the comprehension of Headquarters to imagine, Arnold came under criticism for conducting a fighting withdrawal. He was recalled to Port Moresby days later to explain. He then rejoined his Brigade for a short period, but was personally relieved of its command on 22 October 1942 by General Blamey and posted forthwith to Darwin where he later commanded with distinction the 23rd Brigade of II Corps in action in Bougainville, being twice mentioned in dispatches for his inspiring leadership and tactical acumen. His deeds at Kokoda remained inappropriately, unrecognised.