Special Operations Australia (SOA), a joint Allied military intelligence organisation, was established in March 1942. SOA operated under the cover name Inter-Allied Services Department (IASD). It contained several British SOE officers who had escaped from Japanese occupied Singapore, and they formed the nucleus of the IASD, which was based in Melbourne. In June 1942, a commando arm was organised as Z Special Unit (which was later commonly known as Z Force). It drew its personnel primarily from the Australian Army and Royal Australian Navy.

In 1943, a 28-year-old British officer, Captain (later Major) Ivan Lyon (of the Allied Intelligence Bureau and Gordon Highlanders), and a 61-year-old Australian civilian, Bill Reynolds, devised a plan to attack Japanese shipping in Singapore Harbour. Commandos would travel to the harbour in a vessel disguised as an Asian fishing boat. They would then use folboats (collapsible canoes) to attach limpet mines to Japanese ships.

On 2 September 1943, Krait left Exmouth Gulf and departed for Singapore. The team's safety depended on maintaining the disguise of a local fishing boat. The men stained their skin brown with dye to appear more Asiatic and were meticulous in what sort of rubbish they threw overboard, lest a trail of European garbage arouse suspicion. After a relatively uneventful voyage, Krait arrived off Singapore on 24 September. That night, six men left the boat and paddled 50 kilometres (31 mi) with folboats (collapsible canoes) to establish a forward base in a cave on a small island near the harbour. On the night of 26 September 1943, they paddled into the harbour and placed limpet mines on several Japanese ships before returning to their hiding spot.

In the resulting explosions, the limpet mines allegedly sank or seriously damaged seven Japanese ships, comprising over 39,000 tons between them. The commandos waited until the commotion over the attack had subsided and then returned to Krait, which they reached on 2 October. Their return to Australia was mostly uneventful, except for a tense incident in the Lombok Strait when the ship was closely approached by a Japanese auxiliary minesweeper Wa-102 on patrol; however Krait was not challenged. On 19 October, the ship and crew arrived safely back at Exmouth Gulf.

The raid took the Japanese authorities in Singapore completely by surprise. Never suspecting such an attack could be mounted from Australia, they assumed it had been carried out by local saboteurs, most likely pro-Communist Chinese guerillas. In their efforts to uncover the perpetrators, a wave of arrests, torture and executions began. Local Chinese and Malays, as well as interned POWs and European civilians were targeted in this programme. The incident became known as the Double Tenth, for 10 October, the day that Japanese secret police began the mass arrests.

Given the effects inflicted upon the local population by the Japanese, criticism has arisen as to whether Operation Jaywick was justified, especially with its relatively limited strategic results. In the aftermath of the raid, the Allies never claimed responsibility for the attack on shipping, most likely because they wanted to preserve the secret of Krait for future similar missions. Therefore, the Japanese did not divert significant military resources to defending against such attacks, instead just using their secret police to enact reprisals against civilians.

Operation Jaywick was followed by Operation Rimau. Although three ships are sometimes claimed as sunk in this raid, no corroboration of this has ever been found and in all likelihood no vessels were sunk; but the participants, including Lyon, were either killed in action or captured and executed.

Operation Rimau was an attack on Japanese shipping in Singapore Harbour, carried out by an Allied commando unit Z Special Unit, during World War II using Australian built Hoehn military MKIII folboats. It was a follow-up to the successful Operation Jaywick which had taken place in September 1943, and was again led by Lieutenant Colonel Ivan Lyon of the Gordon Highlanders, an infantry regiment of the British Army.

Originally part of a much larger operation called Operation Hornbill, the aim of Rimau was to sink Japanese shipping by paddling the folboats in the dark and placing limpet mines on ships. It was originally intended that motorised semi-submersible canoes, known as "Sleeping Beauties", would be used to gain access to the harbour, however, they resorted to folboats. After the raiding party's discovery by local Malay authorities, a total of thirteen men (including raid commander Lyon) were killed during battles with the Japanese military at a number of island locations or were captured and died of their wounds in Japanese captivity. A group of ten commandos were transported to Outram Road Jail in Singapore after capture by the Japanese, were tried with perfidy and espionage in a Japanese court and executed on 7 July 1945.

