Extra Details on Op Jaywick

Extra Deatils on Operation Jaywick and Operation Rimau 1943-1944

Z Special Unit and the Jaywick and Rimau raids

There is a memorial at Garden Island at Rockingham,near Perth, which is at first glance very strange.
It lists dozens of names from a variety of places and services.
There are men from the Navy,Army and Air Force.
There are civilians.
There are people from Britain, New Zealand and Portugal.
And there is the strange name binding them

- the Services Reconnaissance Department -

better known as Z Special Unit.

Z Special Unit

Z Special Unit was a top secret unit formed in 1942 to gather intelligence and carry out sabotage right at the heart of the enemy.
Its members were sworn to secrecy about their operations, and were highly trained as silent and effective killers.  

Operation Jaywick

The aim of the raid was for a group of Australian and British Z Special Unit operatives to sneak in to the Japanese stronghold of Singapore Harbour, and attach time-delayed limpet mines to as many ships as possible.

The raiders would try to escape before the ships exploded.

The Krait

Singapore was hundreds of kilometres inside Japanese-dominated territory.

How to approach the port unseen?

The key would be the small ship, the MV Krait.

This was a former Singapore-based ship,named the Kofuku Maru,that had been seized and used to transport many refugees during the fall of Singapore.

It was later sailed to India, where it was re-named after a deadly Malayan snake, the krait.

The little fishing boat was a bit over 20 metres long, less than three metres wide, with a top speed of six-and-a-half knots, and a range of thirteen thousand kilometres.
The Krait was stocked with necessary supplies for the trip and military equipment for the raid

-including cyanide suicide pills for each man.

Care was taken to make as many of the goods as possible Japanese made - sunglasses, for example, which might be recognised at a distance, pencils, paper,
cooking pots, even toothbrushes.
If any of these fell overboard they would not indicate anything suspicious.

The voyage

On 8 August 1943 the Krait set out on the 4000 kilometre trip from Cairns in Queensland to Exmouth Gulf in Western Australia.
The crew of 14 ranged in age from 20 to 43, with most in their twenties.
They included four soldiers and ten sailors

- two Englishmen,a Welsh coalminer, a Northern Irishman, and ten Australians, from every State except Tasmania.

At Exmouth Gulf they took delivery of four special collapsible canoes flown out from England.
The commandos would paddle these into Singapore Harbour at night, and attach the mines to the ships' sides.
They set out from Exmouth on 2 September, heading towards Singapore through enemy-controlled waters.

They flew the Japanese flag as part of their disguise.

The crew stained their bodies brown,dyed their hair,and dressed in sarongs so that they would appear to any casual observer to be Malays or Japanese.
Once in Japanese waters they took extraordinary care that there would only ever be one or two men on deck, and that no rubbish of any sort

-even a match-

would be thrown overboard.

On 18 September the Krait slipped into one of the small, heavily vegetated islands near Singapore Harbour, and unloaded the three teams of canoeists and their equipment.
The commandos had twelve days to get to Singapore Harbour, sink as much shipping as they could, hide out until the expected furious search for them had eased,and get back to the waiting Krait nearly one hundred kilometres away.

The attack

On the night of 26 September 1943 the three two-man crews silently glided into the harbour at different points,and quietly selected their targets.
After the physically arduous task of paddling into the harbour,their nerves were now strained by the closeness of the enemy

-one noise in attaching the mines could have led to a curious sailor raising the alarm.

Even if one person aboard a ship had idly looked over a railing or through a porthole in the right direction, the saboteurs could have been seen

-which would have led to the failure of the mission, and their certain death.

Fortunately their training and luck held, and nobody saw them in the shadows of the hulls of the target ships.

The crews then silently paddled out of the harbour towards their chosen hiding spot, and, despite the exhaustion and tension of more than eighty kilometres of paddling in enemy waters, listened to hear the roar of their mines destroying the enemy ships early the next morning.

The explosions came, nine of them, and the harbour erupted into uproar.

Japanese planes and ships started searching for the saboteurs, but the Z Force men stayed hidden until they could move out secretly to rendezvous with the Krait

-after another ninety kilometres of paddling.

Once having finally boarded the Krait they now had to travel out of enemy waters,this time with the Japanese much more likely to be alert and suspicious.

The escape

There was one very dangerous moment, however.

One night, still deep inside enemy waters, a Japanese war ship on patrol came right up to them and travelled alongside them for a distance, yet did not challenge
them.

