Alexander Spence (soldier)
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Alexander Spence (soldier)
Alexander Spence DSO (5 February 1906 in Bundaberg, Queensland – 10 July 1983 in Brisbane, Queensland) was an Australian Army officer during World War II. Between 24 May and 11 November 1942, Spence commanded Allied forces during their guerrilla campaign in Timor. Spence, who had been a journalist and had served in the Militia before the war, volunteered for overseas duty with the Second Australian Imperial Force on 25 June 1940, at Miowera, Queensland. A major, he was originally posted to the 2/26th Battalion, but was posted away from the unit to the commandos before the battalion embarked on its ill-fated deployment to Singapore. He was later appointed commander of the 2/2nd Independent Company, a commando unit, and went with it as part of Sparrow Force to Dutch Timor in 1941. The 2/2nd and Dutch forces were despatched to occupy Portuguese Timor in December 1941, when it was anticipated that Japanese forces would invade. Spence and his men enjoyed good relation ...
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Bundaberg, Queensland
Bundaberg is a city in the Bundaberg Region, Queensland, Australia, and is the List of places in Queensland by population, tenth largest city in the state. Bundaberg's Bundaberg Regional Council, regional area has a population of 70,921, and is a major centre of the Wide Bay–Burnett geographical region. The Bundaberg central business district is situated along the southern bank of the Burnett River, about from its mouth at Burnett Heads, Queensland, Burnett Heads, and flows into the Coral Sea. The city is sited on a rich floodplain, coastal plain, supporting one of the nation's most productive agricultural regions. The area of Bundaberg is the home of the Taribelang, Taribelang-Bunda peoples. Popular nicknames for Bundaberg include "Bundy" and "Rum city". The demonym of Bundaberg is Bundabergian. The district surveyor, John Thompson Charlton designed the city layout in 1868, which planned for uniform square blocks with wide main streets, and named it ‘Bundaberg’. An ear ...
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Bowen, Queensland
Bowen is a coastal town and locality in the Whitsunday Region, Queensland, Australia. In the , the locality of Bowen had a population of 10,377 people. The locality contains two other towns: * Heronvale () * Merinda (). The Abbot Point coal shipping port is also within the locality (). Geography Bowen is located on the north-east coast in North Queensland, at exactly twenty degrees south of the equator. Bowen is halfway between Townsville and Mackay, and by road from Brisbane. Bowen sits on a square peninsula, with the Coral Sea to the north, east, and south. To the south-east is Port Denison and Edgecumbe Bay. On the western side, where the peninsula connects with the mainland, the Don River's alluvial plain provides fertile soil that supports a prosperous farming industry. Merinda is a hinterland town west of the town of Bowen. The Bruce Highway enters the locality from the east, approaches but does not enter the town of Bowen itself, but then turns west to pass thr ...
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Qantas
Qantas Airways Limited ( ) is the flag carrier of Australia and the country's largest airline by fleet size, international flights, and international destinations. It is the world's third-oldest airline still in operation, having been founded in November 1920; it began international passenger flights in May 1935. ''Qantas'' is an acronym of the airline's original name, Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services, as it originally served Queensland and the Northern Territory, and is popularly nicknamed "The Flying Kangaroo". Qantas is a founding member of the Oneworld airline alliance. The airline is based in the Sydney suburb of Mascot, adjacent to its main hub at Sydney Airport. , Qantas had a 65 per cent share of the Australian domestic market and carried 14.9 per cent of all passengers travelling into and out of Australia. Various subsidiary airlines operate to regional centres and on some trunk routes within Australia under the QantasLink banner. Qantas also owns Je ...
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David Ross (aviation)
David or Dave Ross may refer to: Actors and directors *Dave Ross (born 1952), American radio talk show host and actor *David Ross (actor) (born 1945), British actor who played Kryten in the second series of BBC sitcom ''Red Dwarf'' * David Ross (actor, born 1728) (1728–1790), English actor * David Ross (director), American filmmaker; director of ''The Babysitters'' *David W. Ross, English actor and writer; starred in Quinceañera and was a member of the British boy band Bad Boys Inc Sportspeople * Dave Ross (rower) (born 1963), Canadian rower *David Ross (American football) (born 1959), college football coach in the United States * David Ross (baseball) (born 1977), American Major League baseball manager and former player * David Ross (trampolinist) (born 1950), Canadian trampoline coach and equipment manufacturer *Davie Ross (Scottish footballer) (born 1951), Scottish footballer * David Ross (sport shooter) (born 1940), American sports shooter *Dave Ross (American football) (born ...
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Telephone
A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into electronic signals that are transmitted via cables and other communication channels to another telephone which reproduces the sound to the receiving user. The term is derived from el, τῆλε (''tēle'', ''far'') and φωνή (''phōnē'', ''voice''), together meaning ''distant voice''. A common short form of the term is ''phone'', which came into use early in the telephone's history. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell was the first to be granted a United States patent for a device that produced clearly intelligible replication of the human voice at a second device. This instrument was further developed by many others, and became rapidly indispensable in business, government, and in households. The essential elements of a telephone are a ...
