Escape from Timor (continued)

With half of his group, Rofe then moved to Army H.Q. in the hills where Brigadier W. C. D. Veale AIF (later Town Clerk of Adelaide) was in command. Unable to assist the army, Rofe and his party took to the jungle-clad hills, aiming to reach the coast—their only possible point of rescue. So began a fantastic 58-day jungle ordeal, a grim cat-and-mouse exercise with the Japanese troops hunting the fugitives.

Rofe's story to the T.V. Times went on:

'At the sea, at last, contact was established with Darwin and plans made for a flying boat to rescue the men. We were all stripped waiting for the plane to arrive, and being eaten by sandflies, when we received a message that Broome, through which the plane was to fly enroute to us had been bombed the day before it was due to arrive there. The plane was no longer available. It was a bitter disappointment for some of the men, but back to the jungle we went, and we began moving from native village to village in quest of food. At first none of the villagers was very cooperative, and once I had to threaten to shoot if we were not given food.'[54]

In the jungle they met a native and his son who came to be known as George and Little George. They helped to get food and supplied information about the movements of the Japanese. Another native 'angel' who helped the party when it was dodging the enemy was Trina, a boy who worked in the Kwong Ha Chinese cafe in Koepang before the war. Dr Ghabler, an old Eurasian medico, once hid the party, risking capture and execution by the Japanese.

Bureau of Meteorology