The 'Battle of Timor' was fought between Japanese and Allied forces in the Dutch and Portuguese colonies on the island of Timor in the East Indies (19 February 1942/10 February 1943).

Tmor is the most southerly large island of the East Indian archipelago, and the most easterly in the Lesser Sunda islands group. It lies about 400 miles (645 km) to the north-east of Darwin in the Northern Territory of Australia, and Java is some 670 miles (830 km) to the west-north-west, Celebes to the north-west, and the Molucca islands group to the north. A string of smaller Sunda islands (Flores, Adonara, Lomblen, Pantar, Alor and Wetar) lies to the north of Timor, from which it is separated by the Sawoe Sea. A few smaller islands, the Tanimbar group, are scattered to the east of Timor. The Banda Sea is to the north and the Timor Sea to the south. Off the island’s south-western end is Roti island. Timor is 280 miles (450 km) long on its north-east/south-west axis and varies from 50 to 60 (80 to 96.5 km) wide, tapering to points at both ends. The island had area of 11,883 sq miles (30777 km²).

Timor is dominated by an arid and scrub-covered mountain chain extending along its length, but there are numerous fertile valleys and lowlands. Forests of teak, eucalyptus, sandalwood, casuarina, bamboo and coconut palms cover most of the coastal and lowland areas, and the majority of the mountains are between 3,000 and 5,000 ft (915 and 1525 m) high, but there are a number of taller peaks: on the Dutch south-western half the highest is 7,963 ft (2427 m) while on the Portuguese half 9,721-ft (2963-m) Mt Tata Mailau dominates the area, and on the border between the halves is a 5,003-ft (1525-m) mountain. The mountains are a tangle of ridges, narrow valleys and ravines. There are only a few rivers and streams, and of these flow out of the mountains to the south-eastern coast. Most of the island is ringed with beaches suitable for landings, and the island’s wildlife includes deer, monkeys, crocodiles and marsupials, the last reflecting Timor’s proximity to Australia.

The island’s south-western and north-eastern halves belonged to the Netherlands East Indies and Portugal respectively, the latter colony having an area of 7,330 sq miles (18985 km²). The capital of Portuguese Timor was Dili on the colony’s north-central coast. The small islands of Atauro and Jako, situated between Dutch Alor and Wetar islands to the north, were also Portuguese possessions. On the north-central coast of Dutch Timor was a Portuguese enclave, measuring about 15 by 35 miles (24 by 56 km), called Okusi Ambeno. Its main town was Okusi. Dutch Timor’s capital was Koepang on the south-western end. The outlying islands administered from Koepang and Dutch Timor totalled 24,449 sq miles (63323 km²) in area.

The Dutch population before the war was about 150, consisting mostly of administrative officials, police and soldiers. There were also about 400,000 Islamic Indonesians and between 4,000 and 5,000 Chinese and Arabs. Aboriginal Melanesian Atonis, in unknown numbers, had been driven into the mountains by the Indonesians, and these still practised headhunting. Long-established inland villages, attesting to the hostility of tribal warfare, were surrounded by walls, 8 to 10 ft (2.4 and 3.1 m) high, of piled rock and rubble. On Portuguese Timor were some 500,000 predominantly Christian Indonesians, 2,000 Chinese, 300 Portuguese, and small numbers of Arabs and Japanese.

Timor had few valuable resources. The Dutch purchased sandalwood, maize, hides and copra, while the Portuguese exported sandalwood and wax, and there was a small cotton clothing industry. An improved road extended along the length of the island: on the Dutch half, this ran generally up the centre of the island and swung toward the northern coast near the border; from there it followed the northern coast until it turned sharply to cut across the island to terminate on the upper southern coast. Some 100,000 Timorese ponies were a primary means of transport.

Active Japanese interest in Timor began in 1939, when they established an air-mail service between Dili and Palau in the western part of the Caroline islands group. There was no need for any such service, and the aircraft employed were in reconnaissance machines overflying the East Indies.

