program note. There is the mother of all curse words in this episode as it comes and a quote.

That quote is from an Australian commando, so no surprise there.

Hello, and thank you for listening to the history of World War II podcast.

Episode 285, The Fall of Timor. The island of Timor, 700 kilometers, or 434 miles east of Java,

and 686 kilometers, or 426 miles from Darwin, Australia, was first colonized by the Portuguese in

1520. The sandalwood on the island was prized if the natives themselves were not. Early in its occupation,

Timor changed hands several times between the Portuguese and the Dutch who already had

surrounding colonies. To stop the fighting in 1859, a formal boundary was set. The Dutch now

controlled West Timor, the Portuguese east Timor. When Nazi Germany invaded Poland on September

1st 1939, Portugal declared that though the Anglo-Portuguese alliance, which dated back to 1386,

was still valid. As the British did not ask for Portuguese help, that government would stay

neutral in this war. That status would not change until 1944. When the US asked for and received

the right to establish a military base on the island of Santa Maria in the Azores,

located just east of the center point between Washington, DC and Portugal in the Atlantic.

With this alteration, Portugal became a non-beligerent. But none of this helped Australia,

looking for any and all allies as it knew that London would be focused on Europe. Still,

Cambera asked the British to work on the Portuguese and Dutch, but the Portuguese government would not

budge due to pressure applied by Japan. But still trying to help itself, Australia sent out two

battalions, one to Ambonne of the Maluku Islands, which as we have seen, fell anyways on February 3rd.

And the other, Sparrow Force, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel William Laggett, which included the

240th battalion, the second independent commando company under Major Alexander Spence,

and a battery of coastal artillery, about 1,400 men in total to Dutch controlled West Timor,

...