“FEW SOLDIERS IN HISTORY CAN CLAIM TO HAVE DONE MORE THAN THAT” – THE STORY OF NEVIL SHUTE’S “INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER” TO BERNARD CALLINAN’S “INDEPENDENT COMPANY”

[Edward Willis]

 

The best-selling novelist Nevil Shute (1899-1960) wrote the following paragraphs to open and conclude his introductory chapter to Bernard Callinan’s classic personal memoir “Independent Company” that was first published in 1953.  [1] Couched in Shute’s consistently economical and easy to read language these paragraphs provide a valuable and unique concise assessment of the commando campaign on Timor.

“Of all the many campaigns which in their total constituted the Second World War the little campaign of the Australian Commandos in Portuguese Timor is perhaps the least known and one of the most worthy of notice.

…..

They were one of three small forces which between them immobilized two Japanese divisions.  At sea, the American submarines were operating from Fremantle against Japanese shipping with increasing success, and in the air the squadrons of the American and Australian Air Forces were operating from airfields in the Northern Territory with increasing strength.  These activities, with those of the Australian Commandos in Timor, convinced the Japanese High Command that a counter offensive from Australia was in preparation. Accordingly they sent their 48th Division to Timor to reinforce the existing garrison; this was an experienced division of fifteen thousand men which had served in China, the Philippines, and Java.  The same anxiety later caused them to send their 5th Division, which had fought in Malaya, to the Ambon and western New Guinea area, and to form from these divisions a new army with headquarters on Ceram Island.  These three small, valiant efforts on the land, the sea, and in the air, immobilized over thirty thousand Japanese troops, at what was possibly the worst time in the war for the Allies.

Few soldiers in history can claim to have done more than that”.

 

In an earlier post on Doublereds where Bernard Callinan explained ‘Why I wrote “Independent Company”’ readers may recall the distinctive book cover, characteristic of the era when the book was published (1953), that incorporated the statement in bold letters ‘INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER by Nevil Shute’. [2]

 

Front cover of “Independent Company” with Shute’s contribution highlighted

Nevil Shute (1899 - 1960) was the pen name of Nevil Shute Norway, popular novelist, born in England, who later (1950) settled in Australia.  His many readable, fast‐moving novels, several based on his involvement with the aircraft industry and his own wartime experiences, include Pied Piper (1942); No Highway (1948); A Town Like Alice (1950), in which an English girl is captured by the Japanese and survives the war to settle in Australia; and On the Beach (1957), which describes events in Melbourne after a nuclear holocaust. [3]

Shute’s most recent biographer provides the background to how he came to assist Callinan with the book:

“With ‘The Far Country’ now published, the manuscript of ‘In the Wet’ with the publishers, and no new novel yet underway, Norway occupied himself towards the end of the year by working on a chapter for a military history book.  Lieutenant Colonel Bernard Callinan, who was living just along the coast at Beaumaris, had written a book on the activities of the 2/2 and 2/4 Australian Independent Companies in Portuguese Timor during the Second World War.  As someone with no literary contacts, or previous experience as an author, Callinan contacted Norway for help in getting this book published.  Given the letter Norway had written to the Society of Authors the previous year about the urgent need to support local Australian authors, not surprisingly he was generous in his support.  In the end he not only wrote a detailed introductory chapter, but supplied his secretary to type the first draft, and no doubt he used his considerable influence with the local Heinemann office in getting the book published”. [4]

 

Front cover of biography “Shute: the engineer who became a prince of story tellers” by John Anderson

Shute had some familiarity with Timor and its WWII history having transited through Koepang in late November 1948 in company with fellow author James Riddell as a stopover in their epic single-engine light plane flight from England to Australia.