The Dutch defence force was commanded by Kolonel N. L. W. van Straten and comprised 600 men of the Timor and Dependencies Garrison Battalion, the 3^rd Company of the 8^th Garrison Battalion, the Reservekorps Infantry Company, the Machine Gun Platoon of the 13^th Garrison Battalion, one artillery battery with four 75-mm (2.95-in) guns, one engineer platoon and one mobile auxiliary first aid platoon.

To stiffen the defence of the island, given its proximity to Australia, the Australians sent 1,320 men of the 2/40^th Battalion, the 2/2^nd Independent Company (commandos) and one anti-aircraft battery. Under the command of Brigadier W. C. D. Veale, these men had been on Timor since 12 December, and Veale established the Combined Defence Headquarters at Penfui airfield. This reflected growing Australian concerns about the possibility of Japanese aggression, now seen to be a probability, following the Japanese 'Ai' attack on Pearl Harbor, an initial but small Australian force, known as 'Sparrow' Force, arrived at Koepang on 12 December, and two similar units, known as 'Gull' Force and 'Lark' Force, were sent to reinforce Ambon and Rabaul.

'Sparrow' Force was initially commanded by Lieutenant Colonel W. W. Leggatt, and included the 2/40^th Battalion, the 2/2^nd Independent Company under the command of Major Alexander Spence, and one battery of coastal artillery. There were in total around 1,400 men. The force reinforced troops of the Royal Netherlands East Indies army, and air support was provided by 12 Lockheed Hudson twin-engined light bombers of No. 2 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force. 'Sparrow' Force was initially deployed around Koepang and the strategic airfield of Penfui in the south-western corner of the island, but other elements were based at Klapalima, Usapa Besar and Babau, while a supply base was also established farther to the east at Champlong.

Up to this point, the Portuguese government had refused any formal co-operation with the Australians and Dutch, relying on its claim of neutrality and plans to send an 800-strong force by sea from Mozambique in southern East Africa to defend the territory against a possible Japanese invasion. However, this refusal left the Allied flank severely exposed, and a 400-man combined Dutch and Australian force (260 Dutch troops and the 2/2^nd Independent Company) on 17 December landed at Dili in Portuguese Timor and thus triggered a protest by the governor, Ferreirade de Caralho. A diplomatic agreement had previously been reached by the UK, Australia, the Netherlands and Portugal that the governor of Portuguese Timor would request Australian troops if the colony was attacked. Portugal and its colonies had been declared neutral. Since the Australian and Dutch force arrived before any request had been made, de Caralho was opposed to the landing and threatened resistance. The prime minister and effectively the dictator of Portugal, António de Oliveira Salazar, protested to the Allied governments, while de Caralho declared himself to be a prisoner in order to preserve the appearance of neutrality. No resistance was offered by the small Portuguese garrison however, and the local authorities tacitly co-operated, while the population itself generally welcomed the Allied force. Most of the Dutch troops and the whole of the 2/2^nd Independent Company were subsequently transferred to Portuguese Timor and distributed in small detachments around the territory.

Neutral Portuguese Timor originally had not been included among Japan’s war objectives, but after Allied occupation had violated the colony’s neutrality the Japanese decided to invade.

The Portuguese and the British governments reached an agreement that established the withdrawal of the Allied forces from Portuguese Timor, in exchange for the sending, by Portugal, of a military force to replace them. On 28 January 1942, the 800-man Portuguese force sailed from Lourenço Marques in Mozambique and headed toward Timor, but the Japanese invasion occurred before it could arrive and the force was then recalled.

The Portuguese had 400 colonial troops, mostly native islanders, in their part of Timor. The Portuguese colonial army units, under the control of the Repartição Militar de Timor (Timor headquarters), were the Companhia de Caçadores Indígenas (native rifle company), the Oecussi detachment of the Timorese rifle company and the Border Cavalry Platoon, while the civil and auxiliary forces were the Corpo de Polícia de Dili (Dili police corps), civil administration sepoys, and Timorese militias and auxiliaries.

