Sosok.ID – Relationship between Australia and Timor Lesta up and down.
However, there is a great history between the two Countries.
Reported from awm.gov.au on Saturday (12/09/2020), three months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, position Japan decreasing in Southeast Asia.
At that time, only two colonial powers existed, the Dutch in the west and the Portuguese in the east.
Then since February 1941, Australia have agreed with Dutch and British officials that the Allied forces, under command Australia, will strengthen Timor if Japan entering the war.
Thus the “Sparrow Force”, as the Allied presence in Timor was called, landed on the island five days after the attack Japan di Pearl Harbor.
This was part of a strategy to defend the forward airfield and also involved the deployment of “Lark Force” at Rabaul and “Gull Force” at Ambon.
Despite agreeing to deploy troops on Timor with troops, the Allied commanders did not envision a full-scale Japanese attack on the island.
They also did not have Portuguese approval to occupy the eastern part of the island.
Then the colonial government took the “extremely optimistic view” that the Japanese troops would respect Portuguese neutrality.
– .