Official Commando News Magazine edition 14 Mar 2023

o No. 2 and No. 4 Independent Companies
deployed successively to Portuguese Timor
carried out a GW role, including working with
local forces until they were withdrawn in Jan
1943 after about 14 months. They operated
in circumstances far more difficult than those
faced by SOA parties who deployed (more
successfully) to Borneo in the closing stages
of the war; and
o No 3. Independent Company was deployed
to New Caledonia to prepare for GW there,
but since the Japanese forces did not reach
that far, it was withdrawn in August 1942.
SOA began deploying parties to Portuguese Timor
in July 1942 and to New Guinea in October 1942, thus
setting the stage for the Independent Companies no
longer being needed to carry out work in enemyoccupied
territories. With the withdrawal of the last
Independent Company elements from Portuguese
Timor in early 1943, and the handful still on Bougain -
ville for only a few more months, the role of the
Independent Companies and soon to be Commando
Squadrons changed. They were thereafter deployed to
carry out often extremely arduous, but regular military
tasks for the remainder of the war in support of and
under command of the Australian 6 th , 7 th and 9 th
Divisions.
• SOA operated most often at extreme distances
from friendly forces; after the withdrawals from
Portuguese Timor and Bougainville, the Com -
mandos’ role was by contrast to operate on the
edge of or in front of the battle area.
• SOA, until later in the war in Borneo, operated in
small groups; the Commandos (after Portuguese
Timor and Bougainville) usually operated in
platoon or company sized groups.
• SOA did not train with the Commandos (but they
did share use of the No. 7 Infantry Training
Centre for a few months in 1942). Nor did SOA’s
misleadingly named “Fraser Commando
School” in Queensland actually train Com -
mandos, it was SOA and later other AIB
operatives who trained there;
• SOA was multi-national – UK, Australia, NZ,
Dutch (including Indonesians), Portuguese and
numerous locally raised inhabitants from
Portuguese Timor and Borneo in particular; the
Commandos were almost entirely Australian.
• SOA was what we would today call “tri-service”
(but mainly Army); the Commandos were by
definition all Army.
• SOA had its own organic planning, command,
training, support, communications and, later,
transport capabilities; Commandos were more
focussed on tactical field operations and drew
on other Australian and Allied military elements
for those capabilities.
• They had different chains of command – SOA
had a complex chain of command and control, it
reported to the AIB and hence to GHQ SWPA, as
well as to SOE and in some cases to the AMF;
Commandos reported through the normal
Australian military chain of command.
• SOA used submarines, inflatables, “Folboats”
(collapsible canoes), native craft, air drops
and/or seaplanes for insertion/extraction/re -
supply; the Commandos had conventional
means available; and
• SOA was “secret”; the Commandos were not.
No 2 Independent Coy in Portuguese Timor
Source. Australian War Memorial,
.
SOA SEMUT II Party in Sarawak
Source. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Semut.
Operation JAYWICK – a “Commando”
success?
We turn briefly to one of the better-known SOA
operations – Operation JAYWICK, the September 1943
attack on shipping in Singapore harbour launched by
personnel from Folboats, working off a native craft
mother ship (the KRAIT). The various popular tellings of
JAYWICK embody many of the misconceptions about
SOA (and for that matter the Independent Com pa -
nies/Commandos).
Often billed as a “Z Special Unit (or sometimes a Z
Force) commando raid”, JAYWICK was actually of little
interest to GHQ SWPA and AIB, as it took place in an
area which was part of the (British) South East Asia
32 COMMANDO ~ The Magazine of the Australian Commando Association ~ Edition 14 I 2023