Australian Peacekeeping in East Timor


AUSCDT4 Clears Beaches and Conducts Clandestine Ops in East Timor
By LEUT Emma Williams

ABCD Sean Walker from team 4 in Dili Harbour. Pic: ABPH Damien Pawlenko

The Royal Australian Navy has deployed a team of twelve clearance diving specialists from Western Australian to support the Australian led peacekeeping mission in East Timor. In order to ensure the beaches designated for ADF landings are safe, the diving team known as AUSCDT4 conduct beach clearance operations in both overt and clandestine modes.

Whilst RAN divers have been involved in major operations such as the Vietnam and Gulf Wars plus the occasional UN tasking, no RAN diver has experienced this type of clandestine operation before - not even those that were deployed to the Arabian Gulf. For the divers in East Timor this is first time they have ever been involved in the clandestine reconnaissance of a hostile beach.

"When we conduct an overt dive the beach has already been secured by soldiers ashore before we start. We go into the beach by boat and clear it during daylight. The hydrographic team accompany us and survey the approaches to the beach" explained Commanding Officer of AUSCDT4, Lieutenant Commander Peter Tedman.

"If the beach needs to be cleared prior to the area being secured then the dive team conducts a clandestine operation by swimming into the beach under the cover of night. Only after troops are landed ashore can the hydrographic team then can go in and survey the beach."

Clearance Divers in Dili Harbour. Pic: ABPH Damien Pawlenko

In total the team has conducted eighteen overt diving operations throughout East Timor. In addition they have conducted two clandestine operations at night in Aidabeleten and in the Oecussi enclave located within West Timor.

"Batagarde was also intended to be a clandestine dive, however an Indonesian Navy ship was too close to the beach so we had to abort the dive. We had to wait until the Australian soldiers arrived by road the next morning. We then went in and cleared the beach so the Australian Navy Landing Craft could land with supplies for the troops ashore."

To conduct a successful overt beach clearance the dive team positions a number of divers along the beach. Each diver swims out from the beach along a compass bearing, whilst laying a line along the bottom until they reach the ten metre mark off the beach. Once the lanes are laid, two divers then tow a line between them and investigate any snags.

"We normally clear a 120 metre wide beach front out to a depth of 10m. In East Timor the 10m depth contour is usually about 150m from the beach so we end up with an area of about 18000 sq m that is clear of dangers. If we snag something one of the divers will investigate it and if it's substantial will come to the surface and report it. Otherwise the diver will take a depth over the obstacle to determine if there is sufficient water for a Landing Craft to get over it. If there is insufficient water then the search area has to be re-centered."

Clearance Diving Team 4 in East Timor. Pic: ABPH Damian Pawlenko

"Compared to overt beach surveys were you can take all the time you want, even stay for multiple days if necessary, clandestine operations can get really pressing. The clandestine dive at the Oecussi enclave has been the highlight of all the dives we've done in East Timor".

"We were on a very skinny time line with the soldiers flying in by Black hawk and the Landing Craft beaching both occurring the next morning at first light. The problem was that if the Blackhawks landed without the beach being cleared, the Landing Craft couldn't deliver their vehicles, equipment, packs and ammunition. So everything was predicated on us completing the beach clearance in time".

"We only had one period of darkness, from 10pm to 3am, a total of five hours to complete the beach clearance at the enclave and give the helicopters enough time to make the flight. The timings were also compounded by the fact that the Navy didn't sail from Dili until it was after dark."

"Prior to the dive in the Oecussi enclave INTERFET had received unconfirmed reports of people being killed in the area. As we approached the beach we could hear shots being fired in the distance so there was a lot of tension, especially when a vehicle drove up the beach and stopped only a half a kilometre short of where we were in the water."

"The other clandestine operation we did was in Aidebeleten. Although we only had six hours in the water to complete the beach clearance, there was no landing occurring the next morning so it wasn't as tight. However in Aidebeleten there was a lot of activity ashore with fires being lit and vehicle movement, unlike the enclave though it was not really considered an area of particularly high security risk."

Traditionally clearance divers plan their operations over multiple nights. In East Timor AUSCDT4 has not had this luxury. Instead the dive team have had to complete the reconnaissance and survey dives all in one night. If any problems are found the landing area must be relocated straight away.

