Tracing the steps of Sparrow Force in West Timor

The not-so-lovely beach at Kupang.

The oh-so-lovely sunset!

Kupang  was truly off the beaten track. With only one pub to choose from and a couple of restaurants it was an interesting place to explore for four days. In mid-May, we flew to this city of 300,000 which is the capital of West Timor with our friends Alice and Horst who are also volunteering in Indonesia with us. Alice’s father had been a prisoner of war in Kupang during World War 2. So Alice had managed to get in contact with Ian Skenerton, a fellow Australian who had been doing research into Sparrow Force, the company that Alice’s father had been in. Mr Skennerton’s father had also been in Sparrow Force with Alice’s father in Timor while fighting the Japanese. He has recently produced a documentary about the exploits of Sparrow Force during the war.

Our transportation and drivers for our tour around the old WWII sites.

Alice had organised us a tour with Stanis Wanti (stanic_qz6@yahoo.com) , the local guide who had been helping Skennerton uncover a number of different World War 2 sites. We were apparently the first people to visit these sites after having been unearthed by Skennerton’s research – places even the local people had forgotten about.

An artillery gun at Klapalima

The  Australians had landed in Kupang a few of months prior to the Japanese coming and had set up headquarters and strategically placed heavy artillery around the place to protect the bay. This artillery is still found in its original locations, however, villages have gone up around them. It was a strange sight to see these massive guns surrounded by houses and people’s washing drying on the fence surrounding them.

Japanese caves

In February 1942, the 2nd/40th Battalion (“Sparrow Force”) comprising approximately 1300 men, faced an invading Japanese force of more than 23,000. These brave men inflicted heavy casualties on the Japs, killing almost a thousand in one battle  while only losing 12 of their own. After being left almost completely without ammunition, they were finally beaten – half surrendering and the other half retreating into Portuguese Timor (today Timor Leste). These men then waged a 10-month guerrilla war from the East against the Japs assisted by locals with almost no help from the main Australian supply chain. Other than Skennerton’s documentary, there has been very little attention given to the battles and historical sites of these soldiers in Timor.

We continued on to see some of the Japanese caves. Apparently the Japanese loved forcing local people to build them a whole underground system of caves, these can also be found in North Sulewesi in Manado. The local children play in the caves but nobody knows how far they go, as the children are not brave enough to explore the caves until they come to the end.

The concrete monument to the Japs' short-lived glory

When the Japanese conquered Kupang they also built a very interesting monument for themselves. It was strange to see in the middle of nowhere a concrete monument that the Japanese had built to honour their feat.

Alice sits on a wall possibly built by her dad

We continued our journey on to the site where the Australians had made their headquarters. This was a very special place for Alice as her father had been a concreter and the concrete foundations still remained intact. He would have played some part in constructing the buildings. The Australian headquarters was eventually captured by the Japanese which they to over and again built more caves to hide in.

All that remains are the foundations of the Dutch bridge at Champlong

                                              

With the locals at Champlong

The Australian War Memorial at Oesau

Our journey took us 2 hours northeast of Kupang to the Mina river where we were able to see the remains of an old Dutch bridge that had been blown up during the fighting between the Australian and the Japanese. While we were here I (Candice) was desperate to go to the toilet. So I walked up to some villagers house and asked them if I could use their toilet – which they eagerly let us use! After using their facilities we talked with them for a while. The grandfather, an old man with rotting red teeth from chewing betel nut, told us how he had been eight years old when the Japanese invaded Kupang. He was able to retell us stories of the Japanese and the Australians fighting. He told us that the locals hated the Japanese and would do all they could to help the Australian forces. However, when they were caught by the Japanese they were normally tortured and killed for assisting the Australians. 

All that remain of a Portuguese or Dutch war grave (perhaps 18th century) on the palm grove of the beach at Usapa Besar. 

We spent the next couple of days exploring a few more sights such as former war graves in a palm grove on the coast and heading down to a very disappointing beach. It was gross. However, on a positive note it was very interesting to drive through the villages and see how everyday people spend their days in West Timor.