Regardless, the local populace was friendly and the Dutch occupied the city and Australians the airfield. To appease the Portuguese the Dutch troops were ordered to return to the west. The 2/2^nd Independent Company, however, was decimated by malaria.

In January 1942, the Allied forces on Timor became a key link in the chain of the so-called 'Malay Barrier', defended by the short-lived American-British-Dutch-Australian Command under the overall command of General Sir Archibald Wavell. Additional Australian support staff, including Veale as the commander of the Allied forces on Timor, arrived at Koepang on 12 February. By this time, many members of the 'Sparrow' Force, of whom the majority was unused to tropical conditions, were suffering from malaria and other illnesses. The airfield at Penfui in Dutch Timor also became a key air link between Australia and the US forces fighting in the Philippine islands group under the command of General Douglas MacArthur. Penfui came under attack from Japanese aircraft on 26 and 30 January, but the raids were hampered by the British anti-aircraft gunners and, to a lesser degree, by the Curtiss P-40 single-engined fighters of the US Army Air Forces' 33^rd Pursuit Squadron, 11 of which were based in Darwin. Later, another 500 Dutch troops and the British 79^th Light Anti-Aircraft Battery arrived to reinforce Timor, while an additional Australian and US force was scheduled to arrive in February.

Meanwhile, Rabaul fell to the Japanese 'R' landing on 23 January, followed by Ambon on 3 February, and both 'Gull' Force and 'Lark' Force were destroyed. On 16 February, an Allied convoy carrying reinforcements and supplies to Koepang, under escort of the US heavy cruiser Houston, US destroyer Peary and Australian sloops Swan and Warrego, came under intense Japanese air attack and was forced to return to Darwin without landing. The reinforcements had included an Australian 2/4^th Pioneer Battalion and the US 49^th Artillery Battalion. 'Sparrow' Force could not be reinforced further, and as the Japanese moved to complete their envelopment of the Netherlands East Indies, Timor was seemingly the next logical target.

On Dutch Timor, the Australian battalion defended the Baai van Koepang beaches to the north-east of the town of Koepang and the airfield, while Dutch troops covered the beaches to the west of the town. Penfui airfield, 6 miles (9.7 km) inland, was employed as a staging base for aircraft flying between Java and Australia. A light Japanese air attack hit the airfield on 26 January and on the 30^th a heavy air raid was delivered to cover the Japanese landing on Amboina. On 15 February the Australians attempted to reinforce the garrison with another infantry battalion and a US 75-mm (2.95-in) artillery battalion, originally slated for the Philippine islands group, but the convoy was turned back by Japanese air attacks. The RAAF squadron at Penfui was withdrawn on 19 February. On that same day the Japanese launched a large carrier air raid on Darwin in northern Australia, sinking 10 US, Australian and British ships. Dili was shelled that night as the Japanese invasion fleet prepared to land at Koepang and Dili. The 'Ito' Detachment (38^th Regimental Group based on the 228^th Regiment of Lieutenant General Sano Tadayoshi’s 38^th Division had already taken Amboina, and was now the main landing force accompanied by 300 men of the 3^rd Yokosuka Special Naval Landing Force.

On the night of 19/20 February, 1,500 men of Colonel Sadashichi Doi’s 228^th Regimental Groupe, under the overall command of Lieutenant General Hitoshi Imamura’s 16^th Army, started to land at Dili. Initially, the Japanese ships were mistaken for vessels carrying the anticipated Portuguese reinforcements, and the Allies were thus caught by surprise. Nevertheless, they were well prepared, and the garrison began an orderly withdrawal, covered by the 18-man No. 2 Section of the Australian 2/2^nd Independent Company based on the airfield. According to Australian accounts, the commandos killed an estimated 200 Japanese in the first hours of the battle; the Japanese army recorded its casualties as only seven men, but native accounts of the landings support the Australian claims.