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Dili
Dili (Portuguese/Tetum: ''Díli'') is the capital, largest city of East Timor and the second largest city in Timor islands after Kupang (Indonesia). It lies on the northern coast of the island of Timor, in a small area of flat land hemmed in by mountains. The climate is tropical, with distinct wet and dry seasons. The city has served as the economic hub and chief port of what is now East Timor since its designation as the capital of Portuguese Timor in 1769. It also serves as the capital of the Dili Municipality, which includes some rural subdivisions in addition to the urban ones which make up the city itself. Dili's growing population is relatively youthful, being mostly of working age. The local language is Tetum, however residents include many internal migrants from other areas of the country. The initial settlement was situated in what is now the old quarter in the eastern side of the city. Centuries of Portuguese rule were interrupted in World War II, when Dili became t ...
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Section (military Unit)
A section is a military sub-subunit. It usually consists of between 6 and 20 personnel. NATO and US doctrine define a section as an organization "larger than a squad, but smaller than a platoon." As such, two or more sections usually make up an army platoon or an air force flight. Land Forces NATO Standard NATO symbol for a ''section'' consists of two dots (●●) placed above a framed unit icon. Australian Army At the start of World War I, the Australian Army used a section that consisted of 27 men including the section commander, a sergeant. During World War II, a rifle section comprised ten soldiers with a corporal in command and a lance-corporal as his second-in-command. The corporal used an M1928 Thompson submachine gun, while one of the privates used a Bren gun. The other eight soldiers all used No.1 Mk.3 Lee–Enfield rifles with a bayonet and scabbard. They all carried two or three No.36 Mills bomb grenades. After World War II, and during the Vietnam War, a rifle ...
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Empire Of Japan
The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent formation of modern Japan. It encompassed the Japanese archipelago and several colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories. Under the slogans of and following the Boshin War and restoration of power to the Emperor from the Shogun, Japan underwent a period of industrialization and militarization, the Meiji Restoration, which is often regarded as the fastest modernisation of any country to date. All of these aspects contributed to Japan's emergence as a great power and the establishment of a colonial empire following the First Sino-Japanese War, the Boxer Rebellion, the Russo-Japanese War, and World War I. Economic and political turmoil in the 1920s, including the Great Depression, led to the rise of militarism, nationa ...
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Portuguese Timor
Portuguese Timor ( pt, Timor Português) was a colonial possession of Portugal that existed between 1702 and 1975. During most of this period, Portugal shared the island of Timor with the Dutch East Indies. The first Europeans to arrive in the region were the Portuguese in 1515.West, p. 198. Dominican friars established a presence on the island in 1556, and the territory was declared a Portuguese colony in 1702. Following the beginning of the Carnation Revolution (a Lisbon-instigated decolonisation process) in 1975, East Timor was invaded by Indonesia. However, the invasion was not recognized as legal by the United Nations (UN), which continued to regard Portugal as the legal Administering Power of East Timor. The independence of East Timor was finally achieved in 2002 following a UN-administered transition period. History Early colonialists Prior to the arrival of European colonial powers, the island of Timor was part of the trading networks that stretched between India and ...
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West Timor
West Timor ( id, Timor Barat) is an area covering the western part of the island of Timor, except for the district of Oecussi-Ambeno (an East Timorese exclave). Administratively, West Timor is part of East Nusa Tenggara Province, Indonesia. The capital as well as its main port is Kupang. During the colonial period, the area was named Dutch Timor and was a centre of Dutch loyalists during the Indonesian National Revolution (1945–1949). From 1949 to 1975 it was named Indonesian Timor. The total area of West Timor is , including offshore islands. The highest peaks are Mount Mutis, above sea level, and Mount Lakaan, above sea level. The main languages of West Timor, Dawan, Marae and Tetun, as well as several other languages, such as Kemak, Bunak and Helong, are also used in East Timor. The other three languages which are only used in the local area of the Austronesian language group from the Fabron branches are Ndao, Rote and Sabu. West Timor was a refugee shelter from 1998 to ...
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Sparrow Force
Sparrow Force was a detachment based on the 2/40th Australian Infantry Battalion and other Dutch, British, US and Australian 8th Division units during World War II. The force was formed to defend the island of Timor from invasion by the Empire of Japan. It formed the main part of the Allied units in the Battle of Timor. The force began deploying in late 1941, and following Japan's entry into the war, it was drawn into the fighting in response to the Japanese invasion of Portuguese and Dutch Timor in February 1942. After heavy fighting around Irekum, the main element of the force – the 2/40th – were forced to surrender on 23 February 1942; however, elements of the force, specifically commandos from the 2/2nd Independent Company, supported by the local population, continued a guerilla campaign and inflicted heavy casualties on the Japanese until August, when the Japanese launched a counter-offensive. Despite reinforcements from the 2/4th Independent Company arriving in Sept ...
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