The first thing you will note is that the book title refers to the Kokoda Trail and not track! This has been an ongoing debate for years. The Papua New Guinea Government has gazetted it a trail, and it was known as the “mail trail” before the war and this is what Bert Kienzle knew it as.

I do know however, from my own grandfather, that it was known “as that bloody track”!

“The Kokoda story continues to have a very powerful resonance with all Australians, and Bert Kienzle’s vital role is acknowledged in all the published accounts – but until now no one has ever told his story.

If one person ‘made’ the Kokoda Track, that man was Bert Kienzle. Part Samoan and German/English, born in Fiji and raised in Germany and Australia, he was managing a rubber plantation and gold mine in New Guinea at the outbreak of World War II. He surveyed and established the Track, and spent more time on it than anyone else throughout the campaign – managing and organising the delivery of supplies and men along it.

THE ARCHITECT OF KOKODA is a unique account of a very special part of our history, told by his daughter-in-law with unique access to the central character, and access to all his records and photos. This is the untold story of a true Australian war hero.“From the Publisher.

All of the histories on the Kokoda story mention the indebtedness of the “Diggers” to the work of Bert Kienzle, and his organisation of the native porters who supplied them. This is not a story of the battlefields, but one about the man himself, written from his dispatches, diaries. and endless notes. You receive an understanding of a remarkable and unique insight into a truly great man.

Thoroughly recommend it.

I read all 338 pages today – I just couldn’t put it down.