"Send The Australians Home In Coffins" — How 5,500 Diggers Stopped A Genocide The World Ignored

September 1999. East Timor votes for independence. Within hours, Indonesian-backed militia launch a scorched-earth campaign. Churches turned into abattoirs. Eighty percent of Dili burned. Half a million displaced. The UN debated. Washington refused to send troops. Jakarta called the reports fantasies.

Australia went anyway.

5,500 soldiers deployed into a country being systematically destroyed, leading the first international military coalition in Australian history. The SASR secured Dili while 3RAR pushed through streets still smouldering from militia arson. At Aidabasalala, a six-man SAS patrol fought through sixty armed militia near the West Timor border. At Suai, RESPFOR walked into the aftermath of a church massacre and took fire from an ambush that wounded two operators — the first serious Australian combat casualties since Vietnam.

Indonesia had 30,000 troops in the region. Leopard tanks and F-111s sat loaded in Darwin in case it escalated. It didn't. Order was restored in 157 days without a single Australian fatality.

This is INTERFET. The only time Australia led the world into a conflict zone, and the world barely remembers it.

Subscribe if you want stories the textbooks left out.

#EastTimor #INTERFET #AustralianHistory #AustralianMilitary #SASR #3RAR #2RAR #OperationStabilise #PeterCosgrove #Dili #TimorLeste #AustralianArmy #SpecialForces #MilitaryHistory #MilitaryDocumentary #WarHistory #Peacekeeping #AustralianDefenceForce #Diggers #ANZAC

Music by: bensound.com
License code: 4218C2ATLYCU6ZJV
Artist: : FoePound

Music by: Bensound
License code: 2CXXCEQVNWZQYSWE
Artist: : FoePound

Music I Use: Bensound.com/royalty-free-music
License code: QJMXA5VCFX4GPPCK
Artist: : Theatre Of Delays

Видео "Send The Australians Home In Coffins" — How 5,500 Diggers Stopped A Genocide The World Ignored канала THE UNTOLD STORY