Ghost Mountain
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Ghost Mountain is the name given by US Army servicemen in 1942 to a mountain in the Owen Stanley Ranges in the South East of Papua New Guinea, also known locally as 'Suwemalla' or more officially as 'Mt. Obree'. Ghost Mountain rises to 3,080 m. and is located at Lat9° 31' 0S Long 148° 4' 0E.
In October 1942 (one of the US Army's first offensive operations of the Second World War) the 126th Regiment of the US Army 32nd 'Red Arrows' Division was ordered to cross on foot from the South coast across the Owen Stanleys in the vicinity of Ghost Mountain, to bring force to bear on the Japanese beachhead on the North coast. The Ghost Mountain trail across the Owen Stanley divide was a 'dank and eerie place, rougher and more precipitous' than the Kokoda track on which the Australians and Japanese were then fighting.
"Immense ridges, or "razorbacks," followed each other in succession like the teeth of a saw. As a rule, the only way the troops could get up these ridges, which were steeper than along the Kokoda Trail, was either on hands and knees, or by cutting steps into them with ax and machete. To rest, the men simply leaned forward, holding on to vines and roots in order to keep themselves from slipping down the mountainside."
Ghost Mountain earned its name from the eerie phosophoresence glow given off at night by moss-covered trees in the forests on its slopes. The mountain also claimed the lives of a number of US 5th Air Force air crews during the conflict, and a civilian aircraft since then.
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[edit] References
U.S. Army in World War II: The War in the Pacific - Victory in Papua, Samuel Milner. Office of the Chief of Military History Department of the Army, Washington D.C. 1957[1]
Pacific Wrecks [2]