Another group of Australian commandos, No. 7 Section, was less fortunate, as inadvertently in drove into a Japanese roadblock. Despite surrendering, all but one were massacred by the Japanese. Outnumbered, the surviving Australians withdrew to the south and to the east, into the mountainous interior. van Straten and 200 Netherlands East Indian troops headed to the south-west in the direction of the border.

On the same night, Allied forces in Dutch Timor also came under intense air attack of the type which had already led to the withdrawal of the small RAAF force to Australia. The bombing was followed by the landing of the main body of the 228^th Regimental Group, whose two battalions totalled around 4,000 men, at the Paha river on the undefended south-western side of the island. Five Type 94 tankettes were landed to support the Japanese infantry, and the force advanced to the north, cutting off the Dutch positions in the west and attacking the 2/40^th Battalion positions at Penfui. A Japanese company thrust to the north-east to Usua, aiming to cut off the Allied retreat. In response, the headquarters of the 'Sparrow' Force was immediately moved farther to the east towards Champlong.

Leggatt ordered the destruction of the airfield, but the Allied line of retreat toward Champlong had been cut off by the dropping of about 300 Japanese marine paratroopers of the 3^rd Yokosuka Special Naval Landing Force near Usua, 14 miles (22 km) to the east of Koepang. The headquarters of the 'Sparrow' Force now shifted farther to the east, and Leggatt’s men launched a sustained and devastating assault on the paratroopers, culminating in a bayonet charge. By the morning of 23 February, the 2/40^th Battalion had killed all but 78 of the paratroopers, but had itself been engaged from the rear once more by the main Japanese force. With his men running short of ammunition, exhausted, and carrying many men with serious wounds, Leggatt accepted a Japanese invitation to surrender at Usua. The 2/40^th Battalion had suffered the loss of 84 men killed and 132 wounded in the fighting, while more than twice that number would die as prisoners of war during the next 30 months. Veale and the forces of the 'Sparrow' Force headquarters, including about 290 Australian and Dutch troops, continued eastward across the border, to link with the 2/2^nd Independent Company.

By the end of February, the Japanese controlled most of Dutch Timor and the area around Dili in the north-east. However, the Australians remained in the south and east of the island. The 2/2^nd Independent Company had been specifically trained for commando-style, stay-behind operations, and incorporated its own engineers and signallers, although it lacked heavy weapons and vehicles. The commandos were hidden throughout the mountains of Portuguese Timor, and now began raids against the Japanese, assisted by Timorese guides, bearers and mountain ponies. In relatively small operations such as these, military folboats (collapsible kayaks, or folding boats) were deployed for use by the 'Sparrow' Force and the 2/2^nd Independent Company as they could then better penetrate the dense coastal vegetation for surveillance, raids and rescue with minimum exposure to the Japanese This was the first use of folboats, of the Australian-built Hohn 'Kayak' type, in South-East Asia for wartime operations.

Although Portuguese officials under de Carvalho remained officially neutral and in charge of civil affairs, both the European Portuguese and the indigenous East Timorese were generally sympathetic to the Allies, who were therefore able to use the local telephone system to communicate among themselves and to gather intelligence on Japanese movements. The Allies initially lacked functioning radio equipment, however, and were thus unable to contact Australia to inform them of their continued resistance.

Doi sent the Australian honorary consul, David Ross, also the local Qantas airline 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 later be reimbursed by the Australian government. Early in March, Veale and van Straten’s forces linked with the 2/2^nd Independent Company. A replacement radio, nicknamed 'Winnie the War Winner', was cobbled together and contact was re-established with Darwin. By a time in May, Australian aircraft were dropping supplies to the commandos and their allies.

