special operations Australia
other australian organisations conducted covert operations in Japanese-controlled Territories during Wwii
in addition to the Australian independent companies, several other Australian units and wartime organisations during world war ii were established to conduct ‘special operations’. the best-known Australian commandos were the ‘m’ and ‘Z’ special units. these were administrative units for Australian soldiers serving with the Allied intelligence Bureau.
the bureau was established in mid 1942 to control and coordinate the different intelligence organisations operating in the Pacific. it consisted of various sections, including what became special operations Australia (soa), an organisation also known by its cover name of the ‘services reconnaissance Department’, and the Coastwatchers’ organisation.
Consisting mainly of Australians, soa also included Britons, new Zealanders, Canadians and south Africans, as well as recruiting the local people of the Pacific islands and Asia. members of soa received advanced training in weapons handling, explosives and demolition. they parachuted, dived and became experienced canoeists. they also studied morse code and regional languages.
From 1943, small parties were inserted from the sea by American submarines or small ships, or covertly dropped by parachute from aircraft into Japanese-controlled territory to gather intelligence and harass the enemy. soa trained thousands of local guerrilla fighters and conducted more than 80 operations in new guinea, timor, Borneo, the Philippines and indochina.
During April, the Japanese pushed further inland, and the Australians responded with more intense skirmishes, ambushing Japanese vehicles on mountainside roads and conducting hit-and-run raids. In one action on 25 April, five Australians waylaid a truck carrying soldiers near Villa Maria. The Australians claimed 12 Japanese killed, eight credited to Private Wheatley. A pre-war kangaroo shooter, the Western Australian was one of seven brothers who served in the forces. He was a fierce marksman who was later celebrated in the press for having “knocked off” 47 Japanese on Timor, with 25 certainties. His record was 12 shots for 12 Japanese dead in 15 minutes. Wheatley masterminded several successful ambushes of Japanese vehicle convoys.
Each action, however, came at a cost. During one ambush, Private Jack Sheehan, a pre-war gold miner and heavyweight boxer from Western Australia, had fired on the Japanese at close range with his Thompson sub-machine gun. Between eight and ten Japanese were thought to have died. Sheehan afterwards remarked to Wheatley, “I’ll never be the same. I felt I was cutting those Japs in two – it was murder.”
The Australians honed their guerrilla tactics over time and through experience. The 2/2nd Independent Company’s sub-units, sometimes just a few men, would hit the Japanese hard and quickly, before making a rapid retreat. The company reported, “It will be observed that the policy of ambush patrols is to hit the enemy hard, quickly and often – then retire. As our men know well the country they select to work in, and the Japanese dislike leaving roads, their getaways are usually fast and free from pursuit. The reason this policy is insisted on by Company HQ is because, as there is no method of transporting casualties, it is considered better to kill a relatively small number of enemy with no loss to ourselves rather than to engage in a longer action which would entail the risk of casualties.” This policy was to prove very effective.
On 24 September, two platoons from 2/2nd Independent Company ambushed a 35-strong Japanese column along the Maubisse-ainaro road, near Numamogue. The Australians opened fire with their Bren light machine guns and rifles as the enemy crossed a bridge. Panic ensued among the Japanese, with many killed and wounded. After a short, sharp attack, the Australians kept snipping at the surviving Japanese for several hours before withdrawing.
Lieutenant David Dexter, a young, aggressive leader who in the future would command the
“I’LL NEVER BE THE SAME. I FELT I WAS CUTTING THOSE JAPS IN TWO – IT WAS MURDER”
2/4th Commando Squadron on Borneo, was in charge of the ambush. His observations gave an indication of the enemy’s training and tactics. Dexter reported, “From my observations of the 4 ½ hour fight I am convinced that when surprised the Jap is a ditherer. His field-craft was very bad. When first fired on, he stood or lay on the open track. Then he climbed to higher ground and presented a beautiful target against the skyline. He made for obvious positions such as prominent native huts upon which our Brens already had range.”
A dangerous supply line
Maintaining the supply line to Timor was difficult and dangerous. Allied aircraft and ships ran the gauntlet to maintain the vital supply link. In September, the destroyer HMAS Voyager ran aground at Betano Bay on Timor’s south coast while reinforcing Sparrow Force with the 2/4th Independent Company. During the night of 23 September the destroyer ran aground, but the company was still able to disembark. Voyager was attacked by Japanese aircraft the next day, and despite shooting down a Japanese bomber it was destroyed by demolition charges. Voyager’s crew was subsequently evacuated to Darwin by the corvettes HMAS Kalgoorlie and Warrnambool on 25 September. During another run to Timor, on 1 December, Japanese aircraft sank HMAS Armidale when the destroyer was carrying 200 Dutch soldiers during an operation to relieve 2/2nd Independent Company. 40 officers and ratings and 60 Dutch soldiers died.
