ANZAC DAY 2025: Bill Grayden’s heroics show how small band of Diggers made Kokoda a symbol of wartime bravery

How do we begin to acknowledge Bill Grayden’s World War II heroics? Do we start with the time he and a small group of Diggers were pressed into the jungle undergrowth on the Kokoda Trail before one of his mates was shot in the throat? Or when he took part in an old-fashioned bayonet advance towards Japanese lines? Or when two of his mates were blown to shreds and he was knocked unconscious? Or all of the above. And more. For as the Japanese advanced ominously south through the jungles and mountains of New Guinea towards its capital Port Morseby in the grim days of 1942, it was the actions of those outnumbered and outgunned Diggers which slowed and then stopped the invaders. And it is why the word Kokoda has entered our history and our language as a byword for courage and fighting spirit. Mr Grayden, now 104, also fought in the Middle East and Borneo as WWII turned from survival to victory. And then he spent 43 years as a Federal and State MP — including election to the House of Representatives as one of prime minister Robert Menzies’ famous “49ers”. But it is for his service on the battlefield that Mr Grayden is recognised on Anzac Day. His State Parliament biography says his father Len had landed at Gallipoli on April 25, 1915 with the 16th Battalion. He was shot in the chest just a few days later, lost a lung but survived. When the world went to war again, Bill Grayden, then aged 19, tried to enlist but was rejected as too young. His response was simply to change his Christian name from Wilbur to William and put his age up. He was in. After basic training he attended officers’ school and graduated as a lieutenant. And it seemed only right that he asked to join the 2/16th, the successors to his father’s battalion. He sailed for the Middle East and was part of the force which defeated pro-German Vichy French troops in Syria. Japan’s entry into WWII saw the 2/16th withdrawn and headed to bolster the Allied forces in Singapore. “We were within six hours of Singapore and then Singapore fell,” he told The West Australian in 2007. The 2/16th was redirected again, back to Australia, but was on the move once more soon afterwards to New Guinea. The Australian War Memorial says that it arrived at Port Moresby on August 12, 1942, and by August 29 was in action against the Japanese on the Kokoda Trail. “Forced to withdraw, the 2/16th fought a series of desperate actions back along the Trail,” the AWM says. Mr Grayden described some in his book Kokoda Lieutenant — The Triumph of the 21st Brigade. Equipment was limited to a bare minimum, with 50 rounds of ammunition per rifle, and each man carried a haversack with rations for six days — six tins of “bully beef” and six packets of “dog biscuits”. They also each carried half of a two-piece cooking dixie, a spare pair of socks, half a blanket, a narrow strip of mosquito netting and half a towel, Mr Grayden wrote. He also slipped into his sack a small jar of Vegemite. “With its sister battalion, the 2/14th, the 2/16th set out to confront the enemy,” he wrote. The Kokoda Trail took in “a series of rainforest-covered mountain ranges, deep valleys and numerous fast-flowing rivers”. There was incessant rain and no shelter or waterproof clothing. “In the sodden rainforest at night it was impossible to lie down to sleep,” he wrote. “Often the only practicable way to sleep was by sitting on an upturned helmet with your back against a tree . . . sometimes two soldiers would sit back-to-back on their helmets.” The men slept fully clothed and wearing their boots. Leeches would crawl undetected into boots, and socks would be soaked with blood after the men started moving in the morning. Malaria was endemic. Contact with the Japanese forces was constant and fought at close quarters as the Australians set ambush after ambush as they slowly fell back. And the exchanges could be brutal. Such as when a small group of Diggers crawled slowly and carefully — positioned about two metres apart, pressed into the rainforest floor — to intercept a Japanese unit. As the platoon sergeant edged into a narrow clear patch and looked up to scan the ridge ahead, Mr Grayden looked across at him. “As I watched, he was struck in the centre of his throat by a bullet fired from six metres or less in front of us,” Mr Grayden wrote in Kokoda Lieutenant. “The bullet travelled the full length of his body, killing him instantly.” The other Diggers lay still and silent until it became apparent that they had not been seen amid the dense foliage, and then slipped noiselessly away. Of the bayonet advance, Mr Grayden wrote: “There was no hesitancy or reluctance by any individual to do what was expected of them” even though “everyone involved knew that many of them would be walking to their death”. In the brutal close combat that followed, the Diggers took heavy casualties but Mr Grayden was unscathed. But the odds finally caught up with him later in the campaign. Two of his mates were blown to shreds by shellfire and he was knocked unconscious. When he came around, he walked back to battalion headquarters to report that “the earlier report of my death had been erroneous”. The surviving members of the 2/16th were relieved in September. It had just 143 fit men from its initial number of about 550. But the Japanese had been stopped and turned around. Mr Grayden was later sent to Borneo, and when the final victory came he was on a patrol behind Japanese lines. He helped repatriate Japanese soldiers before returning to WA. In 1947, just two years after the war ended, a 27-year-old Mr Grayden entered State Parliament as Liberal MP for Middle Swan. In 1949 he left the WA Parliament and won the Federal seat of Swan, before switching back to State politics as the MP for South Perth in 1956. During his time as an MP he held a number of Cabinet roles, and finally left politics in 1993. He was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 1994. Looking back this week Mr Grayden humbly deflected any praise, saying he was proud of the other Diggers and had held a huge amount of confidence in them. And standing to farewell The West Australian from his home, he proffered a hand to shake. And even at 104, the grip remained firm and sure.