The Battle of Timor 1942-43 (original) (raw)

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The Battle of Timor (1942-43)

The Battle of Timor (1942-43) occurred on the island of Timor, in the Pacific theatre of World War II. It involved forces from the Empire of Japan, which invaded on February 20, 1942, on one side and Allied personnel, predominantly from Australia and the Netherlands, on the other. Many Timorese and some Portuguese colonists fought with the Allies as creados (guerillas), or provided food, shelter and other assistance. Tens of thousands of Timorese civilians died as a result.

The Allied soldiers, who were predominantly Australian commandos, waged a raiding campaign against the Japanese. They were resupplied by aircraft and vessels, based mostly in Darwin, Australia, about 650 kilometers (400 miles) to the south west, across the Timor Sea. The campaign lasted until February 10, 1943, when the last Australian soldiers were evacuated, making them the last Allied land forces to leave South East Asia, following the Japanese offensives of 1941-42. The Timorese continued a resistance campaign.

In 1941, the island of Timor was divided between two colonial powers: the Portuguese in Portuguese Timor and the Dutch in Netherlands Timor. The Australian and Dutch governments agreed that, in the event Japan entered World War II on the Axis side, Australia would provide forces to reinforce Netherlands Timor. Consequently a 1,400 strong Australian Army detachment, known as Sparrow Force, arrived at Kupang on December 12, 1941.

The force was initially commanded by Lieutenant Colonel William Leggatt, and was centered on the Australian 8th Division's 2/40th Battalion (raised in Tasmania), and the commandos of the 2/2nd Independent Company (recruited mostly in Western Australia). Sparrow Force joined about 650 Dutch East Indies troops, under Lt Col. Nico van Straten, and was supported by the 12 Lockheed Hudson light bombers of No. 2 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) and a troop from the British Royal Artillery's 79th Anti Aircraft Battery (which had served in the Battle of Britain). The Allied forces were concentrated around the strategic airfield of Penfui, near Kupang.

Up to this point, the government of Portugal had declined to cooperate with the Allies, relying on its claim of neutrality and plans to send about 800 soldiers from Mozambique, to defend the territory from any Japanese invasion. As this left the Allied flank severely exposed, a 400-strong Dutch-Australian force occupied Portuguese Timor on December 17. The Portuguese dictator, António de Oliveira Salazar, protested to the Allied governments. The colonial governor declared himself a prisoner, to preserve the appearance of neutrality. However, no resistance was offered by the 500-strong Portuguese Army force, local officials authorities tacitly cooperated with the Allies, and the population generally welcomed them.

Most of the Dutch troops, under Van Straten, and the whole of the 2/2nd Independent Company, under Major Alexander Spence, were transferred to Portuguese Timor. They were distributed in smaller detachments around the territory. In January, the Allied forces on Timor became a key link in the so-called "Malay Barrier", defended by the short-lived American-British-Dutch-Australian Command. Additional Australian support staff arrived at Kupang on February 12, including Brigadier William Veale, who had been made the Allied commanding officer (CO) on Timor. By this time many of the Australians, most of whom were unused to tropical conditions, were suffering from malaria and other illnesses.

Timor came under attack from Japanese aircraft on January 26. The raids — hampered only by a squadron of US Army Air Corps P-40 fighters based in Darwin — intensified during February.

On February 16, an Allied convoy carrying reinforcements and supplies to Kupang — escorted by the heavy cruiser USS Houston, the destroyer USS Peary, and the sloops HMAS Swan and HMAS Warrego — came under intense Japanese air attacks and was forced to return to Darwin. The reinforcements on the aborted mission included an Australian pioneer battalion and a US Army artillery battalion.

Portuguese Timor
During the night of February 19-20, the Imperial Japanese Army's 228th Regimental Group, under the command of Col. Sadashichi Doi, began landing in Timor.

The first contact was at Dili, the capital of Portuguese Timor, where the Japanese ships were mistaken for vessels carrying Portuguese reinforcements and the Allies were caught by surprise. Nevertheless, they were well-prepared and the garrison began an orderly retreat, covered by an 18-strong Australian commando section stationed at the airfield. The section managed to kill an estimated 200 Japanese in the first hours of the battle. Another section was less fortunate, driving by chance into a Japanese roadblock. Although they surrendered, it is believed that all but one were massacred.

The Australian commandos withdrew south and east into the mountainous interior, and about 200 Dutch East Indies troops, under Van Straten, headed south west, towards the border.

Netherlands Timor
On the same night, Allied forces in Netherlands Timor were under extremely intense air attacks, which had already caused the RAAF force to be withdrawn to Australia. The bombing was followed up by the landing of the main body of the 228th Regimental Group, on the undefended south west side of the island, at the Paha River. Light tanks were landed to support the Japanese infantry, and the force advanced north, cutting off the Dutch positions in the west, and attacking the 2/40th Battalion positions at Penfui. A parallel Japanese thrust, to the north-east aimed to cut off the Allied retreat, at Usua. Sparrow Force HQ was immediately moved further east, to its supply base at Champlong.

Leggatt ordered the destruction of the airfield, but the Allied line of flight towards Champlong had been cut off by the dropping of about 500 Japanese marine paratroopers, from the 3rd Yokosuka Special Naval Landing Force, near Usua. Sparrow Force HQ moved further eastward and Leggatt's men launched a sustained and devastating assault on the paratroopers. By the morning of February 23, the Allies had killed all but 78 of the enemy forces in front of them, but had been engaged from the rear by the main Japanese force once again.

With his soldiers running low on ammunition, exhausted and carrying 132 men with serious wounds, Leggatt consulted his men and then accepted a Japanese invitation to surrender, at Usua. The 2/40th had suffered 84 killed in action. More than twice that number would die as prisoners of war during the next two and a half years.
Veale and the Sparrow Force HQ force — including about 250 Australian and Dutch troops — continued eastward across the border, to link up with the 2/2 Company.

