Z SPECIAL UNIT
The tatoo on John's arm is a stiletto.
In a subsequent mission to Jaywick called Operation Rimau, the raiding party was detected by the enemy, hunted down and executed.
Seventeen of Z Special Unit lie in graves at Kranji War Cemetery in Singapore.
Former Z Special Operative Jack Tredrea parachuted into Borneo on March 25, 1945, and spent seven months on the island gathering intelligence.
"We trained on Frasier Island for a year. We had to learn to speak Malay.
"We did our jump into Borneo four months before the invasion to organise the native population.
"We trained 2,000 of them and when the invasion came we had 32 operatives each with their own guerrilla force."
"We were guerrillas, so all our work was hit and run.
"If we couldn't kill everyone in a patrol, we killed as many as we could and then vanished back into the jungles again.
"A lot of the four-man, six-man, eight-man operations were done from those Japanese fishing boats where they infiltrated an island operated by the Japanese.
"They were were picked up at a later date.
"Quite a few failed but that was the name of the game."
Z Special Unit was assembled from mainly Australian, British, Dutch and New Zealand members but it also recruited fighters of Timorese and Indonesian heritage.
WWII historian and former naval officer Dr Tom Lewis said the group's composition was unique during the time of the White Australia policy.
"There were a number of different nationalities who would bring different skills," he said.
Z Special Unit was the subject of an SBS documentary series Australia's Secret Heroes which featured interviews with original Z members — and put descendents of the operatives through the unit's arduous training.
Sworn to secrecy, Z veterans were not allowed to tell anyone of their experiences until 1980.
"At the end of the war when we were discharged out of Z Special Unit the operatives had to sign a secrets act," Mr Tredrea said.
"It was so they would not discuss what they did for 30 years.
"It was not until 1980 at a national reunion in Melbourne that we knew what the next guy did."
Https://abc.net.au/news/2014-08-30/z-special-unit-history/5706968?pfmredir=sm