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.
[1][2] 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.
(Don) Stott and his deputy Captain Leslie McMillan, both New Zealanders, capsized; both men were reported missing, presumed drowned.
To conceal operational techniques from the Japanese, their folboat was partly dismantled and stowed in the Catalina.