LCDR Peter Tedman, CO of Clearance Diving Team 4 doing reconnaissance of a beach in East Timor. Pic: ABPH Damian Pawlenko

"When we landed in Aidebeleten there was a big rocky outcrop in the centre of the search area so we had to move 800m to the east until we found clear water. We were lucky to find clear water that night because if we hadn't we wouldn't have been able to complete the beach survey in the hours of darkness available. This also occurred during the dive in Suai where the metal frame of a large railway carriage was submerged in the water. Because of the potential for the metal to spear one of the Landing Craft the entire search area had to be relocated to the west."

Fortunately for the clearance diving team the large beach frontages along the East Timor coast and the fact that no particular beaches have been specified for each landings, has enable the divers to simply recentre the search rather than lay charges to remove the obstacles within it.

"One of our biggest problems was that we couldn't deploy to East Timor with all our Mine Counter Measure equipment because with a total weight of 11,000 kgs it takes up nearly a whole Hercules aircraft. As a result we had to deploy with a reduced capability. To counteract that we selected members from all three functional elements of the diving team including experts in underwater battle damage repair; mine counter measures and maritime tactical operations. This has proved invaluable because we have a team with a range of skills instead of just one focused group. It's also been beneficial because we've encountered just about everything here except mines".

One of the tasks which AUSCDT4 were required to complete that used their underwater battle damage repair skills involved one of the large merchant vessels that was coming alongside Dili wharf. During the approach the MV Calatagan picked up a mooring cable which wrapped around its propeller and shaft 8 to 10 times until the ship was well and truly fixed to the harbour bottom. With the aid of 'broco' cutters the divers were able to cut the cable between the propeller and the mooring cable, freeing the merchant ship so it could be pushed alongside the wharf. The operation took eight hours and the following morning the divers had to recover the mooring buoy and replace the 20 metres of cable they'd cut off.

Team 4 Clearance Divers on a beach in Betano, East Timor. Pic: ABPH Damian Pawlenko

"The operation in East Timor has been great experience for the guys. There isn't anyone in this group of twelve divers who have been operational before. Everything we are doing is new and we've had to come up with different operational procedures to the way we normally do things. A lot of the tasks have been fly-away operations where a helicopter takes our equipment and us to the task. This means we have to modify our operation because you can only take what you can carry. In the end though it's worked out really well."

The operation has provided AUSCDT4 with numerous lessons about the nature of the sea currents in the waters surrounding East Timor. "There are some pretty mad currents around here. Aidebeleten was probably the worst where we put divers in the water for a reconnaissance dive and before they reentered for a full survey dive, the current turned 180 degrees in only one and a half hours. On another occasion the divers were swept in one direction by the sub-surface current and the dive boat another by the surface current until they ended up 2 km apart."

"We've also learnt a lot about the amount of noise that carries here. When you are doing a clandestine dive everything seems really bright and noisy whether it's the backlight from your night vision goggles, the brightness of someone's compass board or the noise of the boat's motor. You get really paranoid. But what we discovered was that as soon as you get into the water and swim a short distance away from the boat you can't hear or see a thing. So noise and light isn't as big a problem a we thought."

"As we were conducting our clandestine dive in the Oecussi enclave we were thinking that everyone must be able to hear us and that a reception party would be waiting for us on the beach. But in reality it was just our own senses being heightened to anything that would give us away."

CPOCD Bruce Day of Team 4 plunges into the water in East Timor. Pic: ABPH Damian Pawlenko

RAN clearance diving teams have always worked on the premise that they would survey the beach up to the waterline and that someone else would survey the back of the beach, however this has not been the case in East Timor so they have had to do it. "While we can find a really good beach there may be a swamp or a cliff at the back of the beach that we can't see which makes landing there useless. To make sure that the landing site is suitable for over the beach operations we have had to get out of the water to check the back of beach and beach exit. Fortunately we haven't had to go too far up the beach. If we can confirm all of that from the water then we won't even get out." AUSCDT4 from Perth will remain in East Timor until the first week of December when they will be replaced by CDT1 from Sydney. However by the time CDT1 arrives, AUSCDT4 will have cleared the major ports and landing sites in East Timor.

"I think once CDT1 arrives it will be more of a maintenance task because the wet season will have a big effect on the beach surveys we've already done. Once the rivers in East Timor start to flow, especially the ones that are close to our landing sites, the outfall will change the lay of the land quite markedly. CDT1 will probably have to re-survey all the sites, depending on how much silting occurs," said Lieutenant Commander Peter Tedman.