World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbasePortugal declared eastern Timor in South Pacific a colony in 1702, but the colony received very little attention in terms of economic and infrastructure development. The main export from Portuguese Timor was the aromatic sandalwood, which had little military value. Nevertheless, for strategic reasons, when the Pacific War began in Dec 1941, Australian and Dutch troops preemptively occupied the neutral colony, but ultimately they could do little when the much larger Japanese invasion force arrived in Feb 1942. Between 1942 and 1945, Japan administered the entire island of Timor as a single unit. On 5 Sep 1945, Governor Manuel de Abreu Ferreira de Carvalho received the transfer of power over Portuguese Timor from Japan, and later in the month Australian troops entered Portuguese Timor to help the Portuguese colonial authority disarm the Japanese. Portuguese troops arrived on 27 Sep. Portugal retained control over the eastern half of Timor island until 1975, when it was invaded and occupied by Indonesian troops. In 1999, Indonesian troops left eastern Timor, and in 2002 the independent Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste was declared.