The commando campaign
By the end of February, the Japanese controlled most of Netherlands Timor and the area around Dili in the north-east. However, they could not move into the south and east of the island without fear of attack. The 2/2nd Independent Company was hidden throughout the mountains of Portuguese Timor, and it commenced raids against the Japanese, assisted by Timorese guides and porters along with Timorese mountain ponies.

Although Portuguese officials remained officially neutral and in charge of civil affairs, both the colonists and the Portuguese Timorese were usually sympathetic to the Allies, who were able to use the local telephone system to communicate among themselves and to gather intelligence on Japanese movements. However they could not contact the outside world, due to a lack of functioning radio equipment.

Doi sent the Australian honorary consul, David Ross, also the local Qantas agent, to find the commandos and pass on a demand to surrender. Spence responded: "Surrender? Surrender be fucked!" Ross gave the commandos information on the disposition of Japanese forces and also provided a note in Portuguese, stating that anyone supplying them would be later reimbursed by the Australian government.

In early March, Veale and Van Straten's forces linked up with the 2/2nd Company. A replacement radio — nicknamed "Winnie the War Winner" — was cobbled together and contact was made with Darwin. By May, Australian aircraft were dropping supplies to the commandos and their allies. On May 24, Veale and Van Straten were evacuated from the south east coast by an RAAF Catalina and Spence was appointed CO, after being promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. On May 27, Royal Australian Navy (RAN) launches successfully complete the first supply and evacuation missions to Timor.

In June, General Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Allied Commander in the South West Pacific Area, received a report from General Thomas Blamey, as Allied land force commander, recommending that the campaign in Timor should be sustained at roughly the same level, as a full-scale Allied counter-attack would require a major amphibious assault, including at least one infantry division.

Doi once again sent Ross with a message, complimenting Sparrow Force on its campaign so far, and again asking that it surrender. The Japanese commander drew a parallel with the efforts of Afrikaner commandos in the Boer War and said that he realised it would take a force 10 times that of the Allies to win. Nevertheless Doi said, he was receiving reinforcements, and would eventually assemble the necessary units. This time Ross did not return to Dili, and he was evacuated to Australia on July 16.

The Japanese offensive
During August, Japanese forces began to burn and/or bomb villages believed to have assisted the Allies, with huge civilian casualties. The commander of the Japanese 48th Division, Lieutenant General Yuichi Tsuchihashi arrived, to assume control of operations on Timor. Strong Japanese columns moved south — two from Dili and one from Manatuto on the north-east coast. Another moved eastward from Netherlands Timor to attack Dutch positions in the central south of the island. The offensive ended on August 19, having secured the central town of Maubisse and the southern port of Beco.

In late August, matters were complicated when a rebellion against the Portuguese broke among the indigenous population, and a parallel conflict began. The Japanese were also recruiting significant numbers of Timorese civilians, who provided intelligence on Allied movements.

During September the main body of the Japanese 48th Division began arriving to take over the campaign. The Australians also sent reinforcements, in the form of the 450-strong 2/4th Independent Company — to be known as Lancer Force — on September 23. The destroyer HMAS Voyager ran aground at the southern port of Betano while landing the 2/4th, and had to be abandoned after it came under air attack. On September 27, the Japanese mounted a thrust from Dili towards the wreck of the Voyager, but without any significant success.

However, by October the Japanese had succeeded in recruiting significant numbers of Timorese civilians, who suffered severe casualties when used in frontal assaults against the Allies. The colonists were also being pressured to assist the Japanese, and at least 26 Portuguese civilians were killed in the first six months of the occupation, including local officials and a Catholic priest. On November 1, the Allied high command approve the issuing of weapons to Portuguese officials, a policy which had previously been carried out on an informal basis. At around the same time, the Japanese ordered all Portuguese civilians to move to a "neutral zone" by November 15. Those who failed to comply were to be considered accomplices of the Allies. This succeeded only in encouraging the Portuguese to cooperate with the Allies, whom they lobbied to evacuate some 300 women and children.

Spence was evacuated to Australia on November 11, and the 2/2nd commander, Major Bernard Callinan was appointed Allied commander in Timor. On the night of November 30-December 1, the RAN mounted a major operation, to land fresh Dutch troops based in Australia at Betano, and evacuate 190 Dutch soldiers and 150 Portuguese civilians. The launch HMAS Kuru was used to ferry the passengers between the shore and two corvettes, HMAS Armidale and HMAS Castlemaine. However, the Armidale, carrying the Dutch reinforcements, was sunk by Japanese aircraft — almost all of those on board were lost.

On December 11-12, the remainder of the original Sparrow Force, except for a few officers, was evacuated with some Portuguese civilians, by the Dutch destroyer HNLMS Tjerk Hiddes.

By this time the chances of an Allies re-taking Timor were remote, as there were now 12,000 Japanese troops on the island and the commandos were coming into increasing contact with the enemy.

In the first week of January, the decision was made to withdraw Lancer Force. On the night of January 9-10, the bulk of the 2/4th and 50 Portuguese were evacuated by the destroyer HMAS Arunta. A small intelligence team known as S Force was left behind, but its presence was soon detected by the Japanese. With the remnants of Lancer Force, S Force made its way to the eastern tip of Timor, where the Australian-British Z Special Unit was also operating. The remaining Allied forces were evacuated by the US Navy submarine USS Gudgeon on February 10.

The commandos and their civilian allies had prevented an entire Japanese division from reaching the New Guinea campaign. However, this had come at a high price, which included the deaths of 40,000 to 70,000 Timorese civilians.