“On 22 November they said goodbye to Bali and flew on eastward once more, this time carrying a jerry can of petrol, being unsure of what fuel might be available on the next leg.  On landing at Soemba Basar they found the airport organisation in chaos and again their arrival was unexpected.  However the Army did produce some petrol to refuel them and accepted a signature against the Shell carnet in return.  After 2 hours they took off again for Koepang in East Timor, landing there in a cross wind after a two hour flight.  Shute described Koepang as a "bloody place", all the buildings being old Japanese barracks with no proper sanitation or decent accommodation.  This did not give the rest required to tackle the next leg of the journey-the crossing of the Timor Sea to Australia.

This was a stage of the journey that probably most concerned Shute, a flight of over 400 miles across the open sea.  This was by far the longest crossing of open water in the whole trip”. [5]

 

Front cover of Shute biography “Parallel motion” by John Anderson

They stopped in Dili on their return journey in late January 1949 – memories of the war and physical evidence of its destructive outcomes were still fresh in both towns at that time.

“The following day, 26 January, they arrived back at Darwin, completing their tour of Australia which had lasted 63 days.

They wanted to fly from Darwin to Dilly on East Timor, a flight of some 450 miles, 400 of them over the sea.  There was a Catalina aircraft scheduled to make the crossing and they arranged to fly in company with that.  So on 29 January they cleared Customs for the last time in Australia.

The Australian Customs had been the outstanding unpleasant feature of this journey and, Shute noted, made it difficult and unpleasant to fly a British aircraft to Australia.

They took off according to plan at 9:35 ahead of the Catalina and flew on course at 900 feet over sea through heavy monsoon rain storms.  After Bathurst Island the weather improved and later cleared entirely, so that they could get up to 4000 feet.  Wireless contact with the Catalina behind them was good from the start, they came in punctually every quarter of an hour, and this contact was a great comfort on the crossing of the Timor Sea.  The Catalina caught up with them off East Timor and said goodbye.

From there they flew along the north coast and landed at Dilly, where they were met by the Australian consul who put them up in his house.  They stayed at Dilly for some days, being entertained by the Australian consul and his wife and also by the Portuguese Administrator, Senor Mendonca.  They were taken by car over a hilly road to Maubisse, which Shute thought a real Shangri-La.  On the way back they had to cross a ford which had been small on the way up but was 4 feet deep on the way back.  They tried towing the car across but it got stuck and the passengers had to take off their clothes and wade across.  Shute's comment was that this was a type of motoring that you didn't see in England: it was great fun, but rough on the cars.  They were told that they must fly to Koepang to clear Customs for the Dutch East Indies, but Shute, mindful of his bad experience at Koepang on the outward flight, decided that he would fly on to Bali by way Soembawa Besar to refuel, reckoning that the East Indies were in such chaos that probably no Customs officer would even know that they had landed at Soembawa Besar”. [6]

Shute shared the adventures just described with and made a friend of the Australian Consul Doug White who was a public servant of twelve years standing when he took up the position of consul in Dili on 18 October 1947.  During the war, he had been an RAAF Squadron Leader and had served in the UK and the Pacific. [7]

It’s apparent Shute’s positive travel experience in Timor made him receptive to Callinan’s request to assist with the preparation and publication of his book.  White returned to Canberra after completing his term as Consul in Dili at the end of June 1950.  Shute wrote to him in early January 1953 with a number of questions regarding the Japanese invasion and occupation of Timor that White referred to Gavin Long, the editor of the official history of Australia in WWII.  Subsequently Shute corresponded directly with Long who reviewed the draft of the “Introductory chapter” and they met over lunch at the Cathedral Hotel in Melbourne on 13 February 1953. [8]

 

Front cover of Gavin Long biography “Great at heart” by Garry Hills [9]

Shute also consulted with Lieutenant General Sir Vernon Sturdee, former Chief of the General Staff, regarding strategy and the formation and training of the independent companies and Lieutenant Colonel William Leggatt in relation to the deployment of Sparrow Force and its defence of Dutch Timor against the invading Japanese – Sturdee also contributed a foreword to the book. [10]

