A Memorial to Heroes
Henry MouldsOperation Jaywick was a successful raid on enemy shipping in Singapore Harbour in 1943, using a captured Japanese fishing boat, the 68 ton Kofuku Maru. Renamed MV Krait, after a small but deadly Asian snake, the vessel was used to take a raiding party to attack Japanese shipping in the former British port of Singapore.
The team comprised of British and Australian soldiers as well as Royal Australian Navy personnel, and was commanded by a British officer, Major Ivan Lyon.
Lyon’s team, disguised as Malay fishermen, travelled aboard Krait, from Exmouth in Western Australia to Subor Island, 11 kilometres from Singapore. On reaching the island, three-and-a-half weeks after leaving Australia, the team launched three two-man collapsible canoes, called folboats, and Lyon and five others then paddled to the island to set up a base, while the Krait left the area to await the completion of the attack.
In the evening of 26 September 1943, Lyon, with Able Seaman Andrew Huston, Lieutenant Donald Davidson with Able Seaman Walter Falls, and Lieutenant Robert Page with Able Seaman Arthur Jones, paddled towards Singapore harbour. Under the cover of darkness, they they split up and entering their target areas, attached limpet mines to ships in the harbour. They then left the harbour and independently made the long journey to rendezvous with Krait for the return voyage to Australia. Seven ships were sunk or badly damaged as a result of the attack. The Krait arrived back in Australia in mid-October 1943.
Operation Jaywick was the only special operations-type mission in Australia to successfully carry out its objective without any casualties. Sadly, a similar operation the following year, Operation Rimau, also planned by Ivan Lyon, was not as successful. The party was inserted by submarine however it was compromised by Japanese maritime patrols and all the party members, including six Jaywick veterans were either killed in action against the Japanese or were captured. Of those captured, two died of illness, the rest were executed less than six weeks before the Second World War ended.
MV Krait today serves as a memorial to those six Jaywick veterans and to all those lost on special forces operations during the Second World War.
