Krait, the vessel which carried the men of Z Special Unit on Operation Jaywick, the successful raid on Singapore Harbour on the night of 26 September 1943.
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.
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' for the purpose. Folboats were essential for training the prospective operatives, however 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 (70ft) Japanese coastal fish carrier, Kofuku Maru 幸福丸, which he had used to evacuate refugees from Singapore. Lyon ordered that the boat be shipped from India to Australia. Upon its arrival, he renamed the vessel Krait, after the small but deadly Asian snake.
The attack
The crew of Krait during Operation Jaywick
In mid-1943, Krait travelled from a training camp at Broken Bay, New South Wales to Thursday Island. Aboard was a complement from Z Special Unit of three British and eleven Australian personnel, comprising:
Major Ivan Lyon (Mission Commander)
Lieutenant Hubert Edward Carse (Krait's captain)
Lieutenant Donald Montague Noel Davidson
Lieutenant Robert Charles Page
Corporal Andrew Anthony Crilly
Corporal Ronald George "Taffy" Morris
Leading Seaman Kevin Patrick Cain
Leading Stoker James Patrick McDowell
Leading Telegraphist Horace Stewart Young
Able Seaman Walter Gordon Falls
Able Seaman Mostyn Berryman
Able Seaman Frederick Walter Lota Marsh
Able Seaman Arthur Walter Jones
Able Seaman Andrew William George Huston
On 13 August 1943, Krait left Thursday Island for Exmouth Gulf, Western Australia, where it was refuelled and repairs were undertaken. Not only did the repairs cause delays in departure, but the folboats, manufactured by Harris Lebus and designated as 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 on-the-spot changes simply 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 to Krait.[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 prop 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 kilometres (31mi) 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,[5] 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 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.
Recent analysis of results
Recent analysis of Japanese records and radio decrypts have identified only 6 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
Gross tonnage
Configuration
Outcome
1
Lyon/Huston
Shosei Maru
5698
Engines aft tanker
Damaged
2
Davidson/Falls
Nichiren Maru
5460
3 island cargo
Damaged
3
Davidson/Falls
Unknown
NA
Engines aft cargo
NA
4
Davidson/Falls
Arare Maru
2770
Engines aft tanker
Sunk/salvaged
5
Page/Jones
Hakusan Maru
2197
3 island cargo
Sunk
6
Page/Jones
Nasusan Maru
4399
Engines aft tanker
Damaged
7
Page/Jones
Kizan Maru
5071
3 island cargo
Sunk
The often repeated claim that the saboteurs sank the large high speed tanker Shinkoku Maru (Sinkoku Maru in kokutai spelling) is not supported by Japanese records that clearly show the ship leaving Truk (Chuuk), Carolines Islands on the day of the attack.
Raid repercussions
On ANZAC Day 1964 the MV Krait was dedicated a War Memorial; this plaque was affixed to its wheelhouse.
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.[6][7] After 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.
Popular culture
Australian novelist Ronald McKie wrote an account of the operation in 1961 titled The Heroes.[8] In 1989, a British/Australian miniseries dramatized McKie's book. The Heroes was directed by Donald Crombie, with the cast including Paul Rhys as Ivan Lyon, John Bach as Donald Davidson and Jason Donovan as 'Happy' Houston.[9]
A folding kayak is a direct descendant of the original Inuit kayak made of animal skins stretched over frames made from wood and bones. A modern folder has a collapsible frame made of some combination of wood, aluminium and plastic, and a skin made of a tough fabric with a waterproof coating. Many have integral air chambers inside the hull, making them virtually unsinkable.
Z Special Unit was a joint Allied special forces unit formed during the Second World War to operate behind Japanese lines in South East Asia. Predominantly Australian, Z Special Unit was a specialist clandestine operation, direct action, long-range penetration, sabotage, and special reconnaissance unit that included British, Dutch, New Zealand, Timorese and Indonesian members, predominantly operating on Borneo and the islands of the former Dutch East Indies.
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.
Lieutenant Colonel Ivan Lyon, was a British soldier and military intelligence agent during the Second World War. As a member of Z Special Unit Lyon took part in a number of commando operations against the Japanese and was killed during Operation Rimau while attempting to infiltrate Singapore harbour and destroy Japanese shipping there in 1944.
The MV Krait is a wooden-hulled vessel famous for its use during World War II by the Z Special Unit of Australia during the raid against Japanese ships anchored in Singapore Harbour. The raid was known as Operation Jaywick.
