Storyboard 1
Operation Jaywick
In April 1942, following the fall of Singapore, a clandestine organisation known as SOE-Australia was established to carry out missions in Japanese-held territory. For security purposes it was given a cover name, Inter-Allied Services Department, or IASD.
The first of these was Operation Jaywick, led by a British secret service agent, Major Ivan Lyon. Jaywick, named after J-wick, a powerful sanitiser, was the brainchild of Lyon and Captain W R Reynolds, master mariner, who had escaped from Singapore in an ex-Japanese fishing boat, Kofuku Maru. Before making his way to Australia, Reynolds rescued 1,519 people whose ships had been bombed in the waters near Singapore.
Using Kofuku Maru, Lyon and Reynolds planned to infiltrate enemy waters, where six operatives would transfer to three two-man folboats (kayaks) and attach magnetic limpet mines to the hulls of enemy shipping in Singapore Harbour. After obtaining the support of the Royal Australian Navy, Lyon established a training camp on the cliffs above Refuge Bay, near the mouth of the Hawkesbury River. Here a team of hand-picked sailors spent weeks honing their skills in and around Brisbane Water, as they underwent a rigorous training program.
Delayed by engine problems, it was not until 2 September 1943 that Kofuku Maru, renamed Krait after a small but deadly snake, finally left Australia for Singapore. However, Reynolds was not with the 14-man team as he had embarked on a solo covert mission in Borneo that would cost him his life.
Flying a Japanese flag, and with the crew disguised as local fishermen, Krait reached an island about 100 kilometres from Singapore where the raiding party transferred to folboats for the final leg of the journey.
On the night of 26 September, having surveyed their targets from an island hide-out, the six raiders paddled silently into Singapore Harbour. Attaching their limpet mines to an oil tanker, three merchant ships and three cargo vessels, they headed for the safety of a nearby island. Shortly before dawn, the mines exploded on six of the seven vessels, sinking or damaging an estimated 26,000 tonnes of shipping. That night the raiders began the long paddle back to Krait. With the team reunited, they set sail for home.
Jaywick had been devised as a propaganda raid. However, when decoded enemy signals revealed that local people were being blamed for the attack, orders were issued to keep the mission top secret. The repercussions of this decision were immense. Determined to identify the culprits, the Japanese began a year-long reign of terror, which began on 10 October. Known as the double Tenth Massacre, it took the lives of many innocent people.
Operation Jaywick’s status as an SOE-RAN mission is unique. Brilliantly planned and carried out with the support of the Royal Australian Navy, it was the most successful covert mission undertaken in the South West Pacific Area in WW2. Although Operation Jaywick did not fulfill its potential as a propaganda tool, and the Japanese raised and put back into service all but two vessels, the gallantry and courage of those who volunteered for this operation remain an inspiration to all.
The Jaywick team:
Major I Lyon, Lieutenant D M N Davidson, Lieutenant R C Page, Lieutenant H E Carse, Leading Stoker J P McDowell, Leading Telegraphist H S Young, Corporal A A Crilly, Corporal R G Morris, Acting Leading Seaman K P Cain, Able Seaman A W Jones, Acting Able Seaman M Berryman, Acting Able Seaman W G Falls, Acting Able Seaman Andrew W G Huston, Acting Able Seaman F W L Marsh
And honouring
Captain William Roy Reynolds, executed in Java, 8/8/1944.
Storyboard 2
Operation Rimau
At the end of 1943 a commando training school was established on Fraser Island in Queensland by the recently formed Special Operations Australia (SOA), which had replaced SOE-Australia. For security purposes, the new organisation was given the cover name Services Reconnaissance Department, or SRD. Because of the large number of Australian Army personnel seconded to SOA, a holding unit to which these recruits could be posted for administrative reasons was also created. Known as Z Special Unit, it was purely administrative and could not plan or carry out missions in its own right.
Encouraged by Jaywick’s success, its planning department immediately began organising a far more ambitious and complex mission, Operation Rimau—the Malayan word for tiger. Ivan Lyon, who was appointed party leader, had misgivings about the plan, which he described as ‘too big’. This time 15 men, including five other Jaywick veterans, were to attach limpet mines on sixty enemy ships anchored in and around Singapore.
As Krait was in a poor state of repair and was far too small, the Rimau men and their equipment were to be transported by submarine to a rear base on remote Merapas Island in Indonesia, and then transfer to a local junk to approach Singapore. For the actual attack, one-man submersible craft known as Sleeping Beauties (SBs) were to be used in place of folboats. Once the limpets were in place, the raiders were to scuttle the junk and the SBs and return to the rear base by folboat to await pick-up by a submarine.
On 11 September 1944, as soon as their specialised training was complete, the 23-strong Rimau team left Garden Island in Western Australia on board a British submarine. After secreting stores at Merapas, the raiding party and support team transferred to the junk Mustika to take them the final 110 kilometres.
All went well until 6 October when, just a few hours before the scheduled attack, they were spotted by a collaborator. Unable to carry out the original plan Lyon scuttled the SBs and Mustika. He then sent all but seven men back to the safety of Merapas, before placing limpets on several ships, using folboats.
The attack was successful, with at least three ships sunk, but the collaborator had reported the presence of white men in the Indonesian islands and the alarm had been raised. They were cornered in the Riau Straits and forced to make a fight of it. In the process four men, including Ivan Lyon, died heroically. One was captured. The other two made it to the rear base.
Meanwhile, the Japanese in Singapore, unaware of the events that had unfolded in Indonesia, once more blamed the local people for the sabotage. Before long heads appeared on posts throughout the city in an effort to obtain confessions.
Back at Merapas, while waiting for the pick-up submarine, the 18 remaining Rimau men were discovered by a Japanese patrol. Two, who tried to hold off enemy troops to allow the others to escape, were shot and killed. The remainder fled in various directions but all were ultimately killed in action, drowned at sea, captured or died of illness. Ten who were captured were beheaded in Singapore on 7 July 1945, five weeks before the war ended.
Operation Rimau was the most disastrous mission carried out by SOA in WWII. With all 23 men lost, it was also the most tragic.
Honour Roll:
Lieutenant-Colonel I Lyon, Lieutenant-Commander D M N Davidson, Major R M Ingleton, Lieutenant B P Reymond, Captain R C Page, Sub-Lieutenant J G M Riggs, Lieutenant W G Carey, Lieutenant H R Ross, Lieutenant A L Sargent, Warrant Officer A Warren, Warrant Officer J Willersdorff, Sergeant C B Cameron, Sergeant D P Gooley, Corporal A G P Campbell, Corporal C M Craft, Corporal R B Fletcher, Corporal C M Stewart, Able Seaman W G Falls, Able Seaman A W G Huston, Able Seaman F W L Marsh, Lance Corporal J T Hardy, Lance Corporal H J Pace, Private D R Warne