Why not?

The men later speculated on the reason.

Was it because their disguise was so good?

Or, more likely, that they had caught a tired officer at the end of his watch, and challenging the apparently innocent boat would have meant that he was delayed in going off duty for a rest?

On 19 October 1943 the Krait anchored safely off the American Controlled Submarine  base in Exmouth Gulf, Australia.

It had been 48 days and 8000 kilometres since the Krait had headed north for Singapore

- and 33 of those days had been spent deep inside enemy waters.

The raid was a great success

-both in physical destruction or severe damage to seven vessels representing nearly 40 000 tonnes of Japanese shipping;
and also psychologically for the raiders, and for the Allied prisoners of war in Changi.

All 14 raiders returned home safely, though five were in a group chosen to try and repeat the raid in the 1944 Operation Rimau.

Every Jaywick member is now commemorated in the names of the streets of Exmouth.

At the end of the war the Krait was used to carry timber on Borneo rivers, until it was bought as a war memorial and returned to Australia in 1964.
The Krait is now permanently moored in Sydney Harbour,part of the National Maritime Museum collection at Darling Harbour.

Participants in Operation Jaywick

Lt Col Ivan Lyon OBE (for work rescuing Civilians in Sumatra - 1941/1942) Gordon Highlanders - UK
Awarded DSO for Operation Jaywick
Overall Mission Commander
Canoe Team 3

Lt Commander Donald Montague Noel "Davo" Davidson
Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) UK
Awarded DSO for Operation Jaywick
Commander of Raiding Party
Canoe Team 2

Capt Robert Charles (Bob) Page
Australian Imperial Force (AIF) Aust
Awarded DSO for Operation Jaywick  
Canoe Team 1

Lt Hubert Edward (Ted) Carse
Royal Australian Naval Volunteer Reserve (RANVR) Aust
Captain of MV Krait

Leading Stoker James Patrick (Paddy) McDowell
RNVR Ireland
Engine Room Chief MV Krait

Leading Telegraphist Horrace Stewart (Horrie) Young
RAN - Aust
Wireless Operator and Communications Specialist (light flag and Radio)

Acting Leading Seaman Kevin Patrick (Cobber) Cain
RAN - Aust
MV Krait Crewmen

Able Seaman Walter Gordon (Poppa) Falls *
RAN - Aust
Awarded DSM for Operation Jaywick
Canoe Team 2

Able Seaman Arthur Walter (Joe) Jones *
RAN - Aust
Awarded DSM for Operation Jaywick
Canoe Team 1

Acting Able Seaman Frederick Lota (Boof) Marsh *
RAN - Aust
Assistant Engineer to Paddy Mcdowell MV Krait  

Acting Able Seaman Mostyn (Moss) Berryman *
RAN - Aust
MV Krait Crewmen

Acting Able Seaman Andrew William George (Happy) Huston *
RAN - Aust
Awarded DSM for Operation Jaywick
Canoe Team 3

Corp RG (Taffy) Morris
Royal Army Medical Corps - Wales
Medical Officer - MV Krait

Corp Andrew Anthony (Andy) Crilley
AIF - Aust
Cook - MV Krait  

*Trained with Andrew Huston at Flinders and Refuge Bay under Davo Davidson and Ivan Lyon.

Operation Rimau

Inspired by the success of Operation Jaywick, Z Special Unit soon started preparing for Operation Rimau.

'Rimau' is the Malay word for 'tiger'

- and the name was chosen for the large multi-coloured tiger head tattooed on the chest of the leader, Lieutenant Colonel Ivan Lyon (who had also led the Jaywick raid).

The aim of Operation Rimau, like that of Operation Jaywick, was to be the destruction of shipping in Singapore Harbour by commandos attaching limpet mines.

But there the similarities ended.

The means of delivery of the mines would be by special one-man motorised submersible canoes (called 'Sleeping Beauties',or SBs); there were far more men involved, 23, as opposed to Jaywick's 14; and the commandos would be delivered to the area by submarine where they would seize a small fishing boat, rather than sailing in one from Australia.

The men and their 15 submersibles left Garden Island naval base near Perth on 11 September 1944 aboard the British submarine HMS Porpoise.
The submarine could only go a certain distance into enemy waters in safety, so to overcome the SBs' 50 kilometre range the plan was to capture a fishing vessel, load all the equipment aboard it, and approach Singapore Harbour undetected.

On 28 September the HMS Porpoise stopped an Indonesian junk, the Mustika.

