Ready, or Not: Leading Troops in a Violent Peace – COL John Papalitsas
‘So, a fistfight ensues a couple of meters inside East Timor and the situation deteriorates very quickly.’ In this week’s episode, we talk through what it is like to deploy with no notice and little preparation onto an island that is on-fire and in turmoil. Our guest – COL John Papalitsas – was a brand-new infantry Platoon Commander at the 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment when he got word that he would deploy his platoon to East-Timor as part of International Force East Timor (INTERFET). Listen in as he describes what it was like as the boat arrived and throughout his six-month deployment, telling the stories of the men and women that were deployed.
COL Papalitsas saw the Ready Parachute Company Group come in to do PT in the morning, conduct what they thought was an equipment check and by the afternoon deploy to RAAF Base Tindal to stage for an infill into Timor. With five-days' notice, his platoon followed up and flew to Darwin NT before deploying to Timor via ship on HMAS Jervis Bay. He talks of witnessing the aftermath of a massacre at the Hotel Tropical, his platoon deploying from Maliana by Blackhawk helicopter to clear some militia, giving his soldiers the order to fix bayonets in the form-up point, a tense checkpoint exchange between a section of his platoon and the Indonesian National Armed Forces and retrieving the local mayor’s daughter before she was dragged across the border by the militia.
Finally, COL Papalitsas uses a quote to epitomise his approach to leadership: ‘A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way’ - John C. Maxwell. Like many of the other guests we have had on The Cove Podcast have argued, it is on you to become as competent as you can and to own your job. You must show those around you that you mean the things that you say and that you are willing to do everything that you ask of your subordinates. You must also show them what right looks like, setting an incredible example for those that are always watching. This is leadership where it matters, where there may be no right-or-wrong, so get yourself as prepared as you can because like this young platoon commander at 3 RAR, you may have no idea when you’ll deploy.
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1:22:31
The Battle for Dili Aerodrome – MAJ Guy Warnock
‘You think your whole life is going to flash before your eyes but I couldn’t think of anything.’ In this week’s episode, we continue with the defence of the Dili Aerodrome, using 2/2 Independent Commando Company as a case study to examine a small Australian force going up against a large opposing military. Our guest – MAJ Guy Warnock – just returned from years in the Defence Cooperation Program (DCP) in Timor-Leste but this is not where his interest in the history of Timor first started. MAJ Warnock deployed to Timor as a Special Forces Operator from the Special Air Service Regiment in the first few months of INTERFET.
If you want to walk the ground of Sparrow Force, the 2/2 Commando Association of Australia (inc.), along with members of DCP-TL, have collaborated with a Timor-based adventure company to develop a Kokoda-style trek up through the mountains of Timor that follows some of the network of tracks used by the soldiers of the 2/2 and 2/4 Independent Companies and their Timorese comrades.
It’s five gruelling days covering 96km with a walking tour of the battle for the Dili Aerodrome developed by MAJ Warnock on day one and finishing with a 1700m gain in the last 36 hours or so to reach the highest peak on the island of Timor - Mt Ramelau at just under 3,000m.
Options also exist to visit the crash site of the RAAF No.200 Flight B24 Liberator A72-159 which crashed in the mountains above Dili on 17 May 1945 killing all 15 Australians on board, including five men from the Services Reconnaissance Department - AKA: ‘Z’ Special Unit and the wreckage of HMAS Voyager (I) on the south coast of Timor-Leste at Betano, which ran aground and was lost on 23 September 1942 as it attempted to evacuate elements of SPARROW Force and replace them with LANCER Force based on the 2/4 Independent Company.
Maddog Adventures
maddogadventures.com.au
La Rende! (No Surrender!) Trek
https://maddogadventures.com.au/adventures/la-rende-trek/
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53:25
Sparrow Force - MAJ Guy Warnock
‘Tough men wanted for tough missions.’ In this week’s episode, we continue with the island of Timor but go back to WWII, using Sparrow Force as a case study to examine a small Australian force going up against a large opposing military. Our guest – MAJ Guy Warnock – just returned from years in the Defence Cooperation Program (DCP) in Timor-Leste but this is not where his interest in the history of Timor first started. MAJ Warnock deployed to Timor as a Special Forces Operator from the Special Air Service Regiment in the first few months of INTERFET.
Sparrow Force, our focus in this episode, was made up predominately of the 2/40th Battalion from the same brigade that provided the battalions for Lark Force and Gull Force but was bolstered with the 2/2nd Independent Commando Company. Sparrow Force’s task was to defend Timor from invasion by the Japanese but although Lark Force could move into Rabaul in New Guinea early because it was Australian territory, it was not until the strike on Malaya and Pearl Harbour that Sparrow Force could deploy from Darwin onto Timor to begin to prepare the defences. The 2/40th Battalion was centred on Kupang in the Dutch-held West Timor and the 2/2nd Independent Commando Company was tasked with defending the airfield in Dili in the Portuguese-held East Timor.
