https://archery.org.au/ 12 COMMANDO ~ The Magazine of the Australian <strong>Commando</strong> Association ~ <strong>Edition</strong> <strong>17</strong> I <strong>2023</strong>
Operation STARFISH Revisited Introduction Special Operations Australia (SOA) 2 conducted a reconnaissance operation – STARFISH - in what is now the island of Lombok in the Indonesian province of West Nusa Tenggara, for about 7 weeks in the period 14 March to 2 May 1945. At the time Lombok was part of the Japanese-occupied Netherlands East Indies (NEI, now the independent Indonesia). STARFISH took place only a few months prior to the unexpectedly quick Japanese surrender in August 1945. Figure 1 - Map showing the STARFISH AO, on the island of Lombok, the next major island east of Bali. The Lombok Strait was (and remains) a key line of sea communication between Australia and Southeast Asia. Lombok and the neighbouring island of Bali are of course well known to Australians these days as tourist destinations. Given that many of the general Australian public are probably unaware of the fact that Australian and British members of SOA operated on Lombok (or indeed in many other parts of what is now Indonesia) during World War II, we thought it might be useful to revisit some aspects of this perhaps little-known operation. We do not propose to focus here on re-telling the operation, but rather to highlight a number of aspects of interest, based on existing records and a visit by the author to the key locations in early April <strong>2023</strong>, 78 years after the operation. We have endeavoured to be precise with pin - pointing the locations and have been guided by: • Photographs and maps in the SOA file on STARFISH. • Descriptions in the after-action report, on that same file. 1 A long serving <strong>Commando</strong> officer. 2 SOA was one of the component parts of the Allied Intelligence Bureau (AIB) and was led by British officers from the (British) Special Operations Executive (SOE). It used the cover name Services Reconnaissance Depart ment (SRD). It was tri-service (but mainly Army) and mostly Australian but had significant numbers of British servicemen and small numbers of Canadians and New Zealanders. Initially it also included Dutch members (amongst whom were some native Indonesians). AIB in turn was led by an Australian “Controller”, with a US Deputy, operating under the General Headquarters Southwest Pacific Area (GHQ SWPA), which was commanded by US General Douglas MacArthur. By Noah Salittle 1 • Use of commercial mapping applications, including Google Earth; and • Visits to the locations and interviews with locals. In some cases, there may be minor discrepancies, for example the locations shown on maps and photos in the Outline Plan may not have been exactly as used in the operation nor are the maps attached to after action report overly precise. Furthermore, the maps of the time often lacked detail or were inaccurate. Like - wise in some cases we had difficulty identifying place names - where possible we have used current Indo - nesian spellings. In 1945 the southwest corner of Lombok, where this operation took place, was sparsely populated and the terrain was difficult, with lush forests and few roads or even tracks. Even by today’s standards this part of Lombok remains relatively remote. Some of the locations we would otherwise like to have seen during the April <strong>2023</strong> visit, especially those in remote forest/mountain areas, were not readily accessible. Background Significance Lombok itself had little direct strategic significance in terms of Allied war planning for either the ultimate invasion of Japan or the expulsion of the Japanese from the NEI: • US forces had already swept through the Dutch part of New Guinea and had occupied parts of the eastern NEI islands. In October 1944 they had landed in Leyte, Philippines to commence the liberation of the remainder of the Philippines as one of the stepping stones towards the ultimate invasion of Japan. Most of the NEI had therefore simply been by-passed. • Australian forces were heavily engaged in military operations in New Guinea to contain large isolated Japanese garrisons there; and • The predominantly Australian landings in the British and Dutch parts of Borneo were still in the planning/preparation stage – the Tarakan landing (Operation OBOE 1) took place in May/June 1945 (Operation OBOE 1); Brunei and Labuan Bay in June/July 1945 (OBOE 6); and Balikpapan in July 1945 (OBOE 2). The rationale behind STARFISH was as per the Outline Plan on SOA’s STARFISH file 3 : The Lombok Strait (between Lombok and Bali) had considerable operational importance as a means of entry for sub - 3 Available on-line at naa.gov.au, as National Archives of Australia (NAA) A3269, D7/A, (Item 235188) “STARFISH”, digital p. 131. COMMANDO ~ The Magazine of the Australian <strong>Commando</strong> Association ~ <strong>Edition</strong> <strong>17</strong> I <strong>2023</strong> 13
Change language