Some ground you fight over twice. In late August 1942, the Australians had held Eora Creek and Templeton's Crossing as they retreated south. By mid-October, they were climbing back up the same track, now pursuing Japanese troops withdrawing north. The same ridges, the same creek, the same defensive positions - but reversed, with the Australians attacking the ground where Japanese soldiers now sat in prepared fortifications. Sunday Telegraph journalist Barclay Crawford later called what happened here "the bloodiest and most significant battle of the Australian Army's campaign to retake the Kokoda Track." Between 11 and 28 October, fighting at Eora Creek-Templeton's Crossing would cost 412 Australian casualties, end a divisional commander's career, and mark the first Australian victory of the campaign - though a partial one, since the Japanese force they sought to destroy escaped north intact.
After the Japanese broke off the advance on Port Moresby in mid-September, their army began withdrawing north along the Kokoda Track. Major General Tomitaro Horii had been ordered to hold the Isurava-Kokoda area as a base for possible future operations. He left behind what he called the Stanley Detachment - a rearguard built around the 2/144th Battalion, tasked with holding four prepared positions in the Owen Stanley Range. The Australians of Brigadier Kenneth Eather's 25th Brigade reoccupied Ioribaiwa on 28 September, finding abandoned trenches. Brigadier John Lloyd's 16th Brigade, fresh from Port Moresby, followed them up. Both brigades came under Major General Arthur "Tubby" Allen of the 7th Division. By early October, Australian battalions were climbing ground they had withdrawn across six weeks earlier - passing through Menari and Brigade Hill, where evidence of the September battle still lay among the scrub.
The Stanley Detachment's 986 men had prepared their defense carefully. The first two positions sat near the northern ends of two parallel tracks that ran from Kagi - the main Myola track and the older Mount Bellamy Track. The third position overlooked Templeton's Crossing where the two tracks rejoined. The fourth was at Eora Village itself. On the Myola track, the Japanese main force of 520 men had dug in along a 1,300-meter line of mutually supporting positions with alternate gun pits that made flanking difficult. On the Mount Bellamy Track, a smaller force of 147 held the western approach. The Australians outnumbered the defenders roughly two to one - 1,882 against 986 - and this exactly mirrored the force ratio of the first battle six weeks earlier, only with the sides reversed.
The fighting opened on 10 October when a 2/33rd Battalion patrol contacted the forward Japanese position on the Myola track. Lieutenant Colonel Alfred Buttrose brought up the rest of the 2/33rd on 12 October. Attacks ran into the interlocking defenses and slowed. The 3rd Battalion circled west to set up a coordinated assault with the 2/33rd for 15 October - but when the attack went in, the Japanese had already slipped away north. On the Mount Bellamy Track, Lieutenant Colonel Richard Marson's 2/25th Battalion made contact on 13 October and reported positions clear by 15 October - an advance Peter Williams has since criticised as too cautious given the weaker enemy force. By 16 October, the 25th Brigade (less the 2/31st) had reached the track junction at Templeton's Crossing. The real fighting was still ahead, and above them, the Japanese held the steep ground overlooking the creek.
In the final phase from 22 to 29 October, 72 Australian soldiers died and 154 were wounded; Japanese losses were 64 killed and 70 wounded. Across the entire engagement from 12 to 28 October, total Australian casualties reached 412 against 244 Japanese. By any measure the Australians had forced their way through - the first Kokoda victory for the Australian Army. Yet the Japanese force had slipped away north, not been destroyed, and General Thomas Blamey and General Douglas MacArthur, pressuring from headquarters in Port Moresby and Brisbane, had lost patience with what they saw as slow progress. On 28 October, Allen was relieved of his command and replaced by Major General George Vasey. Peter Williams and other historians have argued Allen was punished for advancing carefully through country that punished haste - and for fighting an enemy still capable of defending four prepared positions in depth.
After Templeton's Crossing, the Australians pushed on. Aola was entered on 30 October. On 2 November, a 2/31st Battalion patrol entered Kokoda itself and found the village abandoned. The airstrip there, now back in Australian hands, finally eased the crushing supply problem that had strangled every Kokoda operation since July - the problem that had forced both sides to rely on Papuan carriers hauling everything over the range on their backs. The two Australian brigades fought the final battle of the campaign at Oivi and Gorari between 4 and 11 November 1942. After that, the Japanese abandoned most of their artillery, crossed the Kumusi River, and fell back to their beachheads at Buna and Gona. Heavy fighting followed through December 1942 and January 1943 on the coastal plain. By then, the track itself had been quiet for weeks. The villagers of Eora, according to Crawford, kept the location of the two battles fought near them a secret after the war - "out of respect for the dead." In 2010, former Australian commando Brian Freeman announced he had found the site. The 3rd, 2/1st, 2/2nd, 2/3rd, 2/25th, 2/31st, and 2/33rd Infantry Battalions received the battle honour "Eora Creek-Templeton's Crossing II."
The Second Battle of Eora Creek-Templeton's Crossing was fought across approximately 9.03 degrees south, 147.74 degrees east, in the central Owen Stanley Range about 95 km north of Port Moresby - the same ground as the First Battle. The nearest airfield is Kagi airstrip (grass, approximately 5 km south); larger airports are Jacksons International (AYPY/POM) at Port Moresby 60 nautical miles south and Kokoda (AYKO) 35 nautical miles north. Recommended viewing altitude is 10,000 feet - the battlefield lies on ridges between 1,600 and 2,000 meters, often socked in by cloud from mid-morning. Eora Creek itself cuts through steep rainforest. Best visibility is early morning during the dry season (May-October).