Asian Airlines : an early Australian Cold War mystery

Asian Airlines was an enterprise that emerged during the struggle for Indonesian independence from Dutch colonial rule. The airline was the inspiration of Australian businessmen, Kenneth Frederick Wong and Clarence Hart Campbell. Wong and Campbell viewed their company as a means of supporting Indonesia's independence movement. When Holland violated its truce with the Indonesian republicans and, aided by the British military and Ambonese mercenaries, Dutch forces carried out the first of their Police Actions, 20,000 Indonesians were killed. Thousands more were displaced and Indonesia was deprived of oil areas and vital rice supplies. Following the Dutch Police Action, Campbell and Wong conceived the idea of an Australian-based airline that would fetch and carry cargo to the Indonesian republicans. Asian Airlines, however, had only a brief existence. Its operations were obstructed by Australian intelligence and marred by controversy.