The commandos took over the boat,and the nine Malay crewmen were taken aboard the submarine to be taken to Fremantle.

(They were imprisoned for a time, then returned to Malaya after the war.)

The plan was for the ship to sail close to Singapore,then the commandos would carry out their raid, and return to a rendezvous with the HMS Porpoise on the night of 7/8 November 1944 at their base on Merapas Island.

If the submarine failed to make contact with them then it would stay in the area, returning to the designated point every night until 8 December 1944.

The commandos now went through the same procedures that had helped make Jaywick successful

- limiting the numbers of men visible on deck, staining their skins brown, wearing sarongs.

The Mustika,however, had no engine, so the commandos were now at the mercy of the winds.

On 10 October 1944, just sixty minutes before the Rimau raid was due to begin, the crew of a coastal patrol boat spotted the Mustika.

Something made them suspicious and they approached the boat.

One of the Commandos aboard started firing at the approaching patrol boat while in hiding either accidnetally at first or delibate the result was the same - soon all were firing on the Police Boat and from that point on the Mission was abandoned.  

Three of the Boats crew were killed - but two escaped

- and would obviously report the incident.

The Rimau commandos now destroyed the Mustika and most of the supplies and equipment, and split up, to make their way back by canoes to the rendezvous point.
However,it is possible that at least one group did penetrate Singapore Harbour and set off a series of explosions on the night of 10 October 1944, destroying three ships.
(Huston - Lyon and Davidson are belived to have been the Team that did the damage)

A series of events that would lead to the death of the commandos now started to unfold.

The first was the interception in Australia of a Japanese coded message reporting activity by about twenty commandos in the attack area.

However, if the Australians had responded, it would have shown that the Allies had broken the Japanese secret codes, leading them to create a new code-and
eliminating a great Allied advantage.
So the appointed rescue submarine was not told of the sudden urgency of the situation.

The second concerned the rescue submarine HMS Tantalus.

The orders to the commander of the submarine, Lt Commander Hugh Mackenzie RN, were to go to the rescue rendezvous area off Merapas Island on 7 November 1944, and to remain there until 7 December 1944 - if necessary.

On 4 November 1944 eighteen of the group were together on Merapas Island awaiting rescue...

A small Japanese force landed on the island, and was attacked by the commandos when they were discovered.

Two of the Rimau commandos were killed in combat on the island,while the remainder now split into two groups and went to different islands.
At least one of the groups,comprising ten of the men,was in place to meet the submarine on 7 November

- but it did not appear, as its captain had instead chosen to hunt for enemy shipping in the area.

When the submarine did reach the area on 21 November after using up all its Torpedoes, Maj Chapman and another commando, Corporal Croton headed for the RV Poistion.
When Maj Chapman and Corp Croton finally reached the designated meeting point after dawn, they found evidence of the commandos having been there.
Maj Chapman saw some local people, but did not try to question them about what might have happened for fear they may have been betrayed to the Japanese.

Mackenzie then left area at once instead of remianing as arranged for later pick up attempts/searchs for survivor's - as he had been ordered.
Instead, the submarine headed off to shadow  a reported Convoy, and did not return leaving the 23 Commandos to their own Resources to try and get back home.

Once the 7 December 1944 final deadline passed, the survivors realised that they would not be rescued.

They now tried to make their way south by 'island-hopping' along the three thousand kilometres of enemy-held territory between Singapore and Australia.

Over the next 14 Days most were captured, killed in firefights, or drowned trying to move between those islands.

The last commando was captured as late as March 1945.

The official Japanese record claims that the captured Rimau commandos were now treated well out of respect for their brave resistance to capture.

The authors of the most recent detailed study of the situation claim that is a lie.

The men, they say, were brutally tortured

- several had now died of untreated disease,bashing and torture, and possibly as a result of even being used in medical experimentation tests.

The others lived on in a situation in which jailers regularly beat them, where their cells were crawling with vermin and contaminated with filth.
Disease was rampant, with cases of beriberi, scabies,malaria and dysentery.
Food consisted of a starvation diet of five hundred grams of rice perday

- less for prisoners on the sick list.

The prisoners' best hope now became the state of the war

- Japan was clearly being defeated everywhere, and it was only a matter of time before they would have to surrender or be defeated in the home islands of Japan itself.