I (Nat) think we would very much like to return to Timor one day, possibly get out to East Timor too!

The traditional Timorese harp, the Sasando being played. The song is the popular Javanese tune "Iwa Peyek"

Goodbye Australia, hello Indonesia!

Firstly we thought we’d give you guys a bit of information about what we’re doing in Indonesia. About 3 years ago we did a stint of living in Sweden and doing some travel around the world. When we got back to Australia and returned to normality we felt that living abroad had really given us the desire to do work overseas. We discovered Australian Volunteers International (AVI), one of a few government-sponsored organisations that pairs skilled volunteers with local partner organisations in various developing and underdeveloped countries around the world, primarily in our immediate region. Given Indonesia’s proximity to Australia and the fact that we both speak Bahasa Indonesia it was an obvious choice, the other being Timor Leste. We both set about applying for suitable volunteer positions in both countries.

After a lengthy application and screening process and some hiccups along the way, I (Nat) finally secured a position as a research editor at an Indonesian women’s rights organisation called Komisi Anti-Kekerasan Terhadap Perempuan (National Commission for Anti-Violence Against Women) or “Komnas Perempuan” for short. Indonesians absolutely love their acronyms. Given the position will involve utilising legal, research and translation skills I’m hoping my background as a lawyer and ability to speak Bahasa come in handy. Candice is still in the process of firming up the details of her position and we don’t yet know how that will pan out. We’ll keep you up to date when we know more.

The flight from Melbourne to Jakarta via Sydney was relatively uneventful and really the first time I felt really excited about moving to Indonesia. It was the first time either of us had flown Garuda and despite the bad reputation of the airline, we were pleasantly surprised to find the service excellent. Apparently they have really picked up in recent years. The picture above is actually us on the train to Yogyakarta not the plane but we thought it looked appropriate.

Jakarta airport looked very 1980s and we could already sense the humidity outside as we got off the plane. Jon, our AVI in-country manager was there to meet us with his team and they took us to our hotel for the first few days.

This intake of AVI volunteers in Indonesia comprises seven people – Candice and I, Horst and Alice, Dennis and Deborah, and Jen. Jen, Dennis and Deborah are stationed in Bali while the rest of us are in Jakarta. The first four days or so were spent mainly at the AVI office in Jakarta spent doing our orientation with briefings from local organisations, AVI, the Australian Embassy doctor, AusAid and really just getting set up. We didn’t see much of Jakarta except the traffic. It was almost quicker to walk from our hotel to the AVI office than to drive. In fact on a couple of occasions it would have been!

A layer of smog covers Jakarta most of the time

In terms of population, greater Jakarta is the second largest city in the world after Mexico City. The greater urban area is made up of about 26 million people, half of which commute in and out of the city centre daily. That’s more than the entire population of Australia moving around an area smaller than Melbourne. And it’s getting bigger! The infrastructure can hardly cope with the traffic and we reckon if most people didn’t get around on scooters, there would be no way the roads could accommodate that many cars.

There is an ever-present smog in the air (which we could see from the plane) that prevents you from ever seeing the sky or the stars and there are no footpaths. Having spent a lot of time in South East Asia, and in particular Malaysia, we had expected Jakarta to be similar to Kuala Lumpur given the similarities in language, history and culture between the two nations. We were quite surprised to discover how much poorer and underdeveloped Jakarta is in general despite the opulent wealth displayed by some people here and the hundreds of shopping malls.

Having said all that Jakarta is quite green and the people are very friendly and helpful. We don’t feel as if it is as dangerous as many other countries and violent crime is quite low.

Apart from Jon, the AVI staff based here are entirely Indonesian. Nova, Tuti, Slamet and Aurora were extremely helpful and went out of their way to help us settle in. We’ve now got Indonesian mobiles so send us an email if you want our numbers. It’s cheaper for us to call you though!

These are only our initial perceptions of Jakarta. I'm sure our opinion will change as we get to know our new home! We'll post another update shortly as we're actually already in Yogyakarta for language training as we write this.