The Japanese also strengthened their garrison and used people from Dutch Timor to encourage the Portuguese Timorese to abandon
their ties with the Australians. The Japanese also conducted brutal reprisals against villagers and recruited some Timorese to track down the Australians and their allies. Damien Parer and a group of war correspondents arrived late in the year, and he noted that the Japanese had incited the Timorese to “revolt”, arming them with “rifles and automatic weapons” to kill “loyal” Timorese and drive out the Australians, “as without native assistance we could not exist”.
He added the enemy had “set the country fighting and burning”. Major Callinan was unhappy with the correspondents, objecting to Timor becoming a “fun place for journalists”. When Parer said he wanted to see action, Callinan replied, “We can’t turn it on when we want to… We might sit and watch for a week.”
Withdrawal
In November, the situation with Sparrow Force, now retitled ‘Lancer Force’, was becoming untenable. The independent companies were withdrawn by sea in December and January 1943, and several hundred Dutch soldiers and Portuguese civilians were also evacuated. Many of the Australians too were exhausted.
There had been little variation in their diet. “We had a feast or a famine”, remarked Parry, “more often than not a famine.” Army rations were supplemented with rice, which became the staple food, or maize. Bananas and small quantities of vegetables and fruit were eaten. Buffalo meat, wild pig, small birds, and – on very rare occasions – crocodiles found their way into the cooking pots. Parry remembered being sick most of the time early in the campaign but only bringing up bile when he vomited, because there had been no food to eat. Little by little, the men became weaker. They developed ulcers and suffered from dysentery. When based in areas near the coast they came down with malaria. Parry thought the worst feature of the campaign was the “terrible fevers”. Only the wounded or very ill were evacuated to Australia. Otherwise it was only the occasional mail from home that offered some respite.
Many of the Australians had mixed feelings about their evacuation. They were relieved and happy to be returning to the mainland, but some felt anxious, even guilty, at leaving behind their Timorese allies and friends to the fate of the Japanese. Corporal Arthur Wray later wrote how the remaining silver coins were distributed by the soldiers to their creados as a reward for their loyalty and service. Wray also gave his haversack, a pair of shorts and a shirt to his helper Paulino. “The scenes at the parting from our boys were most affecting”, Wray remembered, “the boys weeping and embracing their Australian friends, and saying ‘Tuan Australie’ come back?” He continued, “We had a lot to thank the Timorese for, those loyal boys who stuck to us through thick and thin, guiding us and finding food for us.”
Following the Australians’ withdrawal, propaganda leaflets with statements such as “Your friends do not forget you” were dropped by Allied aircraft on Timor. Such leaflets were intended to assure the Timorese people that the Australians would return to liberate the island from the Japanese.
From late September, the press began publishing articles with headlines such as
“AIF guerrilla heroes”, “Australians fighting on in Timor” and “Timor heroes”, alongside illustrated features of “Timor beards” with photographs of the variety of bushy, flowing beards worn by the “Australian guerrillas”.
Such stories were even broadcast on the BBC in Britain. In January 1943, Parer’s newsreel Men of Timor was released across Australia. Although most of the action sequences, including the film’s climactic attack on a projapanese Timorese village, were re-enacted and staged by the soldiers for the camera, the film captured a powerful visual record of the campaign (the images accompanying this article were photographed by Parer).
The Australians were celebrated for their endurance and defiance: “Even now,” wrote Parer, “while the Australians in Timor are a relatively small and lightly equipped band, they have filled the enemy with a restless nervousness, so much so that the Japanese call them ‘Diavi’ (devils). And devils they are, coming suddenly from nowhere, killing and destroying, and disappearing as suddenly again.”
“TIMOR HAS BEEN DESCRIBED AS A MODEL FOR THE SUCCESSFUL CONDUCT OF GUERRILLA WARFARE”
Timor has been described as a model for the successful conduct of guerrilla warfare.
The Australians inflicted many more casualties than they suffered. Detailed figures are unknown, but it was thought that during the year, several hundred Japanese were killed for eight Australian combat casualties. The 400 or so men of the 2/2nd Independent Company and Sparrow Force, later strengthened with 300 men from the 2/4th Independent Company, raided and harassed a Japanese garrison that numbered 10,000. The active guerrilla war perhaps in part led to a build-up of Japanese forces on the island in anticipation of a possible Allied effort to retake Timor. By the war’s end, the strength of the Japanese garrison had doubled to around 20,000 men.
Did these achievements warrant the sacrifice – a sacrifice principally born by the Timorese? It was certainly in the Allies’ interests to continue resistance, but the Timorese suffered terribly. Figures vary, but between 40-70,000 Timorese died during the Japanese occupation. This is a staggering figure when it is considered that the combined populations of Dutch and Portuguese Timor numbered around 900,000.
While the scale of the loss and destruction suffered by the Timorese was likely not wellappreciated by many Australians, the support and bravery offered to the men of Sparrow Force was not forgotten. 50 years later, much of the public sentiment in favour of Australia’s military intervention in East Timor in 1999 was framed by the acknowledgment of a debt to the Timorese. Speaking in federal parliament, one Australian parliamentarian commented, “We owe an extreme debt of gratitude to the people of East Timor. We know how much assistance they were to us during the Second World
War, and anything that this country and this parliament can do to help them must be done.”