REQUEST FOR ACCESS TO MATERIALS RELATED TO WWII IN EAST TIMOR -- Can you help?

Further to our earlier post reporting that Ed Willis, President of the 2/2 Commando Association of Australia, in partnership with ex-SAS officer, Jim Truscott, OAM, has been awarded an Army History Unit Research Grant of $10,556 for the 2020/2021 financial year.

The grant has been awarded for the preparation of a ‘WWII in East Timor – an Australian Army site and travel guide’ with the following objective:

‘Australian Defence personnel and others travelling to East Timor and wishing to learn more about and visit sites connected with the commando campaign conducted by the No. 2 and No. 4 Independent Company’s and the clandestine operations of the Services Reconnaissance Department (SRD) during WWII would benefit from better documentation and identification the sites associated with those events and how to locate them.  The site and travel guide (STG) is intended to meet that need’.

We are still in the information gathering phase of this project and would appreciate it if association members, supporters and followers have any of the following types of materials that they would be willing to make available:

·      print or hand written documents (especially diaries, letters, personal recollections or contemporary reports); and/or

·      photographs or art work (painting and drawings); and

·      contemporary maps (hand drawn or printed).

We are happy to receive scanned images or photocopies of such items but can arrange for them to be scanned or copied off site if the owner is willing to make them available for this purpose.  In the latter situation, the loaned items will be returned safely after being scanned or copied and the digital images made available to the owner.

We are interested in obtaining materials related to all the national groups who participated in or were affected by the campaign – Australian, Dutch, American, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese and especially Timorese – and all service arms (Army, Navy and Air Force).

If you think you can assist in any way as just described, please contact in the first instance, Ed Willis, President, 2/2 Commando Association of Australia by e-mail:

president@doublereds.org.au

All material digitised as part of this project will be added to the association’s website (doublereds.org.au) either in the East Timor part of the ‘Gallery’ or linked with the record of the appropriate individual soldier in the ‘Men of the 2/2’ pages.

Contributing items in this way will not only provide valuable new information and images for use in the preparation of the ‘WWII in East Timor – an Australian Army site and travel guide’ and the association website, it will help preserve and make more widely accessible material that might otherwise be lost.

In addition, your contribution will assist with two association objectives:

• to promote education about the achievements of the men who were, at any time between 1941 and 1946, enlisted in the No. 2 Australian Independent Company of the Australian Infantry Forces, also known as the 2/2 Commando Squadron (“the unit”); and
• to honour the memory of the unit and its members and to help people to recognise and appreciate those achievements.

Thank you and kind regards.

Ed Willis

President, 2/2 Commando Association of Australia