Callinan and Shute lived in close proximity to each other (36 kilometres apart) in the bayside southeast suburbs of Melbourne (Beaumaris [11] and Langwarrin South [12]), corresponded and met on occasion.  Callinan loaned Shute his copy of the “Area study of Portuguese Timor” [13] and it is apparent from his introductory chapter that he had carefully read and digested the content of the manuscript of “Independent Company”.  Recall that, when published later in 1953, it was the first monograph to provide substantial coverage of the Timor campaign. [14]

Since then, Shute’s contribution to the history of the campaign has been recognised by later historians including Steve Farram [15] who observed:

“Nevil Shute, in his introduction to Callinan’s book, repeats some of the commonplace allegations of ‘disloyalty’ on the part of the West Timorese, but makes also a number of interesting observations.  The West Timorese and the East Timorese, he says, had no particular reason to be ‘loyal’ to the Dutch or the Portuguese anyway; ‘a conquest by the Japanese meant merely the exchange of one master for another’.  This is a very important point.  The Dutch had brought a halt to the endless cycle of warfare in West Timor and introduced schools and medical, agricultural and other services which were recognised by some West Timorese as being of benefit to their people.  Many others, however, saw it as merely interference in their way of life.  The Dutch, therefore, are just as likely to have engendered resentment as ‘loyalty’.  The notion of ‘loyalty’, moreover, was something which most West Timorese at the time would have applied at a much more local level by being ‘loyal’ to their raja or their suku (clan).  While certain individuals may have been ‘loyal’ to the Dutch or Portuguese there were districts, such as Belu in West Timor and Maubisse in Portuguese Timor, which had a long history of opposition to colonial rule.  That people from those districts should have turned against the Europeans is not surprising, but this does not mean they were ‘pro-Japanese’.

Shute goes on to argue that the swift defeat of the Dutch and their allies in West Timor meant it was obvious that the Japanese were the new masters and the West Timorese felt no obligation to help the defeated party.  It has been shown above that many West Timorese did continue to give the Allied troops support after their surrender, but Shute’s point is still valid as many West Timorese may have felt obliged to help the Japanese as they were clearly in control and soon made it known that they would deal harshly with whoever disobeyed them.  Shute argues that the situation was different in Portuguese Timor because the Australians of the 2/2 Independent Company, trained in guerilla tactics, had resounding success against the Japanese and killed nearly forty of them for every loss on their own side.  This impressed the East Timorese who were then most willing to offer their assistance.  As the Japanese increased their offensive against the Australians and the Australians’ effectiveness declined, so did the support they received from the local people.

In a fitting conclusion to this post, more recently Heather Merle Benbow noted [16]:

“[In] an early memoir of the battle, published in 1953 by the second in command of the 2/2nd Independent Company, Bernard Callinan (1913–1995) - later the commander of Sparrow Force - describes the daily encounters around and struggles for food.  In the introduction to Callinan’s “Independent Company: the Australian Army in Portuguese Timor 1941–43”, Nevil Shute emphasises the crucial role played by food in the conflict:

“Colonel Callinan formed the opinion that two factors are necessary for success in guerrilla operations: a friendly population and a surplus of food in the country over and above the needs of the population.  Without the latter, friendly relations with the population can hardly be established, and without friendly relations a guerrilla campaign can hardly succeed.  The first requirement of all, therefore, seems to be the food supply”.

…..

“It is no coincidence that, as hunger takes hold on the island, many more Timorese collaborate with the IJA.  It is common to attribute these developments to the food situation (Shute 1984: xxvii), but as the war diaries make clear, other factors including anti-colonial sentiment play a part.  It is clear, though, that food is the substance that bonds the Australians with the Timorese.  The relationships the Australian soldiers form with these men and boys, as well as many acts of hospitality by Timorese locals, underpin the strong feelings of gratitude and indebtedness that dominate in the memory of Timor within the Australian military”.

