The chute was a static line setup and this was extremely low level. His name was Robert HENRY and he came from Melbourne. Work notes (0) Show work notes. Thus alerted, the island became a hunting ground, with almost 1,000 Japanese searching for the patrol. ‘Z Special Unit” was the Australian Army unit which administered Australian Army personnel assigned to ISD, and later to SRD. Date from. Dummy limpet mines were attached to ten ships, including two destroyers. An Australian army unit called Z SPECIAL UNIT was established to administer Australian Army personnel and civilians assigned to ISD, and later to SRD, and as such Z Special Unit appears on the service records of every Australian soldier who was assigned to either of those organisations. No work notes have been added for this record . All boats were swamped and some items of equipment lost, but they made it ashore and harboured up until morning. Z Special Unit recruited men from many branches of the Armed Forces and as well as being most secret it was probably the most 'multi-cultural'. After scuttling the junk and the Sleeping Beauties with explosives, he ordered his men back to Merapas. Raised in Queensland, Australia in 1943 the unit operated behind enemy lines for long periods of time in the Pacific theatre of combat mainly collecting intelligence such as enemy troop movements and shipping details. Carey was arrested, and despite producing Blamey's letter and earnest assurances that the mines were dummies, they refused to allow him to leave or to allow the removal of the mines, which the RAN feared were real and might accidentally detonate. The special military unit, the existence of which was kept secret for decades, was made up of ordinary Australians who ended up being responsible for … Accession Number. [27], During the southern winter of 1944, twenty-two New Zealand soldiers,[28] based at Trentham Military Camp, 30 kilometres (19 mi) north of Wellington, New Zealand were sent to train with Z Special Unit in Melbourne, Australia. They resisted strongly, but the Australian in the party was killed and Myers was captured along with the Malay interpreter of the group. Unlike its sister unit “Z” Special Unit, “M” Special Unit wasn’t well known for hit and run actions against enemy troops. Lyon decided to drop off four more men with Carey: Corporal Colin Craft, Warrant Officer Alf Warren and Sergeant Colin Cameron. Filter by type Date range. Z Special Unit (also known as Special Operations Executive (SOE), Special Operations Australia (SOA) or the Services Reconnaissance Department (SRD)) was a joint Allied special forces unit formed during the Second World War to operate behind Japanese lines in South East Asia. Z Special Unit has 819 members. Discover the Australians who served in "Z" Special Unit. Blamey was sure that the unit would be captured and shot, but he authorised the operation, and issued Carey carte blanche authority to perform whatever actions he deemed necessary during the planning of the proposed operation, which was codenamed Operation Scorpion. [11], Lyon led a Services Reconnaissance Department party of twenty-two men. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-30/z-special-unit-history/5706968. The vessel is part of the Australian War Memorial's collection, on loan to the Australian National Maritime Museum in Darling Harbour, Sydney.[33]. The men rowed into Ross Creek, dismantled and hid their folboats, then travelled into Townsville to find a place to sleep. There is now a public memorial to the Z Special Unit on the Cairns Esplanade. [5], In 1943, a 28-year-old British officer, Captain Ivan Lyon of the Allied Intelligence Bureau and Gordon Highlanders, and a 61-year-old Australian civilian, Bill Reynolds, devised a plan to attack Japanese shipping in Singapore Harbour. Both men were tortured for three days, before being beheaded. Unbeknown to Lyon two Malays had escaped overboard during the firing and had made their way ashore to report the incident. Townsville was a busy harbour full of troop transports, merchantmen and naval escort vessels, and tight security was maintained due to the constant threat of Japanese air and submarine attack. The activities of the commandos laid the groundwork for the Allied invasion of Borneo in 1945. They left their base in Australia aboard the British submarine HMS Porpoise (N14) on 11 September 1944. Four New Zealanders were killed during operations in Borneo. One of the Borneo campaign's few survivors and featured in the TV documentary is former Z unit sergeant Jack Tredrea, now aged 94 years. [4], Several training schools were established in various locations across Australia, the most notable being Camp Z in Refuge Bay, an offshoot of Broken Bay to the north of Sydney, Z Experimental Station (also known as the "House on the Hill" or ZES.) A Facebook page for people interested in the Z Special Unit. It was the successor of the already highly successful Coastwatchers unit. [32] With a crew of 14, these vessels were mainly crewed by a mixture of Royal Australian Navy and Australian Army personnel with a naval lieutenant in command and an army captain as chief officer. As a training exercise, one group paddled canoes between Fraser Island and Cairns. Close . [29] Signalman Ernie Myers parachuted into enemy-held territory near Mount Mentawir on 30 March 1945, but landed with two other operatives inside a Japanese camp area. His efforts to rescue stranded American airmen shot down over Borneo are a central part of "The Airmen and the Headhunters," an episode of the PBS television series Secrets of the Dead. [31] These vessels were modified with more powerful engines and alterations were made to their superstructures in order to disguise them and make them look more like the types of vessels that were operating in the waters around South East Asia. May 1945. Mordu’s Special Warfare Unit Commander: 301 ships destroyed and 0 ships lost. No need to register, buy now! [9] Operation Scorpion was scrapped due to a lack of submarine transport, but Mott and Lyon had learned many valuable lessons from the raid. In June 1942, an ISD raiding/commando unit was organised—designated Z Special Unit. Their bodies were never found. 07/03/2021 12:31 pm / 16:10. Hence M Special Unit's role was focused upon gathering intelligence on Japanese shipping and troop movements. 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