The Japanese high command sent a highly regarded veteran of the Malayan campaign and the Battle of Singapore, a major known by the 'nickname 'Tiger of Singapore' though his real name remains unknown, to Timor. On 22 May, mounted on a white horse, the major led a Japanese force toward Remexio. An Australian patrol, with Portuguese and Timorese assistance, prepared and launched an ambush, and killed four or five of the Japanese soldiers. During a second ambush, an Australian sniper shot and killed the 'Tiger of Singapore'. Another 24 Japanese soldiers were also killed, and the force retreated to Dili. On 24 May, Veale and van Straten were evacuated from the south-eastern coast by a Consolidated Catalina twin-engined flying boat of the RAAF, and Spence was appointed commanding officer with a promotion to lieutenant colonel. On 27 May, Royal Australian Navy launches successfully completed the first supply and evacuation missions to Timor.

During June, and now the Supreme Allied Commander in the South-West Pacific Area, MacArthur was advised by General Sir Thomas Blamey, the Allied land force commander, that a full-scale Allied offensive in Timor would require a major amphibious assault, including at least one full infantry division. Because of this requirement and the overall Allied strategy of recapturing areas to the east, in New Guinea and the Solomon islands group, Blamey recommended that the current little campaign in Timor should be sustained for as long as possible, but should not be enlarged. This suggestion was ultimately adopted.

Relations between de Carvalho and the Japanese deteriorated, and the telegraph link with the Portuguese government in Lisbon was cut. In June 1942, a Japanese official complained that the Portuguese governor had rejected Japanese demands to punish Portuguese officials and Timorese civilians who had assisted the Australians of the 'invading army'. On 24 June, the Japanese formally complained to Lisbon but did not take any action against de Carvalho, complimenting the '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 of the 2^nd 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 was evacuated to Australia on 16 July.

In August, Lieutenant General Yuitsu Tsuchihashi’s 48^th Division started to arrive on Timor from the Philippine islands group and garrisoned Koepang, Dili and Malacca, relieving the 'Ito' Detachment. Tsuchihashi then launched a major counter-offensive in an attempt to push the Australians into a corner on the island’s southern coast. Strong Japanese columns moved to the south in the form of two from Dili, one from Manatuto on the north-eastern coast and another eastward from Dutch Timor to attack Dutch positions in the central part of the island’s south region. The offensive ended on 19 August when the main Japanese force was withdrawn to Rabaul, but not before it had secured the central town of Maubisse and the southern port of Beco. The Japanese were by now also managing to recruit significant numbers of Timorese civilians, who provided intelligence on Allied movements. Meanwhile, also at a time late in August, a parallel conflict began when the Maubisse rebelled against the Portuguese.

During September the main body of the 48^th Division began arriving to take over the campaign. The Australians also sent reinforcements, in the form of the 450-strong 2/4^th Independent Company, known as 'Lancer' Force, which arrived on 23 September. The Australian destroyer Voyager ran aground at the southern port of Betano while landing the 2/4^th Independent Company, and had to be abandoned after she came under air attack. The ship’s crew was safely evacuated by the Australian corvettes Kalgoorlieand Warrnambool on 25 September after the destroyer had been destroyed by demolition charges. On 27 September, the Japanese mounted a thrust from Dili towards the wreck of Voyager, but without any significant success.

By October, the Japanese had succeeded in recruiting for military service a significant number of Timorese, who suffered severe casualties when used in frontal assaults against the Allies. The Portuguese 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 1 November, the Allied high command approved the issue of weapons to Portuguese officials, a policy which had previously been carried out on only an informal basis. At around the same time, the Japanese ordered all Portuguese civilians to move to a 'neutral zone' by 15 November, with those who failed to comply then to be considered accomplices of the Allies. This succeeded only in encouraging the Portuguese to co-operate with the Allies, whom they lobbied to evacuate some 300 women and children.

