UNTOLD HISTORY: How WWII Diggers given up as lost fought on against the Japanese in Timor’s mountains

They had been given up as missing. Perhaps captured. Or dead. But the men of the 2/2 Independent Company, part of Sparrow Force, were neither. They may have been a rag-rag band of 270 men, many with bushy beards who looked little like traditional soldiers. But beaten they were not. Against all odds, as the Japanese swept through South East Asia towards Australia during WWII in the dark days of 1942, the hardy Diggers, overwhelmingly from WA, fought on in the rugged mountains and jungles of Timor. But they were without a radio strong enough to contact HQ in Australia. Knowing their efforts at fighting on would end in futility unless they were reinforced with men and supplies, they scavenged and — through some daring patrols — managed to collect enough parts to assemble a radio set. But when a faint radio call from the 2/2 was picked up in Darwin, it was greeted with scepticism. As revealed in The Men Who Came Out Of The Ground, by Paul Cleary, the 2/2 signallers used a call sign which had been made redundant by the Japanese invasion of Timor. Luckily, one of the signallers in Darwin knew that a signaller by the name of Jack Sargeant had been with Sparrow Force, and asked if Sargeant was with the group sending the radio message. He was. The Darwin signaller asked what was Sergeant’s wife’s Christian name. “Sergeant answered that it was Kath,” Clearly wrote. Then came the second question — what was Sergeant’s street address? Sergeant answered again and sent a follow-up message. “Force intact and still fighting. Stop. Badly need boots, quinine, money and Tommy Gun Ammunition,” Clearly wrote. Although heavily outnumbered, the 2/2 was still a fighting unit. And fight on they did, in a daring and tactically astute guerrilla campaign — given crucial help by sympathetic Timorese and local Portuguese — which kept occupied thousands of Japanese troops. It was a remarkable and too-often overlooked part of Australia’s WWII story. The 2/2 were the forerunners of the modern-day SAS. As Cleary noted, they mainly “came from the farms, outback stations and mining towns of the vast State of Western Australia”. They were tough, fit and resourceful. The WA Museum, in a 2012 exhibition on the 2/2, said each man “became skilled in weapons use, infiltration, reconnaissance, field craft, demolition and signals”. Among them were West Australians George Strickland and Bill Willis. George Strickland’s son Noel, now president of the 2/2 Commando Association of Australia, said his father had almost completed a cabinet-making apprenticeship when he signed up in 1940. He was undertaking basic training in Northam and was having breakfast when the men were asked if any would like to be part of a “hush hush” group. “They could not be married, had to have no dependents and to be able to live off the land,” Noel Strickland said. George Strickland was a fit sportsman, had spent some time on farms and “knew how to handle a rifle,” Noel Strickland said. Bill Willis’ son Ed said his father had experience in the mines and was working on the railways before he enlisted in 1940, and after basic training, volunteered to join the 2/2. A team of British trained the men to become special forces at a secret camp at rugged and isolated Wilsons Promontory, in Victoria, the museum said. The 2/2 Commando Association says the aim was originally to send the men on secret missions into enemy-occupied territory in Europe. But Japan’s entry into the war changed their role. Sparrow Force was deployed to Koepang, West Timor. On December 17, 1941, elements of the 2/2 and Dutch troops moved into neutral Portuguese East Timor from West Timor, intent on defending the airstrip near Dili to pre-empt any Japanese attack, the museum says. The 2/2 Commando site says the Japanese put in place a plan to invade Timor that began with the bombing of Darwin on the morning of February 19, 1942. “The bombing was specifically designed to knock out Allied air and naval power based in and around Darwin so that these forces could not be used to counterattack,” the site says. Late that day, Japan landed forces on east and west Timor. The 2/40th Battalion held out for four days at Kupang before surrendering, but some of the 2/40th made their way across the island to East Timor to join the 2/2nd, the Australian War Memorial says. The 2/2 had only a small force defending the airfield at Dili. Most had moved into the mountains so they could recover from, or avoid, malaria, the 2/2 site says. It was in the mountains that the brave guerrilla campaign began. “The early success of these