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’.
The grant money will be used to cover costs associated with additional site survey work in East Timor, particularly in the central and eastern areas of the country, and further library and archival research in Darwin, Brisbane, Canberra and Melbourne.
Thankfully, the conditions of the grant allow for an extension of time to complete the travel associated with the project because of current COVID-19 travel restrictions.
The award grant along with donations made to the Association will allow the completion of the ‘Commando Campaign Site Survey Project’ that the Association has been working on since 2018 (see https://doublereds.org.au/forums/topic/231-commando-campaign-site-survey-project-completing-the-remaining-survey-work/).
Previous research and survey activity has enabled the preparation of articles on commando campaign sites that have been published on the 2/2 Commando Association of Australia website; e.g. https://doublereds.org.au/forums/topic/258-wwii-in-east-timor-–-a-site-and-travel-guide-commando-campaign-sites-viqueque-municipality-lacluta/. All these articles will be revised and adapted to provide content for the STG.
Progress reports on the project will be posted on Doublereds.
Edited by Edward Willis
Formatting
Recommended Comments