Spence was evacuated to Australia on 11 November, and the 2/2^nd Independent Company’s commander, Major Bernard Callinan, was appointed Allied commander on Timor. On the night of 30 November/1 December, the Royal Australian Navy mounted a major operation to land fresh Dutch troops at Betano, while evacuating 190 Dutch soldiers and 150 Portuguese civilians. The launch Kuru was used to ferry the passengers between the shore and the corvettes Armidale and Castlemaine. Carrying the Dutch reinforcements, Armidale was sunk by Japanese aircraft and almost all of those on board were lost. Also during November, the Australian army’s public relations branch arranged to send the Academy Award-winning documentary film-maker Damien Parer and a war correspondent named Bill Marien, to Timor. Parer’s film, Men of Timor, was later greeted with enthusiasm by audiences in Allied countries.

By the end of 1942, the chances of an Allied recapture of Timor were remote, as there were now 12,000 Japanese troops on the island and the commandos were coming into increasing contact with the them. The Australian chiefs-of-staff estimated that it would take at least three Allied divisions, with strong air and naval support, to recapture the island. As the Japanese efforts to wear down the Australians and to separate them from their indigenous support became more effective, moreover, the commandos had found their operations becoming increasingly difficult. Likewise, with the Australian army fighting a number of costly battles against the Japanese beach-heads around Buna in New Guinea, there were currently insufficient resources to continue operations in Timor. As such, from a time early in December Australian operations on Timor were to be steadily wound down.

On 11/12 December, all but a few officers of the remnant of the original 'Sparrow' Force, together with Portuguese civilians, were evacuated by the Free Dutch destroyer Tjerk Hiddes. Meanwhile, in the first week of January 1943, the decision was made to withdraw 'Lancer' Force. On the night of 9/10 January, the bulk of the 2/4^th Independent Company and 50 Portuguese were evacuated by the Australian destroyer Arunta. A small intelligence team, known as 'S' Force, was left behind, but its presence was soon detected by the Japanese. Aided by folboats, with the remnants of 'Lancer' Force, 'S' Force made its way to the eastern tip of Timor, where the Australian and British 'Z' Special Unit was also operating, and were evacuated by the US submarine Gudgeon on 10 February. Some 40 Australian commandos were killed during this phase of the fighting, and it is believed that some 1,500 Japanese died.

In overall terms, while the campaign on Timor had possessed little in the way of strategic value, the Australian commandos had prevented an entire Japanese division from being used in the earlier phases of the New Guinea campaign while at the same time inflicting a disproportionate level of casualties on them. In contrast to those on Java, Amboina and Rabaul, Australian operations on Timor had been considerably more successful, even if this was largely a token effort in the face of overwhelming Japanese strength. Likewise, the Australians had proved that under favourable circumstances, unconventional operations could be both flexible and more economical than the conventional operations for which the resources were not available to the Allies at that time. Most civilian deaths were caused by Japanese reprisals against the local population, and the civilian death toll is estimated at between 40,000 and 70,000 persons.

Ultimately, Japanese forces remained in control of Timor until their surrender in September 1945 following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria. On 5 September 1945, the Japanese commanding officer met the Portuguese governor, de Carvalho, effectively returning power to him and placing the Japanese forces under Portuguese authority. On 11 September, the Australian 'Timor' Force arrived in Koepang harbour and accepted the surrender of all Japanese forces on Timor from the senior Japanese officer on Timor, Colonel Kaida Tatsuichi of the 4^th Tank Regiment. The commander of the Timor force, Brigadier Lewis Dyke, a senior diplomat, W. D. Forsyth, and 'as many ships as possible' were despatched to Dili, arriving on 23 September. Ceremonies were then held with Australian, Portuguese and local residents. Australian troops then supervised the disposal of arms by Japanese work parties before returning to West Timor for the surrender of the commander of the 48^th Division, Lieutenant General Yamada Kunitaro. On 27 September, a Portuguese naval and military force of more than 2,000 troops arrived to an impressive welcome ceremony by the Timorese people. These troops included three engineering companies along with substantial supplies of food and construction materials for the reconstruction of Timor.