There are apparently two projects in pre-production relating to the action by Australian special forces during the Second World War in former Portuguese East Timor n the nation of Timor L'este. These are in addition to a project I am involved with.

I am presently co-writing a feature/eight part series screenplay of the WW2 campaign by the Australian 2/2nd Commando unit in the former Portuguese colony of East Timor during the Second World War.

If anyone in the Australian motion picture industry has any knowledge of the production entities involved your advice would be appreciated. My enquiries thus far have yielded nothing.

Along with all other members of Australian forces deployed to the South West Pacific, they were thought to have been defeated and captured by Japanese forces.

After several months of fighting for their very survival with the help of the East Timorese traditional folk and sympathetic Portuguese administrators, they built a radio transmitter out of scrounged parts and items stolen from the Japanese and re-established contact with Australia.

The effect upon the national morale was signficant after the rout of allied forces in Singapore, the rapid Japanese advance through the Dutch East Indies, the bombing of Darwin and other coastal towns in the northwest, the loss of the HMAS Sydney with all hands in a battle within a short distance of the Western Australian coast.

Their endeavours became the very template for assymmetric warfare that is referenced in Australian special forces training to this day,

The human cost to the occupying Japanese was horrendous for them and caused much of their effort to be diverted to quelling the Australians in East Timor. Those forces would otherwise have been deployed in New Guinea and nearby islands.

The outcomes may have been much heavier losses suffered by allied forces. Here are a couple of clips from a recent annual commemorative ceremony in Kings Park, Western Australia. that I was permitted to film
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To avoid adverse effects upon the amenity and disruption to the ceremony I had to sith well off with a zoom lens set on about 300mm and could not run a line to the lecturn without introducing a trip hazard.

Therefore the sound through a directional mike and muff is very poor.

There is a glitch in my computer which is adding urandom nauaanted letters to text so please forgive the typos.

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DITR EPK - 2/2nd Australian Commando Association of Australia 2021 ROB CROSSING address. - YouTube

DITR EPK - 2/2nd Australian Commando Association 2021 Sherie Hart Address. - YouTube



Cheers.

Very moving address by Sherie Hart Bob, and an interesting project you have there. I asked around our group but no one knows anything about the ‘other’ productions, but they did have some suggestions here …

The ‘others’ might already be working with the networks re funding etc, so calling the ABC, Netflix, Foxtel Docos etc. might bring some details to light.

Having 3 separate programs with the same theme in production at the same time is unusual. There’s a chance one of the ‘others’ knows details about the other one, and they might be co-operating to keep out of each other’s way. So if you find one, the other might surface.

The ‘others’ might have also contacted the reference section of the Australian War Memorial. They might let you know who.

If you haven’t already read the story and the reference section might be of help … https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Timor

Amazon Kindle is very worthwhile, do a search for, The-Men-Who-Came-Out-Of-The-Ground.

Good luck.
Cheers.

Allan.


Thank you for your response. The other writer who has the passion for the screen project has done most of the heavy lifting since 2003 when he recorded oral histories from some of the veterans and in a spur of the moment decision, followed one of his interviewees to Timor L'este.

I think Steven Rice, the other writer, has a copy of The-Men-Who-Came-Out-Of-The-Ground. Since the first post, I have discovered that there is a documentary in pre-production which critically examines the totality of Australia's involvement with Timor L'este from 1942 to the present day.

Some years ago, Steve Rice had a young editor compile his oral histories footage into a long teaser in the hope of gaining some funding for the feature but he did not strike gold at the time.

DOUBLE RED DIAMONDS MASTER 2003 - YouTube

Basically, what we are doing is combing through as many of the published accounts we can find and building the screen story. It is a bit of a moving feast because each person's recollection varies. The chronology of events is a challenge as so many incidents too took place almost simultaneously.

Pinning exact times, dates and places can be difficult. The Timor veterans have all passed on so cannot be re-interviewed. The 2/2nd Commando Association was heartened to learn that there remains one last veteran who join the unit after it was evacuated from Timor and served in later campaigns.

He is aged 99 years.

Another project I was talked into was a screenplay regarding the loss of the HMAS Sydney II. That ended up being of two feature film lengths so will have to be re-written as an 8 part Netflix - style presentation. As a cut down to 120 minutes, it did not work.

I had an interest in that as an 11 year old, I met the late Jack Robotham at Cape Cuvier when he was trying to find the Leica camera and possibly a recanned roll of motion picture film which was shot of the battle between the Sydney and German merchant raider HSK Kormoran.

He showed me the cryptograms drawn by the Kormoran survivors when the made landfall. Those have since disappeared lke other evidential material related to the Sydney sinking. Despite the Cole enquiry which was supposed to remove all doubt and clear the air for good, conspiracy theories remain.