Executed 7 July 1945 by Korean and Japanese Army Guards (No Officers did the beheading despite what the Japanese May Claim) in Three seperate pits with hands tied behind backs with barbed wire were -

Lt Walter Carey AIF

Able Seaman Walter Gordon Falls DSM RAN  

Corp Roland Fletcher AIF

Sgt David Gooley AIF

L/Corp John Hardy AIF

Maj Reginald Ingleton Royal Marines

Capt Robert Charles Page DSO AIF

Lt Albert Sargent AIF

Corp Clair Stewart AIF

W/O 2 Class Alfred Warren AIF

On 3 July 1945 the above POWs were put on trial for 'perfidy and espionage' and found guilty by a Japanese Millitray Court - the sentance was death.

The Japanese record's stressed the 'honour' bestowed on the men by being beheaded in the Samurai Tradition  

- witnesses,however, later gave evidence that the executions were brutal and horribly mangled.

It took guards more than half an hour to execute the ten men, and one of the guards had required 'two or three' blows each time to complete the beheading.

The bodies were dumped in three unmarked graves, with nothing left to identify the men kept on their bodies.

On 6 August 1945 the Americans dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, and on
9 August 1945 on Nagasaki, and on 15 August 1945 the Japanese surrendered.

Seventeen of the Rimau commandos are now in graves at Kranji War Cemetery,
in Singapore.

Recenltly a Memorial was deicated at the Site of the Death of the Executed Prisoners in Singapore, it is located near the Junction of Clement and Dover Roads and the Execution site lies Approx 580 Meters East of the Memorial.

The Memorial record in English -

IN MEMORY OF THE MEMBERS OF OPERATION RIMAU

IN SEPTEMBER 1944, WHEN SINGAPORE WAS UNDER JAPANESE OCCUPATION, TWENTY-THREE BRITISH AND AUSTRALIAN MEMBERS OF SERVICES RECONNAISSANCE DEPARTMENT/Z SPECIAL UNIT TRAVELLED FROM AUSTRALIA BY SUBMARINE TO THE OUTSKIRTS OF SINGAPORE HARBOUR.
THEIR MISSION WAS TO ATTACK AND DESTROY ENEMY SHIPPING FROM SMALL SUBMERSIBLE BOATS USING MAGNETIC LIMPET MINES.
THE PARTY INCLUDED SIX FORMER MEMBERS OF THE HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL RAID LAUNCHED AGAINST JAPANESE SHIPPING OPERATION JAYWICK.
THEY WERE INTERCEPTED BY JAPANESE FORCES AND IN THE ACTIONS THAT FOLLOWED, THIRTEEN WERE EITHER KILLED IN ACTION OR DIED OF WOUNDS.
THE REMAINING TEN WERE CAPTURED AND SUBSEQUENTLY EXECUTED ON 7 JULY 1945.
THE PLACE OF THEIR EXECUTION IS APPROXIMATELY 580 METRES EAST
OF THE JUNCTION OF CLEMENT AND DOVER ROADS.

WE SALUTE THEIR DARING AND BRAVERY

Lt Col Ivan Lyon DSO MBE Gordon Highlanders

Maj Reginald Ingleton Royal Marines, Executed

Capt Robert Page DSO, Australian Imperial Force, Executed

Lt Walter Carey Australian Imprerial Force, Executed

Lt Bruno Reymond Royal Australian Naval Reserve

Lt H Robert Ross British Army

Lt Albert Sargent Australian Imperial Force, Executed

Sub Lt J.Gregor Riggs Royal Navy Voulnteer Rerserve

WO2 Alfred Warren Australian Imprerial Force, Executed

WO2 Jeffrey Willersdorf Australian Imperial Force

Sgt Colin Cameron, Australian Imperial Force

Sgt David Gooley, Australian Imperial Force, Executed

Corp Archibald Campbell Australian Imperial Force

Corp Colin Craft Australian Imperial Force

Corp Roland Fletcher Austrlian Imperial Force, Executed

Corp Clair Stewart Australian Imperial Force, Executed

AB Walter Falls DSM Royal Australian Naval Reserve, Executed

AB Andrew Huston DSM Royal Australian Naval Reserve

AB Frederick Marsh Royal Australian Naval Reserve

L/Corp John Hardy Australian Imperial Force, Executed

L/Corp Hugo Pace Australian Imperial Force

Priv Douglas Warne Australian Imperial Force

Also executed during rescue operations -

Lt Clifford Perske Australian Imperial Force, Executed
Lt John Sachs Australian Imperial Force, Executed