 Eaton retired from the RAAF on 31 December 1945 . In recognition of his war service , he was appointed a Commander of the Order of Orange @-@ Nassau with Swords by the Dutch government on 17 January 1946 . The same month , he became Australian consul in Dili . He had seen an advertisement for the position and was the only <unk> with experience of the area . While based there , he accompanied the provincial governor on visits to townships damaged in Allied raids during the war , taking care to be <unk> about the part played by his own forces from No. 79 Wing . In July 1947 , Dutch forces launched a " police action " against territory held by the fledgling Indonesian Republic , which had been declared shortly after the end of the war . Following a ceasefire , the United Nations set up a commission , chaired by Eaton as Consul @-@ General , to monitor progress . Eaton and his fellow commissioners believed that the ceasefire was serving the Dutch as a cover for further penetration of republican enclaves . His requests to the Australian government for military observers led to deployment of the first peacekeeping force to the region ; the Australians were soon followed by British and US observers , and enabled Eaton to display a more realistic impression of the situation to the outside world . The Dutch administration strongly opposed the presence of UN forces and accused Eaton of " <unk> " , but the Australian government refused to recall him . Following the transfer of sovereignty in December 1949 , he became Australia 's first secretary and <unk> d <unk> to the Republic of the United States of Indonesia . In 1950 , he returned to Australia to serve with the Department of External Affairs in Canberra . After retiring from public service in 1951 , he and his wife farmed at <unk> , Victoria , and cultivated orchids . They later moved to <unk> , where Eaton was involved in promotional work . 
