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Saving Private Connor: The True Story of Australia's Youngest Commando
An extraordinary saga written by an extraordinary author.
How does a 16 y/o pass himself off as 21, get through medical screening, get enlisted in the Australian army, get selected for commando training, graduate from commando school, and end up as a commando on the front lines in New Guinea, fighting the Japanese just five months later? Impossible you think. Well this actually happened to my father. Told in his own words what it was like being in high school one day and fighting gorilla warfare in the Jungles of New Guinea, the next.
My father, with his two older brothers, and his two brothers-in-law, all five brothers were in uniform, four army, one navy and all part of the war effort. With all the other sons in the war my dad's father Joe was determined to save an underaged Private Connor from being another KIA..
For Japan in 1942, New Guinea and its capital Port Moresby were the key to Australia whether as a prelude to the invasion of Australia or stopping or limiting the United States from building up Australia as its major base in the Pacific. It was key to the war in the Pacific.
Just a few months after Pearl Harbour, by March 1942 the Japanese had already taken Rabaul. Rabaul became a strategic base, for the Japanese, situated just to the northeast of New Guinea. They had also established beachheads on the northern coast of New Guinea. Port Moresby, its capital, stood opposite these beachheads on the southern coast. For the Japanese there were only two ways to take Port Moresby, by ship through the Coral Sea or overland across the Owen Stanley ranges from the north coast of New Guinea.
The battle of the Coral Sea stopped the seaborne invasion. The battle on the Kokoda Track stopped the most direct land-based assault. But it was a contingent of mostly Australian commandos, and the New Guinea Volunteer Rifles (NGVR) based in and around Wau that stopped the alternative overland attempt down “Bulldog track”. They would be later reinforced but initially it was just a few hundred men against the might of the Japanese Imperial forces.
This is the story of one boy-soldier and the other major New Guinea battle around Wau..
How does a 16 y/o pass himself off as 21, get through medical screening, get enlisted in the Australian army, get selected for commando training, graduate from commando school, and end up as a commando on the front lines in New Guinea, fighting the Japanese just five months later? Impossible you think. Well this actually happened to my father. Told in his own words what it was like being in high school one day and fighting gorilla warfare in the Jungles of New Guinea, the next.
My father, with his two older brothers, and his two brothers-in-law, all five brothers were in uniform, four army, one navy and all part of the war effort. With all the other sons in the war my dad's father Joe was determined to save an underaged Private Connor from being another KIA..
For Japan in 1942, New Guinea and its capital Port Moresby were the key to Australia whether as a prelude to the invasion of Australia or stopping or limiting the United States from building up Australia as its major base in the Pacific. It was key to the war in the Pacific.
Just a few months after Pearl Harbour, by March 1942 the Japanese had already taken Rabaul. Rabaul became a strategic base, for the Japanese, situated just to the northeast of New Guinea. They had also established beachheads on the northern coast of New Guinea. Port Moresby, its capital, stood opposite these beachheads on the southern coast. For the Japanese there were only two ways to take Port Moresby, by ship through the Coral Sea or overland across the Owen Stanley ranges from the north coast of New Guinea.
The battle of the Coral Sea stopped the seaborne invasion. The battle on the Kokoda Track stopped the most direct land-based assault. But it was a contingent of mostly Australian commandos, and the New Guinea Volunteer Rifles (NGVR) based in and around Wau that stopped the alternative overland attempt down “Bulldog track”. They would be later reinforced but initially it was just a few hundred men against the might of the Japanese Imperial forces.
This is the story of one boy-soldier and the other major New Guinea battle around Wau..
113 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 31, 2025
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