The "Double Tenth incident" or "Double Tenth massacre" occurred on 10 October 1943, during the Second World War Japanese occupation of Singapore. The Kenpeitai—Japanese military police—arrested and tortured fifty-seven civilians and civilian internees on suspicion of their involvement in a raid on Singapore Harbour that had been carried out by Anglo-Australian commandos from Operation Jaywick. Three Japanese ships were sunk and three were damaged, but none of those arrested and tortured had participated in the raid, nor had any knowledge of it. Fifteen of them died in Singapore's Changi Prison.
The Snake-class junks were a class of six small vessels operated by the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) to support special forces operations in 1944 and 1945. The ships were lightly armed and were used to infiltrate special forces parties and their supplies into Japanese-held territory.
Operation Python was carried out by the Allied commando unit Z Special Unit, during World War II. The objective of the mission was to set up a wireless station near Labian Point in North Borneo and undertake covert operations reporting on the sea lane of the Imperial Japanese Navy in the Sibutu Passage and the Balabac Strait of the Sulu Sea. The operation was split into Python I and Python II.
The Z Experimental Station (ZES) was established in July 1942 at Munro Terrace, Mooroobool, Cairns, Queensland, Australia, jointly by Secret Intelligence Australia and the Inter-Allied Services Department. The building chosen to be the headquarters was known as "Fairview", and it had been the home of Richard Ash Kingsford, the first mayor of Cairns and grandfather of aviator Sir Charles Kingsford Smith.
The Highest Honour is a 1982 Australian/Japanese co-production about Operation Jaywick and Operation Rimau by Z Special Unit during World War II.
The Heroes is a 1989 British/Australian mini-series on Operation Jaywick, a World War II special forces raid on Japanese shipping in Singapore harbour by the Australian Z Special Unit, based on Ronald McKie's 1960 book The Heroes.
Heroes II: the Return is a 1991 British/Australian mini-series about Operation Rimau during World War II. It was a sequel to the 1989 mini-series The Heroes.
HMAS River Snake was a Snake-class junk built for the Royal Australian Navy during the Second World War. She was launched in 1945 and commissioned into the Royal Australian Navy on 19 February 1945. She was used by the Services Reconnaissance Department (SRD) and was paid off on 2 November 1945, before being handed over to the British Civil Administration in Borneo.
Operation Copper was carried out by the Allied commando unit Z Special Unit, during World War II. The objective of the mission was to investigate the Japanese defences on Muschu Island, capture a Japanese officer for interrogation and discover the location of two naval guns on the island that covered the approaches to Wewak Harbour. Eight commandos were landed as part of the operation; only one survived.
Operation Scorpion was a proposed operation in World War II by Australia's Z Special Unit.
Operation Hornbill was a proposed commando operation by Australian forces during World War II. The operation was proposed by Ivan Lyon following the success of Operation Jaywick.
Operation Sunlag was an Australian military operation in Timor during World War II. Its aim was to investigate what happened to Operation Lagarto.
Operation Lizard was the name given to a series of operations undertaken in Portuguese Timor by Australian troops in World War II using Hoehn military folboats to get from the vessel to the island and return.
Operation Platypus was an operation by Allied special reconnaissance personnel from Z Special Unit during the Borneo Campaign of World War II. Platypus involved small groups being inserted into the Balikpapan area of Dutch Borneo (Kalimantan), to gather information and organise local people as resistance fighters against the Japanese.
Operation Walnut was a military operation conducted by the Allies, notably the Netherlands East Indies Forces Intelligence Service, on the Aroe Islands during World War II. It took place in three phases:
Cundall, Peter (2018) "Operation Jaywick: A Reassessment of Results", The Log: Quarterly Journal of Nautical Association of Australia, Vol 51, No.2, Issue 212, p.68. Also published as "Operation Jaywick: A Reassessment of Results" on Combined Fleet website
Hoehn, John. (2011). Commando Kayak: The Role of Australian Folboats in the Pacific Campaign. Hirsch Publishing. ISBN978-3-033-01717-7
National Archives of Australia, A3269, E2A, 1944, p.34.
Silver, Lynette Ramsay. (2001). Krait: The Fishing Boat that Went to War. Cultured Lotus. ISBN981-04-3675-0.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
Empire of Japan 
Ivan Lyon 
Hubert Edward Carse 
