Official Commando News Magazine edition 14 Mar 2023

Z Special Unit – Let’s set the record straight
(again)
by "Noah Little" a former Commando officer with an interest in military history"
We’ll address in this article some commonly • Z Special Unit (also known as Special Operations
accepted stories/facts/fables about Z
Executive (SOE), Special Operations Australia
Special Unit. 1 The first one being: Did it
(SOA) or the Services Reconnaissance Depart -
mando unit; 3
really exist? This may seem an odd question, but
fortunately for us, the answer is simple – yes, it did.
And no, it didn’t.
ment (SRD)) was a joint Allied special forces unit
formed during the Second World War to operate
behind Japanese lines in South East Asia; 4
We’ll also address the apparent conflation of the
activities, and indeed identities, of some of the various
special organisations that existed in Australia during
World War II, in relation to the Independent Com pa -
• M Special Unit, was a joint Allied special recon -
naissance unit, part of the Services Reconnais -
sance Department (SRD), in the South West
Pacific theatre of the Second World War; 5
nies/Commando Squadrons. 2
We’ll also look at the question of who inherited the
legacy of and became the successors to what we’ll
refer to for the moment as Z Special Unit, after it was
disbanded at the end of the Second World War.
At the end of this article, we’ll also look at the
question of whether any of this really matters.
The same questions apply to M Special Unit. That
• In Europe, the Allies had experienced success
with a secret fighting force known as SOE
(Special Operations Executive). Prime Minister
John Curtin believed that a similar underground
organisation might help turn the tide in the
Pacific. So was born the Special Reconnaissance
Depart ment – as it came to be known – and its
frequently lethal Z Special Unit; 6
however is a similar, but separate story. M Special Unit
refers to another, separate entity within the Allied Intel -
ligence Bureau (AIB), not directly associated with what
we’ll continue to call for the moment Z Special Unit.
There are a number of claims about Z Special Unit –
some of them partly correct, many of them factually
incorrect and some of them wildly inaccurate. To take a
few:
• The 1971 Australian television series “Spyforce”
was about a “secretive special elite unit known
as the Special Intelligence Unit, headed by
Colonel Cato, who is only responsible directly to
the Prime Minister of Australia. Cato's unit is res -
ponsi ble for sabotage and covert operations,
often behind enemy lines, against Japanese
forces in the South West Pacific during World
• The film “Attack Force Z” concerns a team from
War II;” 7 and
the elite Z Special Unit fighting against the
Empire of Japan during the Second World War.
The film fictionalises the exploits of the Z Special
Unit, which was also known as Z Force. It was a
joint Australian, British and New Zealand com -
• after the war, the Special Air Service Regiment
(SASR) or the Commandos (depending who is
tell ing the story) took on the legacy of Z Special
Unit.
1
Volume 1 (Organization) of the Official History of Special Operations
Australian (SOA) refers to Z Special Unit, rather than, for example, “Z”
Special Unit. Although “Z” Special Unit does appear in official records of
the time, in the interests of uniformity, we’ll stick with the version without
inverted commas. SOA Vol 1 was written in 1946 and along with a
number of other volumes in that series is now available digitally at the
National Archives Australia (NAA) website at . SOA Vol 1
being Item 235324. The (complete) volume on Operations (SOA Vol 2) is
Item 235237. There are other volumes on Communications, Training and
there is also a volume of photographs (all searchable under “SOA” in
Record Search at ).
2
In a series of renumbering and reorganisations, the Independent
Companies were initially numbered, for example, No. 2 Independent
Company, then became, for example, 2/2 nd Independent Company. The
Companies later became Cavalry (Commando) Squadrons in October
1943 with new Cavalry (Commando) Regimental Headquarters in April
1943. The sub-units were later renamed Commando Squadrons.
However, 2/2, 2/3 and 2/8 Commando Squadrons remained inde -
pendent units for the duration of the war and were not part of the Cavalry
Commando Regiments.
3
A plot with a bit of something for everyone – “Spyforce, Episode 1,
The General: Erskine is coerced by Cato into re-entering New
Ireland to steal a list of German agents in Australia that are being
held by a German general. He has to do this before he can give
the list to the Japanese.”
Source. https://www.tvflashback.com.au/spyforce-episode-1-the-general/
4
5
6
Descriptive piece on Davies, Will, Secret and Special: The Untold Story
of Z Special Unit in the Second World War, (Vintage/Random House
Australia, 2021) at
7
24 COMMANDO ~ The Magazine of the Australian Commando Association ~ Edition 14 I 2023