A Forgotten Hero of World War II

American and Australian veterans of World War II have rightly honoured the heroic doctors of World War II – the Australian surgeon “Weary” Dunlop probably pre-eminent among them – who worked miracles in Japanese prison camps. But a West Australian doctor with achievements at least as heroic has been largely forgotten, except by the few surviving members of the 2nd/2nd Independent Company. He does not even have an entry in The Australian Dictionary of Biography.

Lost and written off in the jungles and mountains of Timor after the island fell to the Japanese, the 2nd/2nd, numbering about 278 men, with a few stragglers from other units, fought a guerilla war at odds of around 100-to-1 for nearly a year. “Little-known but great in spirit are the men of Timor,” said Winston Churchill later. “They alone did not surrender.” They did more: they killed an estimated 1,500 enemy for the loss of 40 of their own men. They tied up about 30,000 Japanese and supporting resources…