Qualla: First Battle of Eora Creek - Templeton's Crossing

First Battle of Eora Creek - Templeton's Crossing: Introduction

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Some battles get lost between bigger ones. Between the bloody defense at Isurava that Australians still talk about and the disaster at Mission Ridge that became legend, a six-day rearguard action at Eora Creek and Templeton's Crossing has been overshadowed so completely that Japanese accounts refer to it simply as "the Second Battle of Isurava." The Australian historian Peter Williams has called it "the least-examined engagement of the campaign." Yet this was the last time on the Kokoda Track that the Japanese outnumbered the Australians - and it was the work of roughly 710 Australian soldiers, holding off 1,300 Japanese with artillery and engineers, that kept the entire Australian withdrawal from falling apart between 31 August and 5 September 1942.

First Battle of Eora Creek - Templeton's Crossing: After Isurava

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Australian 21st Brigade under Brigadier Arnold Potts had just fought a savage defensive battle at Isurava, between 26 and 31 August. Both sides were spent. The Japanese 144th Infantry Regiment, which had led the attack, was pulled into reserve and the fresh 41st Infantry Regi...

First Battle of Eora Creek - Templeton's Crossing: Leapfrog in the Rain

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The action was not one battle but a sequence of them - a method the Australians would later teach in their staff colleges as a model of fighting withdrawal. One battalion held a blocking position while another moved back through a reserve line; at the appointed hour, the forward ...

First Battle of Eora Creek - Templeton's Crossing: Dump 1 and Myola

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

At a point on the track called Dump 1 - the first creek crossing south of Templeton's - the 2/14th occupied high ground on 3 September. The 2/16th, pressed hard, withdrew through them at 4 pm and the 2/14th retired toward Myola, a dry lake bed that served as the brigade's main su...

First Battle of Eora Creek - Templeton's Crossing: The Cost of Time

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The numbers tell only part of the story. Forty-three Japanese soldiers killed, 58 wounded, from a force of about 1,300. Twenty-one Australians killed, 54 wounded, from about 710 - with a single 3-inch mortar as their entire indirect fire support against four Japanese artillery pi...

First Battle of Eora Creek - Templeton's Crossing: The Ground That Was Kept Quiet

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

After the war, according to journalist Barclay Crawford, the local villagers kept the exact location of the battle secret "out of respect for the dead." For decades the ground was not marked on maps. In 2010, former Australian commando and trek leader Brian Freeman announced he h...