Apart from the elite Green Berets and paratroopers, the invasion force was poorly trained and lacking in combat experience. Infantry battalions had been largely recruited from peasantry of the flatlands of Java, many of whom had never seen a mountain before and had to be guided like crocodiles of schoolchildren through the dense tropical forest. In these unfamiliar surroundings there were numerous unexpected casualties through ‘friendly fire’, and it was to be expected that sometimes paratroop drops would be made in the wrong place or on the heads of their own floot-slogging infantry. Resistance to the occupation was in the hands of the Fretilin (Frente Revolucionaria de Timor L’Este), the leading political party at the time of the invasion, which withdrew with its small hastily put together army to the mountains of the North. Here it was handicapped by the large number of civilians it had to take under its wing, and by the absence of air-cover. At this time a talk of stalemate began to be heard.
