to Brisbane, was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine, making him the first soldier of the 32nd Division to die in combat during World War II. Japanese assault on Port Moresby The Battle of Coral Sea in early May followed by the Allied victory at the Battle of Midway in early June foiled Japan's plans to capture Port Moresby by sea. The Japanese were undaunted. A Japanese convoy conveyed Maj. Gen. Tomitarō Horii with about 4,400 troops onto the beach at Gona during the night of 21–22 July 1942 on the north-eastern shore of Papua New Guinea. They proceeded inland to Popondetta and then south-westward onto the Kokoda Trail with the object of capturing Port Moresby. By 13 August, the Japanese had landed about 11,100 men, which the object of securing a base to dominate the south Pacific. The Allies commonly believed the Japanese intended to invade Australia, whose Cape York Peninsula was only from New Guinea. Unknown to the Allies, the Chief of the Imperial Japanese Naval General Staff, Osami Nagano, had proposed an invasion, but this plan was rejected in favor of a decision to occupy Midway Island with the intention of cutting Australia off from United States supply lines, eventually forcing Australia to surrender. General Willoughby continued to believe that the Japanese only intended to build airfields on the northern coast with the intent to attack Port Moresby and Australia by air. But the Japanese fought up the northern side of the Owen Stanley Mountains and in the middle of September, after weeks of fighting, descended the southern slopes to Ioribaiwa Ridge, within of Port Moresby. At the peak of their effort, the Japanese had 16,000 troops in the region. Japanese engineers remained on the coast to fortify the beachhead and build a system of reinforced and cross-linked bunkers. The Allied air forces relentlessly attacked the Japanese supply lines over the Owen Stanley Mountains that connected the Japanese forces to Buna, Sanananda, and Gona. The weakened Japanese forces, attacked from the air and on the front and flanks by Australian forces, were finally stopped on 17 September at Imita Range, south of Ioribaiwa. Japanese withdrawal from Kokoda Track On Guadalcanal, Lieutenant General Harukichi Hyakutake's initial thrust to re-take the island's Henderson Field had been badly defeated. Meanwhile, a landing at Milne Bay had also been repulsed. With the concurrence of the Japanese command staff, he ordered General Horii