Timor: commandos never gave up
Platoon 2/2 Independent Company, who fought the Japanese in the rugged mountains of Timor despite being short of food and weapons and cut off from Australia.
It was early 1942, with the Imperial Japanese Army outnumbering them by more than 10 to one, dogged by the mountainous jungle terrain of Timor, lightly armed, short of food and medicine, and with Australian HQ not knowing if they still existed as a fighting force, the 270 men of the 2/2nd Independent Company, plus remnants of Sparrow Force - most of whom were captured in Dutch Timor - fought an astonishing guerilla war.
It lasted the best part of a year. Most importantly, the combined force of about 400 troops tied up at least 10,000 Japanese soldiers.
The latter would otherwise have been available to campaign on the Kokoda Trail where Australian forces were in desperate straits.
The small group of intrepid Australian soldiers were all that remained in action of the 22,000 troops of the AIF's 8th Division committed to the islands to our north.
The rest had either been killed or captured on Rabaul, Ambon, Java and Singapore. Many would die later as POWs.
The fighting platoons of the 2/2nd Company were largely made up of men from WA. Typical was Pte Mervyn "Doc" Wheatly, a 28-year-old professional kangaroo shooter from the Pilbara and a crack sniper. Wheat farmer Stan Sadler, from Wongan Hills, was one of their Thompson sub-machinegunners. Pte Tom Foster, a farm manager from Geraldton, was in addition a talented draftsman, which became critically important - they had no accurate maps.
In the course of its harassment of the Japanese, the 2/2nd killed and wounded hundreds of the enemy in ambushes and other close-quarter encounters. With the heroic assistance of Timorese civilians, they also maintained listening and observations posts, including one overlooking Dili, only 2km above the town, from which scores of RAAF raids were called on Japanese shipping and facilities. In all this, the 2/2nd lost just eight men killed in action.
The remarkable story of their epic guerilla campaign has been retold recently in Paul Cleary's The Men Who Came Out of the Ground. Subtitled, A Gripping Account of Australia's First Commando Campaign: Timor 1942, the story captured his imagination while he was working for the East Timor government as a consultant engaged by the World Bank.
During a visit to Australia he saw a DVD featuring some of the veterans supporting East Timor's claim over the Timor Sea oil fields. Given his own connection to the country, he ultimately decided to meet some of them.
"The veterans struck me as a particularly feisty group of men who still cared a great deal about the Timorese people who had supported them way back in 1942," he recalled. Cleary interviewed more than two dozen survivors, including men in Geraldton, Rockingham and Perth. Some of them died soon after.
Next step was a year of research in primary source documents at the Australian War Memorial and in the National Archives. He found a treasure trove of material that had not been previously accessed.
"Included in this was a vast collection of documents put together by David Dexter, a platoon commander with the 2/2nd who also wrote Volume VI of the Official History of World War II. Dexter never got to write the book he intended, due to ill-health. So I think of my book as the one he would have wanted to see written," Cleary said. He sees the unit's achievements as multi-faceted.
"Their actions provided a very significant boost to morale during Australia's darkest hour. The 2/2nd also fashioned a unique brand of guerilla warfare by mobilising the local population and gaining the support of young men and boys who served alongside them. As David Dexter said, the company's year-long campaign was unique in Australian military history. The company has also served as a role model for modern-day special forces units that are now serving in Afghanistan."
The Australians never forgot the assistance the Timorese rendered. Many were subjected to torture and killed.
"From the 1960s the veterans began returning in large numbers, though they discovered that many of their offsiders had not survived the war," Cleary said.
"But they built a stunning memorial … to mark not what the Australians achieved in Timor, but the support of the Timorese. Many of the veterans were bitterly disappointed by the actions of successive Australian governments who betrayed the Timorese time and again, from 1975 onwards."
Of the original 400 AIF troops cut off on Timor in 1942, only 20 are with us today. Their average age is 90. The WA 2/2nd Commando Association was wound up at the end of last year.
