Winnie the War Winner

Winnie the War Winner was a radio set built by Sparrow Force during the Battle of Timor in 1942.

The radio re-established contact between Sparrow Force and the Australian Army in Darwin on 19 April 1942.

At the time, the Allies believed that Sparrow Force had been captured by the Japanese Army.

The signallers built the radio using salvaged equipment, including the power pack from a Dutch transmitter, 60 ft of aerial wire, a broken commercial medium-wave receiving set, and a transmitter from a broken 109 set.

[3] The first communication between Sparrow Force and Northern Force Headquarters in Darwin was:[citation needed] In late 1942, Army public relations sent the Academy Award winning filmmaker Damien Parer, and war correspondent Bill Marien to Timor, to record the efforts of the Australian commandos.

The radio set known as "Winnie the War Winner" on display in the Australian War Memorial . [ 1 ]
Signaller Keith Richards, Corporal John Donovan and Sergeant Jack Sargeant (left to right), from the Australian 2/2nd Independent Company, using a radio on a mountain top in Japanese-occupied Timor, in about November 1942.