Commando Edition 17 2023

of their advanced camp, a drop which duly occurred
by means of a RAAF Liberator flown out of the
Northern Territory, on the morning of 14 April 1945.
On 18 Apr 1945, Black and Hoffie began a recon -
naissance towards the main target area but were
forced back by the difficult terrain on 21 April 1945,
perhaps less than 3 km short of the target. In the
meantime, on 19 April 1945, Crofton-Moss and
Gillies had become separated while moving
between the advanced camp and the base camp.
Crofton-Moss was never seen again. At the time he
was carrying a copy of the party’s cyphers and
thereafter the party had to use the Emergency
Cypher.
On the morning of 24 April 1945, a Japanese force
of around 20 men attacked the three remaining
party members at their advanced camp. The party
members split up, but only Black and Hoffie made it
to the RV at the base camp. They waited, but when
Gillies did not turn up, they made their way by
rubber boat to the area of cache established earlier
near Cape Sara, where they recovered the spare
wireless and food. (This move involved a sea transit
of around 15 km.) They then arranged an extraction
by Catalina seaplane on the morning of 2 May
1945.
Finally, it was noted that in late July 1945 an SOA
prisoner held by the Japanese in Portuguese Timor
was shown a photograph of Black and Hoffie. It was
suspected that this photo had been developed
from a film in a camera abandoned by the
STARFISH party when the Japanese attacked their
advanced camp on 24 April 1945.
The locations
Overview
The key locations for STARFISH are as below:
Figure 4 - A map showing the ley locations –landing sites, camps,
furthest point of reconnaissance, target, withdrawal route and
extraction. (Google Maps)
First landing by submarine – cache site
The submarine arrived off the original landing site
on the evening of 14 March 1945 and that evening and
the next day a periscope reconnaissance was
conducted. For the landing that night, the party was
off-loaded from the submarine around 2300 hrs about
2 km ESE of Cape Sara, proceeded by rubber boat,
before cutting the motor and paddling the last
approximately 700 m. The cache was established
(comprising about 1/3 of their total stores, together
with a spare radio) in pig-holes in the ground, which
were covered over by scrub. Subsequently it was
learned that locals had discovered the cache, but had
not disturbed it.
It took about an hour to lay the cache. Unfor tunately
during the insertion the motor and their short range
radio for communications with the submarine had
become swamped and would not function. Over the
next 2 hours the party therefore paddled 6 km out to
sea for an RV with the submarine at 0300 hrs on 15
March. 23
Six weeks later, on 25 April the two surviving
members of the party returned to this cache to retrieve
some stores in their rush to the extraction point.
Figure 5 - Area of cache site. Cape Sara on the left.
Looking south (Author)
Second landing
At about 2000 hrs on 16 March 1945, the party
disembarked from the submarine a little over 3 km
south from what they called “Cape Black” (Cape
Mermadi Mekaki Indah). The party proceeded under
outboard motor power to a point just west of Cape
Black, intending to make their way as much as 10 km
west along the coast before landing. When they cut
the motor about 800 m off the cape, a strong current
took them rapidly to the west obliging them to make
landfall much sooner than expected at a point about
1.5 km northwest of the cape around 2350 hrs that
night. The shore was rugged and backed by cliffs and
although landing through the surf was difficult, they
made it ashore with all their stores intact. They located
a cave about 4 m above the sea level and stored all
their stores and boat there for the night. Contrary to
prior orders, the party did not destroy the rubber boat
after landing here. 24
On 17 March 1945, the party found close to their
original landing point and temporary cave shelter a
23
Operation Report: “STARFISH OPERATION PHASE 1 at NAA 235188,
p 18
24
ACA Interview 17:30
16 COMMANDO ~ The Magazine of the Australian Commando Association ~ Edition 17 I 2023