COMMANDO WAR

Timaru Herald, Volume CLIII, Issue 22469, 2 January 1943, Page 5

COMMANDO WAR

Gallant Australians

In Timor

Holding Down Big Force

By Telegraph—N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright SYDNEY, December 31. In the Mountain wilderness of Timor, a Portuguese possession, fewer than 450 miles from the north-west coastline of Australia an A.I.F. commando force, together with Dutch guerrillas, is to-day pinning down a big Japanese force, denying them conquest of the island and making hazardous any attempt to Invade Australia from that base. The story of the Australians left in Timor, one of the most colourful of the war in the Pacific, is told by an official war correspondent (Mr W. Marien), who visited the island recently. Against odds of 100 to one the Allied troops are killing the Japanese at a rate much more than 100 to one for every Australian and Dutchman tost in action. They are ambushing the enemy in the mountains, raiding them in their camps, and have even carried the fight right down the main street of Dilli. In five months the enemy has lost at least 30 officers and 500 men. The Australians nave lost only three lives.

No Surrender

In 5 days, during which they were without even wireless contact with Australia, the Australians rejected two Japanese demands to surrender. They have been rejecting them ever since although they did not know whether Australia was still at war, but the ingenuity of a young Tasmanian signaller converted scraps .of wire, solder and old tins into a radio transmitter which is April spluttered out dots and dashes telling Australia that the A.I.F. Commandos were fighting on in Timor. These Commandos established their own training school almost within range of Japanese machine-gun fire. The training was far from theoretical. Every now and then the Japanese would interrupt the course and the trainees would apply the rifle and machine-gun lessons which they were learning. These men are still fighting—inhuman, unequal, nerve-torturing type of battle. They are hedged in on three sides by Japanese. Night and day they are patrolling. Any twist of the track may bring them smack into a superior Japanese force. Death may come from the spear of a native who pretends to be friendly. Malaria wrecks many of them and viletasting buffalo meat and monotonously sticky rice are no invalid diet. Their most graceful tribute has been paid to them by the enemy “you atone do not surrender to us.”

Valuable Time Gained

Commenting on the Marines’ story the “Daily Telegraph” to-day says editorially: “Mr Curtin had these hardy fighters in mind when he told the Australian Labour Party conference that it was stupid that men should be sent to Darwin, where they could be bombed, yet not to Timor, where they could prevent the enemy from bombing Darwin. How soon we will be able to launch a counter-offensive and so make use of the time these men have gained for us by their gallant defence in Timor depends, among other things, upon how soon the Government frees the militia to go to the aid of their comrades.”

Timor Natives

The Japanese have organised Timor natives to help them fight. Fairly large bands of Timorese have participated in several skirmishes with Allied forces on the Island, and have suffered heavy casualties.

This is revealed by the London “News Chronicle” war correspondent, Mr Dickson Brown, who spent three weeks with the Australian and Dutch guerrilla troops in their mountain hiding’ places. “The arming of the natives appears to have a threefold end,” writes Mr Brown. (1) To wipe out the Portuguese population, particularly the civil and administrators; (2) to dispose of natives who show pro-Australian tendencies and (3) to build a large hostile native populace with which the Japanese hope to meet and beat any Allied invasion.

The Japanese won many Timorese by subtle propaganda, said Mr Browfi. They spun the old tale of exploitation of Asiatics by the white races. They promised to abolish tax payments and they gave the natives gaudy clothes. They told the Timorese that it was useless to aid the Australians as the Japanese had occupied Australia and flattened Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.”

Mr Brown says that by contrast the Australians have won over the Timorese by sheer good will and scrupulously fair treatment. More than pinning down thousands of Japanese troops, our guerrillas are paving the way among the simple natives for the return of the Allies. “Wherever they go the Japanese leave a trail of murder, rape and wholesale wilful destruction of food, crops, houses, cattle—everything likely to help an Allied invasion. The purely human needs of natives have been disregarded, and whole districts through which the Japanese passed have been denuded of everything necessary to human existence.”