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Old 12-04-2020, 05:43 PM
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StainlessSteelCynic StainlessSteelCynic is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Western Australia
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b View Post
I'm sorry, but Henri's account smells like BS to me.
Can you elaborate on why you think he's full if it?
It came across as reasonably plausible so I'm very curious as to how other people perceive it.

For some context, I know of somewhat similar incidents. One of my neighbours and I got along very well because we had many similar interest including time in the Australian military. His son was in the RAN and was on one of the ships serving in the Australian mission so while East Timor was going on, we discussed it pretty much every time we saw each other in the street.
His son relayed a few accounts about encounters with the Indonesians.

Apparently one Indonesian sub was tasked with keeping an eye on the Australian navy in the area and was trying to shadow our ships every time they moved into or out of the area. The Indon sub was detected relatively easily given the situation but it was persistent and tried to be sneaky when following Aussie ships.

Now, that's not as dramatic as an "almost dogfight" between the two air forces but it does show that while the Indons claimed to be withdrawing, the committed a large number of military assets to the area.
It was public knowledge here in Australia for several decades (from the 1970s on) that the Indon government did not like us and resented out presences in the region. Some people felt that the Indons were itching for a fight and whether that's true or not, they certainly did try some provocative acts (although they never quite crossed the line) through the decades.
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