The 2/2nd Independent Commando Company was trained by British training teams that brought new equipment and weaponry to enable unconventional tactics and guerilla warfare. Wilsons Promontory was chosen as the commando training area and was given the codename ‘No. 7 Infantry Training Centre’. As soon as the commandos arrived in Dili, they began to learn the language and the lay of the ground, completely unaware that Singapore was about to fall. This episode is the first part of telling their story.
Sources & References:
The Cove Podcast and MAJ Warnock want to acknowledge the work of the 2/2 Commando Association of Australia (inc.) and in particular that of Mr Ed Willis, the son of a 2/2 soldier who has put in many decades of hard work, research and trips to Timor-Leste. All the further reading and information needed on the battle for Timor is here, including being able to purchase Ed’s recently released battlefield guide “Timor in WW2 - an Australian Army Site and Guide” which is available at their excellent website: www.doublereds.org.au
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Subscribe to The Cove Podcast to make sure that you do not miss the second part of the Timor series on Sparrow Force in WWII, when the enemy land. The next episode continues with Sparrow Force in Kupang and on the 2/2 Independent Commando Company mounting a guerrilla campaign in the hills that surround Dili.
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40:13
Tuesday Night Violence Co. - CPL Mitchell Clark
‘I taught 11,000 people how to put up a stretcher.’ In this week’s episode, the creator of the popular Instagram page Tuesday Night Violence Co. joins us to talk through equipment and gear setup. The creator – CPL Mitchell Clark – is currently posted as the Training Sergeant at 2nd/17th Battalion, Royal New South Wales Regiment (2/17 RNSWR) but spends his spare time providing ‘hot chips’ for diggers on fitness, gear and tactical planning activities. CPL Clark has bounced in-and-out of full-time and part-time service and today he takes us through his philosophy for gear selection and setup and what having his gear squared away does for his mindset.
CPL Clark came to Army with a teaching background and finds real fulfilment in teaching and mentoring diggers as a Junior Non-Commissioned Officer. The Instagram page gives him the ability to reach almost 12,000 followers and he started when he returned from a rewarding deployment to Iraq, trying to work out what was next. He now conducts Research and Development for several different companies, designing gear to improve his DP1 and then thrashing prototypes to help diggers in the battalions spend hard earnt money on excellent equipment.
CPL Clark uses the conditions faced by Lark Force in Rabaul to emphasise that we need to make what we have work, and that our issued gear is world-class and envied by fighters in other nations. When looking at either issued or non-issued equipment, versatility and redundance are the two most important things that must be considered. Versatility so that everything we carry is high value and redundancy to ensure that we can still fight even when things go wrong. We go through packs, sleeping gear, shelter and heaps of other equipment to describe what makes fighters more lethal. We sum up the episode with CPL Clark taking us through three high value items that you should consider when posting into your first unit.
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Subscribe to The Cove Podcast to make sure that you do not miss out on any of the heavy hitting content we have recorded with CPL Clark and many other amazing guests. If you haven’t already done so, go back and listen to Invasion Rabaul and Age in War which CPL Clark recommends in this episode.
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56:46
From Swanbourne to Dili – MAJ Guy Warnock
‘Language leads to culture and then culture leads to understanding.’ In this week’s episode, we talk through what it would be like to deploy to a pacific or southeast Asian nation using Timor as our case study. Our guest – MAJ Guy Warnock– just returned from years in the Defence Cooperation Program (DCP) in Timor-Leste but this is not where his interest in Timor first started. MAJ Warnock deployed to Timor as a Special Forces Operator from the Special Air Service Regiment in the first few months of INTERFET.
MAJ Warnock tells stories about diggers predicting that the Australian Army would end up in Timor years beforehand, troopers itching for any information that they could find before flying into Dili, including learning Bahasa in the halls of Swanbourne Barracks from a tape player and how his force element equipped themselves before deploying. To the soldiers that first deployed to Timor on INTERFET, this was the main event.
Commanders now need to encourage all soldiers to learn a language. Language leads to culture and culture leads to understanding. Allowing soldiers to learn a language like Bahasa or Tetum and then seeking opportunities for them to deploy on Mobile Training Teams or post to DCP will build the soldiers we need for the fighting of tomorrow. Lean into the qualifications, interests and expertise that you already have in your team because you may be surprised at what each member can offer. Make a deliberate effort to force continuity in command. Large changeover of commanders and their staff make it incredibly difficult to build highly functional teams that can deploy into volatile and uncertain countries to either kill the enemy or protect the people of the host nation.
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Subscribe to The Cove Podcast to make sure that you do not miss our second and third episode in the Timor series on Sparrow Force in WWII centred on Kupang in West Timor and Dili in East Timor and on the 2/2 Independent Commando Company mounting a guerrilla campaign in the hills that surround Dili.
The Cove Podcast aims to explore all aspects of Professional Military Education within the Australian Army. From short tips and soldier's fives to interviews of Army personnel on operations, find out how the men and women of today's Australian Army work towards professional excellence.
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