REFERENCES

[1] Bernard Callinan. - Independent company: the 2/2 and 2/4 Australian Independent Companies in Portuguese Timor, 1941-1943.  “Introductory chapter” by Nevil Shute. - Melbourne: Heinemann, 1953 (repr. 1989): xvii- xxxiii.

[2] https://doublereds.org.au/forums/topic/286-why-i-wrote-‘independent-company’-bernard-callinan/#comment-661

[3] See “Nevil Shute” in The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature (2 ed.) / William H. Wilde, Joy Hooton, and Barry Andrews.  Publisher: Oxford University Press Print Publication Date: 1994 Print ISBN-13: 9780195533811 Published online: 2005 Current Online Version: 2005 e ISBN: 978019173.  Accessed 1 April 2025

[4] Richard Thorn. – Shute: the engineer who became a prince of storytellers. - Kibworth Beauchamp, Leicestershire: Troubadour Publishing, 2017: 196.

[5] John Anderson. - Parallel motion: a biography of Nevil Shute Norway. - Kerhonkson, N.Y.: Paper Tiger, c2011: 189.

[6] Anderson, Parallel motion: 203-4.

[7] Steven Farram. - A short-lived enthusiasm: the Australian Consulate in Portuguese Timor. - Darwin, N.T.: Charles Darwin University Press, 2010: 47.

[8] Copies of letters held in the 2/2 Commando Association of Australia archives.

[9] Garry Hills. -  Great at heart: Gavin Merrick Long Australia’s official Second World War historian. – Sydney: NewSouth Publishing, 2025.

[10] Callinan, Independent company, “Foreword” by Lieutenant General Sir Vernon Sturdee: xiii-xv.

[11] It is interesting to note Callinan named his Beaumaris house “Lete Foho” in fond memory of his favourite posto in Portuguese Timor; see “Lete-Foho (Nova Obidos)” in Edward Willis. – WWII in East Timor: an Australian Army site and travel guide. – Perth: 2/2 Commando Association of Australia, 2024: 344-350.

[12] Samantha Landy “Author Nevil Shute’s former home and Hollywood celebrity haunt a bestseller in Langwarrin South” https://www.realestate.com.au/news/author-nevil-shutes-former-home-and-hollywood-celebrity-haunt-a-bestseller-in-langwarrin-south/ .  Accessed 1 April 2025.

[13] Area study of Portuguese Timor / Allied Geographical Section, South West Pacific Area. - [Brisbane] : The Section, 1943. – (Terrain study (Allied Forces. South West Pacific Area. Allied Geographical Section) ; no. 50.) https://repository.monash.edu/items/show/26455#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0 .  Accessed 1 April 2025.

[14] The relevant chapters of the Australian official history weren’t published until 1957 and 1959; see Lionel Wigmore, Ch. 21 “Resistance in Timor” in The Japanese thrust. - Canberra : Australian War Memorial, 1957. (Australia in the war of 1939-1945. Series 1, Army ; v. 4): 466-495 and Dudley McCarthy, Appendix 2 “Timor” in South-west Pacific area - first year : Kokoda to Wau. - Canberra : Australian War Memorial, 1959.  (Australia in the war of 1939-1945. Series 1, Army ; v. 5): 598-624.

[15] Steven Glen Farram. - From ‘Timor Koepang’ To ‘Timor NTT’: a political history of West Timor, 1901-1967.  A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. – Darwin: Charles Darwin University, 2004: 187-188

[16] Heather Merle Benbow (2018) “Commensality and conflict: food, drink and intercultural encounters in the Battle of Timor” Journal of Intercultural Studies 39 (1): 35-49. https://doi.org/10.1080/07256868.2017.1410113 .  Accessed 1 April 2025.

 

 

 

[Rob Crossing]

Hi Noel

Many thanks for a fine piece, yet again

Cheers

Rob

[Edward Willis]

Thanks Rob - another great story!!