operations was made possible by the support of the Timorese people, who provided food and shelter, ponies for carrying heavy equipment, acted as porters and guides, and helped set up ambushes,” the AWM says. They also bravely tended to wounded Australians, even knowing that it put their own lives at risk should the Japanese find out. This included what became known as the ration truck massacre of Australian troops just after the Japanese landing. Miraculously, one Digger, Keith Hayes, somehow survived after being shot and bayoneted. “Hayes regained consciousness and later crawled away with bullet and bayonet wounds to the neck,” the WA Museum says. “At great risk to themselves, local East Timorese hid Hayes for several days in the home of Berta Sandanah Martines. “Berta treated his wounds and kept him alive until he could be smuggled back to his unit,” the museum says. The Australians were also befriended by “criados”, Timorese boys with an average age of 13 who “adopted” a soldier each. “Criados were constant companions who carried equipment, found and shared food, cooked, washed clothes and assisted with the sick and wounded,” the museum says. “They also acted as guides, becoming a soldier’s eyes and ears in gathering vital intelligence.” Cleary wrote that the 2/2 tactics meant hitting the Japanese quickly and hard with small mobile teams before making a rapid retreat. This was “to prove very effective against an enemy afraid of moving on mountain tracks, where the Australians were in command”. “As the 2/2 men hit the Japanese with relentless raids, they appeared and operated like bushrangers of Australia’s wild colonial past,” Cleary wrote. “Many of the men grew long beards — razors were unobtainable — and resembled the members of the Kelly gang. “The Japanese declared the 2/2 Company men ‘outlaws’ and warned if they did not surrender they ‘would not be given POW privileges and, if captured, would be executed’,” Cleary wrote. But by April, the men were becoming desperate for help. In particular, they needed boots to move around the rugged terrain, even as they went barefoot when an attack was unlikely in order to harden their feet, Cleary wrote. Enter an unlikely hero — Max Loveless, a radio technician from the ABC in Hobart — who Cleary described as “an edgy man” who “lacked the physical prowess of the bushmen in the 2/2”. But he was a gun radio technician. Loveless and fellow signaller Keith Richards worked tirelessly, fashioning spare parts the unit was able to find into a radio. And it worked. They named the set after British prime minister Winston Churchill. They called it “Winnie the War Winner”. The unit could at last be resupplied. The museum says the “Timor ferry run” brought military supplies, food, medicines, reinforcements and mail and took out the sick and wounded. RAAF and US Air Force Catalina flying boats and navy submarines were also used to evacuate commanders and the wounded. And the 2/2 was bolstered by the arrival of the 2/4th Independent Company in September 1942. “In August, the Japanese launched a major offensive against the guerrillas, and Japanese reprisals against the civilian population of East Timor reduced their support for the Australians,” the AWM says. The 2/2 and 2/4th were withdrawn in December and January 1943, respectively. The 2/2 went on to fight in New Guinea and New Britain and was disbanded in early 1946. “At war’s end, the 2/2nd had the distinction of being the Allied unit with the longest active service in constant contact with the enemy,” the museum says. “Since formation, the 2/2nd had lost 51 lives.” George Strickland served in New Guinea and New Britain and eventually went back to cabinet making. Bill Willis left the 2/2 after Timor, spent time as a military policeman and after the war worked as a bricklayer. As Clearly notes, the 2/2, augmented to about 700 men with the reinforcements of the 2/4, tied up many thousands of Japanese as the more high-profile battle on the Kokoda Track in New Guinea was underway. After the war, the men and their descendants have continued to repay the debt of honour they felt they owed the Timorese for the help they had received. Their work included funding a memorial, helping build schools, training teachers, supplying purified water and developing tourism. The Government of Timor Leste recognised this help by awarding the 2/2 Commando Association the Order of Timor Leste last year. Ed Willis has written a book, WWII in East Timor, An Australian Army Site and Travel Guide.

UNTOLD HISTORY: How WWII Diggers given up as lost fought on against the Japanese in Timor’s mountains

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