History will be made this year at Kokoda with the first ANZAC Dawn service for more than 40 years when Soc Kienzle re-opens Kokoda Station to commemorate ANZAC Day and the Battle of Kokoda.

Soc and Robyn Kienzle, who own and operate ‘Komplete Kokoda’, contacted the college asking if there was anyone from SCOTS PGC who played either the pipes or the bugle, who would be able to assist them to re-open Kokoda Station.

Ben is the Pipe Major for the College Pipe Band and was excited when asked but at the same time he considered his Year 12 school commitments.

“I thought about the trip and the service and realised that I would be part of history and when I was then offered to walk the Kokoda Track, it was too good of an opportunity to miss,” Ben said.

With assistance from some college past students financially, his dream has been made possible.

During his trek he will visit grave sites of SCOTS past students who fought at Kokoda, present to a Papuan of Kokoda the recently released book, Profiles of Courage, the story of the 41 Scots boys who lost their lives during WWII and talk about the SCOTS connection with Kokoda.

“I will also have the chance to ride the river on tubes, visit the old plantation where Soc Kienzle lived and walk the historic track that will take 8 days. Mrs Michelle Brown, who completed Kokoda in 2006, has given me wonderful support assisting me in gaining fitness and equipment,” Ben said.

“I will also visit Bomana Cemetery and Isurava where the Australian Government built a memorial and the museum at Kokoda that was named after Captain Kienzle in 1995.”

Most of the memorabilia in the Kokoda museum was collected by Soc as a boy. His father gave him all his war memorabilia and all his papers, including his original communications, letters and diaries.

Soc Kienzle is the youngest son of Captain Bert Kienzle the man who has been given accolades such as “King of the Angels.” Soc grew up on a New Guinea rubber plantation not far from the village of Kokoda with his parents, one brother and two sisters. He knows the true war trail, much of which is no longer being used, better than anyone.

For half a century his father Bert Kienzle was a gold miner and rubber planter. For a few dark months there, at the mid-point of his life in 1942, he was a significant figure, too, in Australian military history. Bert was the bloke who ‘ran’ the carrier line mythologised as the “Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels” of the Kokoda Trail. Soc Kienzle is the only Aussie operating historical treks that was born and raised on the Kokoda Trail.

Captain Kienzle was at Kokoda for eight years before the War, throughout the War, and for 35 years afterwards. He was fighting for his home, which he saw from a distance go up in smoke when the Japanese occupied, trashed and burned it. After the war, and the destruction of the family home, Kienzle rebuilt on a new site, only much bigger.

Soc Kienzle said the Kokoda Trail campaign was an infantryman’s war.

“Every single piece of Australian Army equipment had to be carried on the backs of men to the front line - sometimes over great distances, up soul destroying energy-sapping climbs, down savagely steep slopes and along throat-parching exposed ridges. Bert Kienzle and “Doc” Geoffrey Vernon, unknown to most Australians, helped make victory possible by organising the carrier line of the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels who week after week, for four months took supplies and ammunition on their backs or by slings and stretchers to the diggers fighting in the Owen Stanleys and brought the wounded out,” he said.

“Everything had to be manhandled. There were no ambulances, trucks or helicopters to ease the burden. The total isolation meant severe wounds destined an almost certain agonising death. Temperatures swung from a freezing wet cold to a stinking wet hot. Malaria, dysentery and typhus were as deadly as the enemy’s bullets.”

“This will be no ordinary service; it will be a time to reunite the ‘original’ Australian flag with the spirits of those who fought for our country. The ‘original’ Australian flag that will be raised is the same flag that was raised by General Vasey when Kokoda was re-claimed from the Japanese by the diggers on the 3rd November 1942. Captain Kienzle was standing beside him. The Flag of the 39th battalion - ‘Mud-Over-Blood’ that was hoisted on special occasions post war, will be raised again.

The Squad were the main force fighting at Kokoda in the early days and at a reunion in 1967 the flag was presented to Soc. The third flag will be the Papua New Guinea flag to honour Fuzzy Wuzzy angels,” Ben said.

Suzanne Kienzle who is a past student of the College and the daughter of Soc and Robyn, Mrs Betty Fox a relative who was involved in the Kokoda Campaign and Ben’s father, Peter Tomkins will join the group at the ANZAC Day service.

“Dad will be able to bring my pipes back in one piece,” Ben said.

Suzanne will be reading a poem The Spirit of ANZAC that Bert Beros wrote when he was convalescing after treatment at 2/12 AGH hospital located at SCOTS.

Ben will be flying to Kokoda on April 23, attending the dawn service and will then walk the Kokoda Trail and return to school on May 4.