The logistical support of the multinational International Force East Timor (INTERFET) peacekeeping mission in 1999 and 2000 involved, at its peak, 11,693 personnel from 23 countries. Of these 5,697 were from Australia, making it the largest deployment of Australian forces overseas since the Vietnam War. INTERFET was unusual in that it was led by Australia, casting the country in a wholly unfamiliar role. The logistics and support areas of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) had been subject to deep cuts in the 1990s. The ADF had not anticipated being committed to such a large peacekeeping mission, and was unprepared to support an Australian force projection of this size, much less act as lead nation of an international coalition.
INTERFET deployed to East Timor in September 1999. Over 90 per cent of the cargo and most of the passengers travelled by sea, transported by a naval task force. Eleven nations contributed transport aircraft to the INTERFET Coalition Airlift Wing (ICAW), which flew 3,400 sorties in support of INTERFET, carried of cargo and transported more than 30,000 passengers. A base was established in Darwin, with supplies, equipment, stores and in many cases personnel stockpiled or staged there before being dispatched to East Timor by sea or air.
East Timor posed significant challenges for logistical support. There was only one deepwater port, the Port of Dili, and it had a maximum quayside depth of just . There were few beaches suitable for Logistics Over-the-Shore (LOTS) and just three airfields. To give effect to an operational concept that involved flooding East Timor with as many combat troops as possible, troops were initially landed with a minimum of vehicles and supplies. The logistical support units spent October and November catching up and eliminating backlogs. Effective logistical support enabled INTERFET to carry out its mission without severe limitations resulting from inadequate logistics, although there were shortages of spare parts, medical supplies and amenities.
Background
The island of Timor, in the Indonesian archipelago, has been populated for up to 40,000 years, occupied by successive waves of immigrants from southern India, Malaysia and Melanesia. It was ruled by small kingdoms that traded spices, slaves and sandalwood with their neighbours. Portugal established a settlement on the eastern part of the island in 1633. Timor was formally divided between the Netherlands and Portugal in 1661, and the first governor of Portuguese Timor was appointed in 1701. For most of the next three centuries, East Timor was a Portuguese colony. During the Second World War, East Timor was occupied by Australian and Dutch forces, and then invaded by the Japanese on 19 February 1942. Sparrow Force, the Australian commandos and Dutch troops on the island, waged a guerrilla campaign until the Australian and Dutch forces were withdrawn in January 1943. The assistance of the East Timorese people in helping the Australians created a bond between Australia and East Timor that became part of popular mythology in Australia. After the war ended, Timor was occupied by Australia, which supported Indonesian independence from the Netherlands, and proposed that East Timor become a United Nations (UN) trusteeship, but backed down in the face of objections from the United Kingdom.
After its April 1974 Carnation Revolution, Portugal initiated a gradual decolonisation process, and East Timor descended into a civil war between supporters of the Timorese Democratic Union (UDT) and Fretilin. In October 1974, Indonesia began military operations to incorporate East Timor. Fretilin unilaterally declared independence on 28 November 1975 in an attempt to forestall this, but on 7 December Indonesian forces invaded East Timor. Indonesia's annexation of East Timor was recognised by Australia and the United States, but not by Portugal or the UN. Most countries regarded it as a "UN-designated non-self-governing territory" under Indonesian control. Following a UN-brokered agreement between Indonesia and Portugal on 5 May 1999, a referendum was held on 30 August 1999 that offered a choice between autonomy within Indonesia and full independence. The people voted overwhelmingly for the latter. A violent scorched earth policy was then carried out by pro-Indonesia militia, supported by elements of the Indonesian National Armed Forces (TNI).
The United States declined to intervene in East Timor. There were concerns about the economic and political consequences of a conflict with Indonesia. Americans felt that in the Bosnian War the United States had carried out most of the risky missions and paid the bulk of the bills, and that its allies should do more. The 1999 Helms-Biden Act restricted the United States' ability to provide military support to the UN. On 15 September United Nations Security Council Resolution 1264 established an Australian-led and Indonesian-sanctioned peacekeeping force, INTERFET, to take all necessary measures to restore order in East Timor. The President of the United States, Bill Clinton, offered to "contribute to the force in a limited, but essential, way – including communications and logistical aid, intelligence, air lifts of personnel and material and coordination of the humanitarian response to the tragedy". This meant the United States would play the unfamiliar role of a subordinate member of a military coalition, while Australia played the equally unfamiliar one of lead nation. Neither country's doctrine, based on NATO publications, provided for this contingency.
