Soputa
village in Papua New Guinea
Soputa is a village located inland from Gona, Buna and Sanananda in Oro province, Papua New Guinea. The village is located at the crossroads of the Kokoda-Sananada Road and Buna-Kokoda Road. Trails lead to Buna and Sananada.
History
On 5 January 1943, Australian infantry and armour reached Soputa with the US Army's 32nd Division and 41st Division. A drop zone and staging area for Australian troops were located at this area during the battle of Gona.
The Australian 2/4th Field Ambulance set up a Main Dressing Station (MDS) at Soputa, inland from the fighting at Gona and Sanananda in a rubber plantation. The MDS was attacked by Japanese aircraft inflicting high casualties including 24 killed.
An Australian and United States military cemetery was located at Soputa. At the end of the war, the bodies were exhumed and reinterred elsewhere.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Soputa” is village in Papua New Guinea. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Soputa, village and Papua, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “village in Papua New Guinea” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 23, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7563214. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1943.
Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Soputa”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Soputa primary sources, Soputa archive and Soputa research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Soputa”?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Soputa” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.