[TimorLesteStudies] Timor 1942 - book launch Melbourne

[Australia-East Timor Association]

Australia-East Timor Association
and East Timor Students Association (ETSA)

- invite members and friends to a Book Launch of -

** THE MEN WHO CAME OUT OF THE GROUND:
a gripping account of Australia's first commando campaign: Timor 1942 **

by Paul Cleary, author of 'Shakedown: Australia's grab for Timor Oil'

Special Guests: Kevin Bailey, Honorary Consul-General for Timor-Leste and
Harold Mitchell AC

Light refreshments, AETA book stall

WHEN: 5.30 for 6pm, Tuesday 7th of September

WHERE: Ground Floor, Victoria University, 283 Queen St, Melbourne
(entrance around the corner in Little Lonsdale St)

COST: Free entry

About the book:

"Force intact and still fighting. Stop. Badly need boots, quinine, money and
Tommy gun ammunition."

It was early 1942, Australia was in dire straits. The seemingly
all-conquering Japanese military forces had rolled over south-east Asia.
Singapore had fallen. Most of the 23,000 soldiers Australia had sent to its
north to fight had been captured. Only a few hundred men remained in Timor.
These soldiers, the 2/2 Australian Independent Company - Sparrow Force -
were all that stood between Japanese forces and Papua New Guinea.

A Special Forces unit set to fight a different kind of war, many were
bushmen and crack shots, and all were trained to fight behind enemy lines.
Mobilising the support of the locals, the 2/2 Company avoided pitched
battles, instead picking just the right time to strike. They adapted their
bush skills to become the masters of this new kind of commando warfare.

Always greatly outnumbered but relentless in their harassing campaign of
skirmishes and ambushes, Sparrow Force tied down thousands of Japanese in a
fierce guerilla war - not just matching them but beating them.

The men of the 2/2 Company and their campaign in Timor became a defining
moment in Australia's military history.
       
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For further information contact AETA:

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Australia-East Timor Association (AETA)
PO Box 93
FITZROY VIC 3065
AUSTRALIA
T: 61 3 9416 2960
E: aetamel at aetamel.org