East Timor posed significant challenges. There was only one deepwater port, the Port of Dili, and it had a maximum quayside depth of just , greatly limiting its cargo capacity, as the average draught of a 1,000-TEU container ship is about . There were few beaches suitable for Logistics Over-the-Shore (LOTS), and just three airfields. The mountainous interior was characterised by steep, narrow and poorly maintained roads susceptible to being cut by flooding during the wet season. A geographical complication was posed by the Oecussi enclave, which was physically separate from the rest of East Timor. The population was poor, and much infrastructure had been damaged or destroyed, so little host nation support could be provided, and INTERFET had to be entirely self-supporting. The intention was that logistics would remain a national responsibility, each nation being responsible for the logistical support of its own element. In reality, Australia, in its role of lead nation, was called upon to provide all those capabilities not provided by the other members of the coalition. Most of these were in the combat support and combat service support areas.
A decade of defence cuts in the 1990s had fallen disproportionately on the logistics and support areas of the Australian Defence Force (ADF), as the leadership attempted to preserve combat capability. This was compounded by a defence policy of the Howard government that sought to maximise the tooth-to-tail ratio. On 11 March 1999, the Minister for Defence, John Moore, announced that administrative cuts had permitted an increase in readiness, so that the Australian Army's Darwin-based 1st Brigade could be brought to 28 days' notice to deploy, the same as the Townsville-based 3rd Brigade. This, he claimed, would allow for a two-brigade deployment to a trouble spot in the Asia-Pacific region at short notice, East Timor being specifically mentioned as a possibility, but the very same cuts rendered this impossible. While they provided short-term financial benefits, far from increasing operational capability, in the words of Lieutenant Colonel David Beaumont "the preferential allocation of resources to combat capabilities and the acceptance of risk in logistics functions brought the Army to the precipice of operational failure."
Planning
Australia During July and August 1999, the head of the Australian Army's Strategic Command, Major General Michael Keating, placed elements of the ADF on reduced notice to move. Logistical staffs in Canberra, Sydney and Brisbane were aware of this, but were not authorised to top up units and depots with stocks, purchase necessary special equipment, or pre-position units, vehicles, equipment or supplies. Such actions could be easily discovered, and that might have strained the already tense relations between Australia and Indonesia. Brigadier Mark Evans, the commander of the 3rd Brigade, held a secret meeting of his subordinate commanders at his headquarters in Townsville on 22 August. Lieutenant Colonel Mick Kehoe, the commander of the 10th Force Support Battalion (10 FSB), was not one of Evans's subordinates; his unit was part of Brigadier Jeff Wilkinson's Logistic Support Force, which was based in Sydney. Nonetheless, he attended this and subsequent conferences regarding the deployment to East Timor with Wilkinson's blessing.
Air Vice Marshal Robert Treloar, the Commander Australian Theatre (COMAST), delegated responsibility for developing plans for Operation Spitfire, the evacuation of foreign nationals and selected East Timorese, to Major General Peter Cosgrove's Deployable Joint Force Headquarters (DJFHQ) in Brisbane. Its logistics staff was headed by Lieutenant Colonel Don Cousins. Planning sessions were attended by Wilkinson's senior plans officer, Major Cliff Cole, and Major Jim Evans, who had seen six months' active service with the British Army's logistic headquarters in the Bosnian War, was detached from command of an Australian Army Reserve transport squadron to serve as Wilkinson's liaison officer at DJFHQ.
The Logistic Support Force was not designed to manage the logistic support of forces deployed away from Australia; its mission was to command the Army's field force logistic units, and it was in the midst of a reorganisation in 1999. Wilkinson anticipated being designated the Logistic Component Commander for Operation Spitfire, responsible for coordinating the logistics of all three services, but this did not occur until 26 August, the day before the first troops began deploying to northern Australia for the operation. To support Operation Spitfire, Kehoe detached a small group of specialists under Captain Phil MacMaster to work with Lieutenant Colonel Steve Kinloch's 3rd Brigade Administrative Support Battalion (3 BASB). He later admitted that this was a mistake, costing him the services of key personnel for several weeks.
On 6 September, the day after Operation Spitfire began, Wilkinson received official notice of Operation Warden, the multinational intervention in East Timor. The codename Operation Stabilise was given to operations in and around East Timor, while Operation Warden also included logistic support activities in Australia. At the same time he was relieved of responsibility for logistical support of Crocodile 99, the major joint US-Australian military exercises at the Shoalwater Bay Military Training Area in north Queensland scheduled to commence in October. Operation Spitfire was carried out between 6 and 14 September, during which some 2,500 civilians were evacuated from East Timor to Darwin by air. Planning for Operation Warden commenced on 8 September.
New Zealand