Operation Platypus
WWII Allied reconnaissance mission
Operation Platypus was an operation by Allied special reconnaissance personnel from Z Special Unit ("Z Force") during the Borneo Campaign of World War II. Platypus involved small groups being inserted into the Balikpapan area of Dutch Borneo (Kalimantan), to gather information and organise local people as resistance fighters against the Japanese.
On 20 March 1945, Platypus 1 (also known as Project “Robin”) was carried out, using Hoehn folboats (collapsible canoes) and inflatable rubber dinghies that had been lashed to the side of the submarine USS Perch. Four members of Z Force, in two of the folboats, which had been fitted with outboard motors, travelled to shore 55 kilometres (34 mi) north of Balikpapan. As one of the motors failed to start, both crews resorted to paddling. One folboat, crewed by Sergeants Bruce Dooland (Australian Army) and Bill Horrocks (New Zealand Army), managed to reach the shore. The other folboat, carrying the mission commander Major D. J. (Don) Stott and his deputy Captain Leslie McMillan, both New Zealanders, capsized; both men were reported missing, presumed drowned. At other planned landing sites Japanese patrols were encountered and no further landings took place that night.
On the night of 22 March, the main body of Platypus 1, using folboats fitted with outboard motors, managed to land despite the motors failing. At one stage they were surrounded by Japanese patrols but managed to evade them.
Meanwhile Dooland and Horrocks used mirrors to signal Allied aircraft and were extracted by a US Catalina aircraft.
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