Conclusion: The Secret Voyage of the Kofuku Maru

(Part 1 here and Part 2 here.)

Once they passed through the Lombok Strait, the Krait (formerly the Kofuku Maru) threaded a cautious way among islands that were irregular polka-dots of green along the Sumatra coast, Engineer McDowell and his assistant nursing his engine as if it were a cranky child prone to tantrums. One of the officers was in the wheelhouse at all times. The mixed crew of soldiers and sailors kept a careful look-out, day and night – but they had come deliberately by a route that avoided the normal shipping lanes in and around Singapore. They made a happy discovery, upon encountering other craft—mostly native fishing boats and small commerce; such craft turned around and went the other way, at top speed, upon seeing the purposefully stained and tattered Japanese flag which they flew now. By the 18th, they were a bare 22 miles from Singapore, lurking with intent among the islands star-scattered to the south of the city, searching for a deserted and unobserved spot within striking distance of Keppel Harbor. Anchoring off Panjang Island at 4 in the morning, they decided that spot would do, for disembarking the six members of the canoe teams, and deadly cargo: Lyon, Davidson, and Page, with the three naval ratings: Walter Falls, Arthur “Joe” Jones and A.W. Huston. In two weeks exactly, the Krait would return to the rendezvous at Panjang to retrieve the six … if all went according to plan.

If all went according to plan … the plan was for Ted Carse to take the Krait back towards Borneo, to stooge around among the coastal islands, trying to remain inconspicuous, and above suspicion. For Lyon and the other five, the plan was to move stealthy by canoe through the narrow strait between Bulan and Bantam Islands – which archipelago lay directly south of Singapore. They intended to set up a hidden camp and what amounted to a sniper’s nest on tiny Dongas Island, directly across from Singapore – which was supposed to be uninhabited. It took them several days of stealthy paddling during the night and hiding out on shore during the day. The canoes were covered with black rubber skins – and the six men themselves wore tight-woven, waterproof black silk oversuits. They discovered that while the silk oversuits kept mosquitos out – they also kept sweat in; between that and the reek from the fabric dye – everyone stank, vehemently. But from the low hill on Dongas, they could see the lights of Singapore glowing over the water; the Japanese so confident of air superiority that there was no wartime blackout. This view of Singapore’s harbor must have been an achingly familiar sight for Major Lyon, and for Donald Davidson, who had been briefly stationed there. There were all the landmarks: Fort Canning, the Marine Parade, the Cathay Building (the first proto-skyscraper in Singapore, with an air-conditioned movie theater and the tallest building anywhere in the Far East when it was built in 1939), the low hills behind where the Tanglin Club was – a city that had been home for Ivan Lyon, and now a prison for too many of Donald Davidson’s friends.

For five days, they watched activity in the harbor, and of what they could see of town. Major Lyon noted in his report that at no time was there less than 100,000 tons worth of shipping in Singapore’s harbor. Activity was constant; but none of it involved anything like port security. No sentries, no searchlights, no regular patrols. On the night of September 24, after observing at least thirteen heavily-laden ships in port, they tried to cross from Dongas to the harbor but had to give up shortly after midnight because of a strong tidal current pushing against them. Instead, they shifted their camp to Subar Island, another tiny island of nearly bare, sun-blasted rock, out to the west and directly across from anchorage area outside Keppel Harbor. They spent a miserable day there, broiling in what little shade they could contrive. As soon as darkness fell on the night of the 26th, they tried again. Major Lyon and Seaman Huston went first for a tanker in the anchorage area, attaching limpet mines to the area by the engine room and on the propeller shaft. Davidson and Falls paddled stealthily into Keppel Harbor itself, and Lt. Page and Jones went for the area of wharves at Bukom Island, where the Shell Oil Company had a refinery and oil storage tanks.

Nearly invisible in their black suits, silently paddling their black canoes, each pair of men worked in near silence, intensely aware that a stray whisper, the clang of a magnet attaching to a metal surface could give them away. They stayed on the shadowed side of the ships that they worked; one holding the canoe fast to the ship’s hull, while the other attached limpets, reaching below the waterline to attach them. For best results, they had worked out that three limpets connected with a length of det cord would result in the maximum destruction for the minimum effort, as long as they were placed close to the engine room, and at various places along the hull where there wasn’t a bulkhead dividing compartments. Page and Jones worked bare yards below, at water level and invisible against the dark water, from where welders were making repairs, and stevedores shifted cargo from dockside to ship. One of the ships that they attached limpets on was a laden tramp steamer so ancient and rusty that Page had to reach deep into the water and scrape off layers of rust with his fingernails to even get the magnets to grip. Davidson and Falls, entering Keppel Harbor, were nearly run down by a regular steam ferryboat. They paddled a bit underneath one of the long docks, but didn’t see anything worth wasting their limpets on, and inside the main docks was too brightly flood-lit to venture into. They contented themselves with limpeting three ships in the Singapore Roads, just off the business heart of downtown Singapore – so close that they could hear the chimes in a clock tower on shore.

As the sky in the east began to pale, Lt. Page, Jones, Major Lyon and Huston finally returned to their original lookout on Dongas Island, utterly exhausted and drained after spending ten hours in one position and paddling without a break. The team of Davidson and Falls had already decided to head directly back to Panjang Island under the cover of darkness, for the agreed-upon rendezvous with the Krait. The four men on Dongas were so stiff and sore, they had to crawl on hands and knees, at first. It was a little after 4 AM. The limpets were timed to go off at 5 AM. Over the next twenty minutes or so, they heard seven muffled explosions rolling across the water. The lights on Singapore and the neighboring islands blinked out abruptly, and they heard a ship’s siren faintly wailing.

The four were elated, of course – but they would have to spend a nervous day on Dongas while the Japanese searched for the saboteurs by air and sea. The infuriated Japanese would eventually blame the damage to seven ships on local saboteurs, and exact horrific reprisals against civilians in Singapore. Meanwhile, the four canoeists would not be able to move off until after dark. Which they did – eventually all six were collected by the Krait, exactly as had been arranged. After passing uncomfortably close to a Japanese warship close to the Lombok Strait, the Krait returned safely with all hands to their starting point at Exmouth.

But there would never be anything publicly released about the success of Operation Jaywick until well after the war, for matters of operational security. It was hoped that the operation could be repeated, with teams dispatched again from a submarine to commit mayhem on Japanese shipping in Singapore. Ivan Lyons led an ambitious subsequent raid – Operation Rimau – late in 1944. It failed, and all members of the party were either killed or captured and executed, including Donald Davidson, Bob Page, Walter Falls and Walter Huston. Bill Reynolds, who had originally captained the Krait when it was the Kofuku Maru volunteered to return to occupied Malaya on a clandestine mission to organize resistance to the Japanese occupation. He was betrayed, captured and eventually executed. Ironically, Lyon’s wife and son survived their captivity. Krait continued to serve during the war as a clandestine transport, and returned to mundane postwar service as a tugboat, until purchased and renovated. It is maintained now as part of the Australian National Maritime museum.