Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

2nd/4th Independent Company / Cavalry Commando Squadron

After Japan entered the war, 2 (later designated the '2nd/2nd' ) Independent Company had been sent to Timor as part of 'Sparrow Force'.  When the rest of the Force had surrendered, the Indeopendent Company had 'gone bush' and following the Japanese occupation of the island in February, had been conducting a guerrilla war using "hit and run" tactics.

The 2nd/4th Independent Company was landed from the HMAS Voyager, to reinforce the 2nd/2nd.  It continued theguerrilla war and from September carried out many successful ambushes, blew bridges and roads, and manned two observation posts in the mountains outside Dili where they reported the movements of Japanese ships and aircraft. However, during the last few months of 1942, the Japanese had intensified their efforts to end such resistance and they focssed their efforts on isolating the Astralians from the local poplation throgh fear and intimidation, eventally making the situation untenable for the Australians. In mid-December the 2nd/2nd was evacuated from Timor to Darwin, as was the 2nd/4th in January 1943.

After leave, in April, the 2nd/4th reformed at the army's training centre at Canungra, Queensland, where it was reinforced and reequipped. The company then moved to Wongabel, on the Atherton Tableland, where it became part of the 2/7th Cavalry (Commando) Regiment.  See the narrative below.

As part of this reorganisation, in October, the 2/4th Independent Company was redesignated the 2/4th Cavalry (Commando) Squadron. However, when the name change came, the 2/4th was already overseas. 

As part of the build up for the 9th Division's amphibious landing at Lae, the 2nd/4th had been sent to Milne Bay in early August. While there, the 2/4th came under the command of the 9th Division's 26th Brigade. The squadron served with the 9th Division for the rest of the war. The 2nd/4th was to provide reconnaissance and flank protection for the brigade after landing. Lae was to be Australia's first amphibious landing since Gallipoli.

On 4 September, troops from the 20th and 26th Brigades came ashore at Lae. The 2nd/4th landed in the second wave, but they suffered heavy casualties with 34 men killed or missing when the landing force was attacked by Japanese dive and torpedo bombers, hitting their ship.

After the capture of Lae, on 30 October the 2nd/4th was sent by barge to reinforce the 20th Brigade at Finschhafen in the clearing of the Huon Peninsula. Here it conducted numerous long range patrols, often being sent ahead of the main advance. At the end of February 1944 the 2nd/4th returned to Australia for leave.

In March, the men regrouped at Ravenshoe, in Far North Queensland.  The Squadron was transferred to the 2/9th Cavalry (Commando) Regiment with the newly formed 2nd/11th and 2nd/12th Commando Squadrons. As with the rest of 9th Division, the 2nd/4th spent the next year training in northern Queensland.

In April 1945 the squadron sailed from Townsville for Morotai and, eventually, Borneo. Devised towards the end of the war, the OBOE operations were designed to reoccupy areas of the Netherlands East Indies with the 9th and 7th Divisions making amphibious landings on Borneo. From Morotai, on 30 April, the 2nd/4th landed unopposed on Sadau Island and then, a few days later, on 3 May, on the small island of Tarakan supporting the 26th Brigade. In the coming days and weeks the 2nd/4th saw extensive service on Tarakan, particularly in the northern area, but the campaign was virtually over by July and on 15 August Japan surrendered.

With the war over, the ranks of the 2nd/4th gradually thinned as men were either discharged or transferred and the unit returned to Australia at the end of 1945. The 2nd/4th Commando Squadron was disbanded on 8 January 1946.

Renaming the 'Independent Companies'

It was on 6th October (1943)  that Generals Vasey and Wootten received a signal that the 2/2nd, 2/4th, 2/6th and 2/7th Independent Companies "will be re-designated forthwith" 2/2nd, 2/4th, 2/6th and 2/7th Australian Cavalry (Commando) Squadrons.

Since the beginning of the year the term "commando" had been increasingly used to describe a member of an Independent Company. The term was an alien one for the Australian Army, and the tasks undertaken by the Independent Companies since the beginning of the war against the Japanese had little in common with the tasks carried out by the British commandos, although on some occasions there were some striking similarities with those of the original Boer commandos.

In the short space of two years the Independent Companies had built up a proud tradition . The men regarded the term "Independent Company" as a much better description of what they did than the terms "cavalry" and "commando", and they resented the change of title . There was little they could do about it, however, except to record their displeasure in their war diaries and to call themselves in their private correspondence cavalry squadrons, leaving out the term commandos. The report of the 2/6th probably summed up best what everyone felt.

It is submitted that the name "commando" as applied to these units is unfortunate . British "commandos" are the flower of the British Army ; our personnel are, at the moment, merely a cross-section of the Australian Army. In common usage in Australia a "commando" has come to mean a blatant, dirty, unshaven, loud - mouthed fellow covered with knives and knuckle-dusters. The fact that the men in this unit bitterly resent the commando part of their unit name speaks highly for their esprit de corps. It is obvious, however, from the attitude of many of the reinforcements received that the blatant glamour of the name is being used to attract personnel into volunteering for these units. Personnel acquired in this manner are always undesirable.”  -

Second World War Official Histories - Volume VI – The New Guinea Offensives (1st edition, 1961) - Page 565 

Editor's note:  If the term 'Commando' was inappropriate, so was the term 'Cavalry' - not a horse or vehicle to be seen anywhere.  The primary means of mobility in the SWPA was 'Shanks Pony' - a vernacular term meaning 'on foot'.  The renaming exercise was in part to give armoured elements of the 9th Division and the Armored Dviision formed in Australia for the middle wast, a role in the SW Pacific campaign where vehicular mobility was grosssly impaired by the climate and terrain.  It just added to the confusion of the naming conventions (or lack thereof) of Australian Army units in WW2 which owed more to historical precedents than any logical structure, made worse by the split between the AIF and the Militia.

We would particularly like to encourage individual historians researchers or members of unit associations to contribute to the development of a more detailed history and photographs pertaining to this unit and its members.

Please contact [email protected] (mailto:[email protected])  for details on how to contribute.