to withdraw his troops on the Kokoda Track until the issue at Guadalcanal was decided. On 28 September, General Horii and his troops began to hastily withdraw northward over the Owen Stanley Mountains to Kokoda and then to Buna–Gona. Transport to New Guinea General Douglas MacArthur had repeatedly requested Washington, D.C. to send him additional troops with which to initiate an offensive campaign and had been pointedly told he would have to make do with the troops on hand. MacArthur had decided as soon as he had reached Australia that the key to its defense lay not on the mainland but in New Guinea. On 13 September 1942 he ordered parts of the 32nd Division to Papua New Guinea even though they had less than two months of training. This would become part of the opening ground offensive against Japanese troops in the Southwest Pacific Area, and MacArthur expected the Americans to quickly and easily advance on and capture the Japanese forward base at Buna. The U.S. Army typically required divisions to train as a unit for a full year before entering combat. The 32nd had arrived in Australia in April 1942, spent several weeks building its first camp, was transported to a new camp in July, and nearly one third of its troops had been in boot camp only five months previously. Nonetheless U.S. officers decided it was the most combat-ready unit in Australia. Kapa Kapa Trail march The Australian Army units on New Guinea were under increasing pressure from the Japanese forces who had advanced within of Port Moresby. Anxious to blunt the Japanese attack, and although no white man had crossed using that route since 1917, General Douglas MacArthur issued orders for United States forces to take the Kapa Kapa Trail running parallel to the Kokoda Track. The 32nd's Divisional Headquarters and two regimental combat teams formed around the 126th and 128th infantry regiments were deployed to Port Moresby between 15 and 29 September 1942. MacArthur believed based on available intelligence that the U.S. forces could guard the right flank of the Australian forces and entrap the Imperial Japanese troops between the two allied forces. Beginning on 14 October 900 troops of the 2nd Battalion, 114th Engineer Battalion, 19th Portable Hospital, and the 107th Quartermaster Company of 126th Infantry, commanded by Lt. Col. Henry A. Geerds, departed in stages from Karekodobu, nicknamed "Kalamazoo" by the GIs who