Kokoda Legend
Captain Sam Templeton
David Howell
Newport, NSW: Big Sky Publishing, 2024
Paperback 304pp RRP: $29.99
Reviewer: Neville Taylor, June 2024
Born into a Presbyterian family in Belfast in 1901, Sam Templeton grew up in a challenging environment that taught him life lessons he retained to his last day. At seventeen he joined the Royal Navy Reserve for the last year of the First World War. Two years later he commenced service in the Royal Irish Constabulary, but in less than a year he realised he’d become a ‘marked man’ in the eyes of the IRA, so sailed for Australia in May 1921.
Between the wars, Sam worked as a baker, railway shunter, then baker again. He married in 1928 and September 1930 saw him enlist the 5th Battalion, Victoria Scottish Regiment (VSR). A quiet, serious and hard-working individual who prided himself on his fitness, he rose to the rank of warrant officer as company sergeant major (CSM) of B Company.
October 1939 saw his unit called out and he undertook officer training before being appointed a provisional lieutenant. Following training appointments, he realised that there was a chance of not seeing action, so in October 1941 he transferred to the newly-formed 39th Battalion (39 Bn) as officer commanding B Company. The age difference between he and his soldiers saw him quickly become affectionately known as ‘Uncle Sam’. Christmas saw the Battalion commence its move to Sydney ready for embarkation for Port Moresby.
Disembarkation saw 39 Bn occupying airstrips just outside Port Moresby where accommodation facilities were non-existent. On 15 Apr Sam was promoted to captain prior to the Battle of the Coral Sea (May) and the Midway Islands (June). These losses force the Japanese to abandon capture of Port Moresby by sea and an Australian commando raid captured Japanese plans to come south down the Kokoda Track.
B Coy 39 Bn were chosen to be the first troops to move northward with a view to prevent capture of Kokoda and potential airfield sites. Its heavy stores were to be shipped to Buna, then moved south to Kokoda. The Company camped at the southern end of the Track on 24 June, headed north on 7 July, crossed Eora Creek (later to be renamed Templeton’s Crossing) on the 13th and arrived at Kokoda on 15 July. Sam allocated his troops to defensive positions, then reconnoitred north along the route his additional stores would be delivered.
Contact with the Japanese who had landed at Gona and moving south was imminent, and ambushes set, were overrun by superior numbers
. On 26 August at Oivi (just north of Kokoda), Sam, whilst on his own, had his right femur shattered by enemy fire. In pain, he dragged himself into hiding that was short-lived, before being captured by the Japanese. As the first Australian officer to be captured, the next day a doctor reset his leg and administered morphine to make him more comfortable until an interrogator and translator arrived. Stoically, Sam, under rigorous interrogation, fed the Japanese greatly inflated numbers and exaggerated locations of Allied troops. This information was subsequently found in to Japanese headquarter’s intelligence reports, but their influence on subsequent Japanese strategy remain unknown. Sam was eventually bayonetted in the stomach by his interrogator and then buried by the doctor. On returning to the burial site post-War, the doctor could not find the grave, and assumed the Japanese had recovered the body as one of their own.
This work has been comprehensively researched and presented in a most readable style. (This reviewer read it in its entirety without leaving his chair!) This is a well-balanced biography and coupled with a genuine experience of the Kokoda Track, takes the reader back the 80 years when this amazing officer honoured those he led by his own high standards right to the end.
The RUSI – Vic Library thanks the publisher for making this work available for review.