My father on Timor

This is a newspaper article about the Commando campaign on Timor in 1942-3.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/wa/12965411/ragtag-bunch-turned-the-tide/

Seventy years ago today the Japanese invaded Timor and my 20-year-old father, Jeff ("Rocky") Williams embarked on his amazing journey of mateship and survival against almost overwhelming odds. He was a commando in the 2/2 Independent Company. Winston Churchill said of them later: "They alone did not surrender."

This is the Damien Parer documentary made about them - Dad refers to how Parer made the film, in his diary. They had to recreate some scenes and Dad thought it was hilarious to have to do several 'takes' of an attack. They'd been living the real thing for ten long months.


This is a photo of him - he's on the far left, holding the rifle:
Here's another, a studio portrait. He had his twenty-first birthday on Timor, living in appalling conditions, always hungry, always moving to avoid capture.  There's an interesting exhibition about them on at present at the Perth Museum. Well worth a visit.
In his diary he wrote:7/5/1942"It must be hard on (the Japanese) us killing and wounding so many for a few casualties. The natives around Dilli say we are "Lulic" (gods) and we come up out of the ground and kill Japs and then disappear back into the ground. It must seem like that, as in the last 6 raids, not one Jap has seen an Australian. The natives say that the Japs are pretty scared of the Australians."
By the way, he said of Melbourne: "We were given leave that night and had a good time around town, but this fair city did not impress me, to my eye it looked smudgy and dirty and not a bit like Perth which is always clean no matter where one looks, but never the less I enjoyed my night's leave."