Operation Cobra (Timor)

Operation Cobra was a military operation by Australia's Services Reconnaissance Department during World War Two in Timor in 1944. A team of five soldiers were inserted on to Japanese occupied Timor

It consisted of Captain Cashman, radio operator E.J. Liversidge, and three native Timorese, Sergeant Paulo da Silva, Sergeant Cosme Soares and Sergeant Sancho da Silva. They did not know the prior Operation Lagarto had been captured and compromised and the troops were captured.

The naval component of the campaign was known as Operation Bulldozer.

Liversidge died on 20 November 1944. Cashman survived.

Further reading

• "The Official History of the Operations and Administration of] Special Operations - Australia [(SOA), also known as the Inter-Allied Services Department (ISD) and Services Reconnaissance Department (SRD)] Volume 2 - Operations Part 1 page 35-40". National Archives of Australia. p. 94-104.
• Powell, Alan (1996). War by Stealth: Australians and the Allied Intelligence Bureau, 1942–1945. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. ISBN 0-522-84691-2.
• Silver, Lynette Ramsay (1990). The Heroes of Rimau: Unravelling the Mystery of One of World War II's Most Daring Raids Hardcover. Birchgrove, New South Wales: Sally Milner Publishing. ISBN 9781863510530.