I was stationed at RAF Jurong on the western end of Singapore, it has been reported that the men executed by the Japanese were executed at RAF Jurong..

RAF Jurong before WW2 was known as Radio Malaya, after the Japanese invasion the station was used by the Japanese military

Whilst in Japanese hands there was a lot of murders carried out by the Japanese on Allied POWs, two mass graves were found.During work on the boundary fence with the Nagyang University, human remains were found, their hands tied with barbed wire. Behind the Guard Room was a tree used by the Japanese to hang civilians.

The RAF used locally enlisted personnel as RAF Police, who avoided the rear of the Guard Room like the plague. The Japanese abused local civilian workers, one of which was still working at Jurong when I was there, his back was a mass of scars from beating handed out by Jap guards.

The station had a strange atmosphere. One night just before payday and some what devoid of Singapore Dollars I decided to practice snooker shots in the snooker room.I took a cue off the rack and set up the balls, I had a feeling that something didn't want me there. I didn't see anything, feel anything or hear anything, it was just a feeling. I put the cue back in the rack and walked out.

Sadly after the British pulled out of Singapore in 1971 the station was demolished and is now a massive bird park.

The Japanese got away with a lot of the atrocities. The Unit 731 is a good example of how disgusting experiments were ignored

Originally Posted by I3BrigPvSk

The Japanese got away with a lot of the atrocities. The Unit 731 is a good example of how disgusting experiments were ignored

One of the benefits of hindsight is that it lets us look at both sides of an argument with a level of impartiality and I think it is relatively fair to say there were no angels in WW2.
While German and Japanese attrocities certainly out-weighed anything the Allies did but the bombing of civilians, Russian murder of Polish officers and intellectuals, Japanese internment camps, Bengal famine etc. all indicate that at best we were the lesser of two evils albeit by a large margin.


Operation Rimau and Jaywick were both incredible feats of ingenuity, logistics and bravery and are very interesting subjects and to be honest I wish I had remembered them when I was in Singapore as I would like to have looked into them further. I recall on the drive out to Kranji cemetary we drove past several old radar dishes which the taxi drive said were the remains of a British base but I never thought to ask which one.

Originally Posted by I3BrigPvSk

The Japanese got away with a lot of the atrocities. The Unit 731 is a good example of how disgusting experiments were ignored

My uncle John was captured in Java and transported to Sandekan in north east Borneo tasked to build a airfield.

It became clear that Japan was losing the war so the Commanding officer Susumi Hoshijima ordered marches across wide marshland, dense jungle, and then up the eastern slope of Mount Kinabalu occurred between January and March 1945. The Japanese had selected 470 prisoners who were thought to be fit enough to carry baggage and supplies for the accompanying Japanese battalions relocating to the western coast. In several groups the POWs, all of whom were either malnourished or suffering serious illness, started the journey originally under the intention of reaching Jesselton (Kota Kinabalu). Although the route took nine days, they were given enough rations for only four days. As on the Bataan Death March, any POWs who were not fit enough or collapsed from exhaustion were either killed or left to die en route. Upon reaching Ranau, the survivors were halted and ordered to construct a temporary camp. As one historian later commented: "Those who survived... were herded into insanitary and crowded huts to then die from dysentery. By 26 June, only five Australians and one British soldier were still alive.

Due to a combination of a lack of food and brutal treatment at the hands of the Japanese, there were only 38 prisoners left alive at Ranau by the end of July. All were too unwell and weak to do any work, and it was ordered that any remaining survivors should be shot. They were killed by the guards during August, possibly up to 12 days after the end of the war on 14 August. Furthermore, it has been estimated that 16% of the population of North Borneo were killed during the three years of Japanese occupation, a reflection of the sheer brutality.

In total, only six Australian servicemen managed to escape. During the second marches, Gunner Owen Campbell and Bombardier Richard Braithwaite managed to escape into the jungle, where they were assisted by locals and eventually rescued by Allied units. During July, Private Nelson Short, Warrant Officer William Sticpewich, Private Keith Botterill and Lance Bombardier William Moxham managed to escape from Ranau and were also helped by the local people, who fed them and hid them from the Japanese until the end of the war. Of the six survivors, only four (Sticpewich, Botterill, Short, & Campbell) survived the lingering effects of their ordeal to give evidence at various war crimes trials in both Tokyo and Rabaul. The world was able to receive eyewitness accounts of the crimes and atrocities committed. Captain Hoshijima was found guilty of war crimes and hanged on 6 April 1946. Capt Takakuwa and his second-in-charge, Capt Watanabe Genzo, were found guilty of causing the murders and massacres of prisoners-of-war and were hanged and shot on 6 April 1946 and 16 March 1946 respectively.

