Notes

East Timor is the largest and longest overseas deployment of New Zealand troops since Malaya/Borneo. Using personal letters, extracts from diaries, interviews and many photographs, Operation East Timor aims to explain why the New Zealand defence force personnel were sent to East Timor and what they did when they went there. A number of 'firsts' such as women in combat, the command of allies within the Battalion, and the Forward Surgical Team are also explored in the book. This is not the definitive history of the East Timor deployment nor can it be while our troops are still there. Instead, it is an intimate account of how our forces came to be there, what they found, and how they helped.