Personal Testimony 1

Lance Bomford, 2/40th Battalion

Mostly it was a long trudge. The hills would break your heart. You’d look up and think it was just to the top of that one. You’d get up and there’d be another one in front of you and another after that. The native tracks zigzagged; you’d go along and back and you’d only have gone a mile further. The natives went along barefoot, all silent. Many a fright I’ve got when they’d pass and you wouldn’t have had any idea they were behind you...

Each of us had his native, called a creado. They carried our packs so we were free with our guns, and without them we just couldn’t have fought like we did...

The natives would spot when the Japs were making a move and relay the message to us so we could set up ambushes. Even at the end when it was tough we were dependent on them to keep one jump ahead of the Japs. It wasn’t just the creados, there were lots who helped us.

Once we were all asleep and this bloke came and said, ‘Japanese!’ ... We pack up quick and sneak up the hill... Then we see these Japs bring this bloke to where we’d been camped. We heard the shots and they killed him because he’d warned us. The hill was too high up to do anything but we felt awful about him getting it. He was a beaut fella, really bright...

By November things were looking gloomy. It was very hard for us, and for the poor natives. Early in December we got orders to move to the coast. It was a great feeling to be going home but it was a sad parting from the Timorese boys who’d done so much for us. Quite a few of us had tears in our eyes. I’d have loved to have taken my little fella back with me. He cried when the time came to leave. I gave him a note praising him, what a good lad he was, gave him a few odds and ends. What happened to him Lord knows.

(Michelle Turner, Telling East Timor, Personal Testimonies 1942 - 1992, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 1992, pages 9, 11, 12)