The Salamaua campaign began as the Kokoda campaign ended and ended as the Markham–Ramu Valley campaign began. In scale, it was the largest commitment by the Australian army in New Guinea up to that time and during a period when the war against Japan was still in the balance. In the end it was a diversion, a feint for the subsequent operation to seize Lae, a magnet to draw the Japanese away from the main game. Yet it involved some of the most intense and drawn-out fighting of the entire war, undertaken on a battlefield of the devil's choosing.

From the northern crest of Mount Tambu there is a view to die for, and many men did. Below are the ridges marching down to the Francisco River, much like the gnarled fingers of a claw, a claw that held three armies in its grasp for much of 1943. If not for the deep green canopy it could be the broken terrain of Gallipoli, your eyrie as Chunuk Bair. Beyond the ridge and the river, the shimmering blue sea of the Huon Gulf beckons like the Dardanelles. Like the craggy ranges above Anzac Cove, it is as absurd a place to fight a battle as you could find.

The battles here are little known and seldom mentioned; the dead and those who endured deserve better. This story is theirs.