East was one of only three journalists in Timor — the other two were Michael Richardson, the South-East Asia correspondent for "The Age" and Jill Jolliffe, a freelancer who was then working for Reuters. When it became obvious that a full-scale invasion by Indonesia was imminent, Richardson and Jolliffe left with the Red Cross and went to Darwin. East, however, decided to remain in East Timor. He planned to retreat with the Fretilin forces to the mountains in the interior and report from there to the outside world through high frequency radio transmissions. He filed his last report for the ABC's "Correspondents Report" on afternoon of 7 December 1975.