Our Northern Neighbour: Tales of Papua New Guinea and Australia’s shared army historical past

Papua New Guinea’s fiftieth anniversary of independence from Australia on 16 September 2025 supplies a possibility to replicate on the mixed historical past of service and sacrifice shared by Australia and Papua New Guinea.

Before the twentieth Century, Papua and New Guinea have been colonial possessions of England and Germany. The former British Protectorate of Papua was annexed as an Australian territory in 1906, and shortly after the outbreak of the First World War, the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force captured German New Guinea and occupied it till the tip of the conflict, when Australia got here to manage the Territory of New Guinea.

But it was the Second World War that introduced the largest modifications to relations between Australia and its island neighbours to the north. In 1942, Japanese forces sought to seize Port Moresby, invading overland alongside the Kokoda Trail.

Papuan carriers employed by Australian forces through the marketing campaign undertook the job of stretcher-bearing the Australian sick and wounded. A extremely romanticised delusion noticed the carriers solid as “Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels” – “dedicated, devoted and gentle servants, faithful unto death”. The actuality, nonetheless, was way more advanced, involving compelled conscription, damaged guarantees, and in a single occasion the general public execution of a minimum of 21 Papuans for betraying missionaries throughout Japanese occupation (for extra, see The “Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels”: trying past the parable).

Papuan carriers labored in poor situations, many turned unwell, and a few misplaced their lives. Gilbert Mandio of Beama village recalled that the work was “very very fatiguing, 24 hours a day, seven days a week … Some of them died of sickness, short rations, cold weather, exposed and from falling supplies dropped by planes … the number of deaths has not been recorded.”

The experiences of the Kokoda Trail and the broader conflict constructed sturdy relationships. Australians turned indebted to the Papuans, who turned identified for his or her bravery, faithfulness, endurance, compassion and cheerfulness within the face of adversity.