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| Operation Jaywick | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of theJapanese occupation of Singapore duringWorld War II | |||||||
.jpg) TheMVKrait, used to infiltrate Singapore. | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
 Empire of Japan | Z Special Unit | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| N/A | |||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| N/A |
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| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| None | ||||||
Operation Jaywick was a special operation undertaken in theSecond World War. In September 1943, 14commandos andsailors from theAlliedZ Special Unit raidedJapanese shipping inSingapore Harbour, sinking three ships and damaging three more.
Special Operations Australia (SOA), a combined Alliedmilitary intelligence organisation, was established in March 1942. SOA operated under the cover name Inter-Allied Services Department (IASD). It contained several BritishSOE officers who had escaped fromJapanese occupied Singapore, and they formed the nucleus of the IASD, which was based inMelbourne. In June 1942, a commando arm was organised asZ Special Unit (which was later commonly known as Z Force). It drew its personnel primarily from theAustralian Army andRoyal Australian Navy.
In 1943, a 28-year-old British officer, Captain (later Major)Ivan Lyon (of theAllied Intelligence Bureau andGordon Highlanders), and a 61-year-old Australian civilian, Bill Reynolds, devised a plan to attack Japanese shipping inSingapore Harbour. Commandos would travel to the harbour in a vessel disguised as an Asian fishing boat. They would then usefolboats (collapsible canoes) to attachlimpet mines to Japanese ships.
Initial training for the raid was organised and carried out by Major Lyon and Captain Davidson at Refuge Bay. The site selected was a remote, inaccessible area along the Hawkesbury River, New South Wales and named Camp X. Folboats were essential for training the prospective operatives but only two, a one-man and a two-man were found to be suitable after a thorough search in Australia by military personnel. These were bought on the spot from the folboat builder Walter Hoehn after a test run on the Yarra River, Alphington by the head of the Inter Allied Services Department, Colonel Mott and Major Moneypenny. A wooden rigid canoe was also built for Camp X by trainees under the supervision of Davidson.[1]
Reynolds was in possession of a 21.3-metre (70 ft) Japanese coastal fish carrier,Kofuku Maru 幸福丸, which he had used toevacuate refugees from Singapore and its neighboring islands. Lyon ordered that the boat be shipped fromIndia to Australia. Upon its arrival, he renamed the vesselKrait, after thekrait a small but deadly Asian snake.
In mid-1943,Krait travelled from a training camp atBroken Bay,New South Wales toThursday Island. Aboard was a complement from Z Special Unit of three British and eleven Australian personnel, comprising:
On 13 August 1943,Krait left Thursday Island forExmouth Gulf,Western Australia, where it was refuelled and repairs were undertaken. The repairs caused delays in departure and the folboats, manufactured by Harris Lebus, called model MKI**, which had been specially ordered for the attack by Lyon from England only arrived at the last minute. They were found to be faulty, lacked some important parts and were not according to the design that Davidson had specified. They had to undergo many changes to make each framework fit together and then fit correctly into the outer skins. This left the crew little time to get accustomed to them before being loaded on toKrait.[2][3][4]
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. During the journey, they suffered a snapped propeller shaft, which had to be repaired by a passing US submarine, while the heavily laden craft was later almost sunk by a force nine gale.Krait arrived off Singapore on 24 September. That night, six men left the boat and paddled 50 km (31 mi) with folboats, to establish a forward base in a cave on a small island near the harbour. On the night of 25/26 September 1943, they paddled into the harbour and placed limpet mines on several Japanese ships before returning to their hiding spot.
The mines exploded early on 26 September, and were reported to have sunk seven Japanese transport ships, comprising over 39,000 GRT between them.[5] The commandos waited until the commotion over the attack had subsided and then returned toKrait, which they reached on 2 October. Their return to Australia was mostly uneventful, except for a tense incident in theLombok Strait when the ship was closely approached by Japanese auxiliary minesweeperWa-102 on patrol butKrait was not challenged. On 19 October, the ship and crew arrived safely back at Exmouth Gulf.
The raid took the Japanese authorities in Singapore by surprise. Not 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, interned POWs and European civilians were attacked. The incident became known as theDouble 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.[6][7] After the raid the Allies never claimed responsibility for the attack on shipping, most likely because they wanted to preserve the secret ofKrait for similar missions. The Japanese did not divert significant military resources to defending against such attacks, instead used the secret police to inflict reprisals on civilians.
Recent analysis of Japanese records and radio decrypts have identified only six ships sunk or damaged. Japanese radio messages reference only six ships attacked and it is highly probable the attack on the seventh failed.
| Ship | Attacker | Target | GRT | Configuration | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lyon, Huston | Shosei Maru | 5,698 | Engines aft tanker | Damaged |
| 2 | Davidson, Falls | Nichiren Maru | 5,460 | 3 island cargo | Damaged |
| 3 | Davidson, Falls | Unknown | NA | Engines aft cargo | NA |
| 4 | Davidson, Falls | Arare Maru | 2,770 | Engines aft tanker | Sunk, salvaged |
| 5 | Page, Jones | Hakusan Maru | 2,197 | 3 island cargo | Sunk |
| 6 | Page, Jones | Nasusan Maru | 4,399 | Engines aft tanker | Damaged |
| 7 | Page, Jones | Kizan Maru | 5,071 | 3 island cargo | Sunk |
The oft-repeated claim that the saboteurs sank the large high speed tankerShinkoku Maru (Sinkoku Maru in kokutai spelling) is not supported by Japanese records that clearly show the ship leavingTruk (Chuuk), Carolines Islands on the day of the attack.
Operation Jaywick was followed byOperation Rimau. Although three ships are sometimes claimed as sunk in this raid, no corroboration of this has been found and in all likelihood no vessels were sunk; the participants, including Lyon, were either killed in action or captured and executed.
1°17′14″N103°51′55″E / 1.28722°N 103.86528°E /1.28722; 103.86528