My uncle John was a member of the RAFVR was murdered by Japanese Guards 26th March 1945 aged 22. The Japanese reported my uncle John died of Malaria, they forgot to add brutal beating and treatment and lack of rations and medical treatment. As my uncle has no known grave his name is on the wall of Kranji War Memorial along with thousands of others.

It was reported that Captain Hoshijima bit the executioner as the noose was placed around his neck. By all accounts he was a sadistic bastard who took great pleasure in causing pain and suffering on Allied POW's.

Originally Posted by MontyB

One of the benefits of hindsight is that it lets us look at both sides of an argument with a level of impartiality and I think it is relatively fair to say there were no angels in WW2.
While German and Japanese attrocities certainly out-weighed anything the Allies did but the bombing of civilians, Russian murder of Polish officers and intellectuals, Japanese internment camps, Bengal famine etc. all indicate that at best we were the lesser of two evils albeit by a large margin.


Operation Rimau and Jaywick were both incredible feats of ingenuity, logistics and bravery and are very interesting subjects and to be honest I wish I had remembered them when I was in Singapore as I would like to have looked into them further. I recall on the drive out to Kranji cemetary we drove past several old radar dishes which the taxi drive said were the remains of a British base but I never thought to ask which one.

Of course, but there is difference between how the German crimes, if I can use that term are perceived in comparison to how the Japanese crimes are perceived.

Originally Posted by MontyB

One of the benefits of hindsight is that it lets us look at both sides of an argument with a level of impartiality and I think it is relatively fair to say there were no angels in WW2.
While German and Japanese attrocities certainly out-weighed anything the Allies did but the bombing of civilians, Russian murder of Polish officers and intellectuals, Japanese internment camps, Bengal famine etc. all indicate that at best we were the lesser of two evils albeit by a large margin.


Operation Rimau and Jaywick were both incredible feats of ingenuity, logistics and bravery and are very interesting subjects and to be honest I wish I had remembered them when I was in Singapore as I would like to have looked into them further. I recall on the drive out to Kranji cemetary we drove past several old radar dishes which the taxi drive said were the remains of a British base but I never thought to ask which one.

Which direction did you get to Kranji and what side of the road were the radar dishes?

There were three RAF flying operational bases, Tengah, Changi and Seletar and a few satellite stations as well as army Royal Signal bases.

Driving from the hotel out to Kranji I remember them being on the right hand side of the road near or on a large sweeping lefthand curve in the road.


Looking at Google maps I suspect it was Bukit Timah Satellite Earth Station so he may have been pulling our legs as well although the dishes did not look that big.



If you want to look it up we stayed at the Ramada hotel so you can check possible routes to Kranji via Google maps


https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bu...!4d103.7912177

Originally Posted by MontyB

Driving from the hotel out to Kranji I remember them being on the right hand side of the road near or on a large sweeping lefthand curve in the road.


Looking at Google maps I suspect it was Bukit Timah Satellite Earth Station so he may have been pulling our legs as well although the dishes did not look that big.



If you want to look it up we stayed at the Ramada hotel so you can check possible routes to Kranji via Google maps


https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bu...!4d103.7912177

I'm not sure if that was a British military unit, I knew Bukit Timah quite well and I dont remember seeing those dishes at all. The road looks like a more modern road to the one I knew back in 1970. Turning left at Bukit Timah would take you to what was RAF Jurong. I use to stagger out of the Halfway House bar across the road to the makan stalls and order a double egg banjo (two fried eggs in a small french loaf), then get a taxi back to Jurong

Originally Posted by I3BrigPvSk

Of course, but there is difference between how the German crimes, if I can use that term are perceived in comparison to how the Japanese crimes are perceived.

The Germans got the most press, primarily because of the Holocaust. Japan got it back then, but no continuous campaign since. read that we gave records back w/o making copies or translations.