Missing Pieces: - Royal Australian Navy

124 Missing Pieces
the Tiger: The Truth about Operation RIMAU, while concentrating on the latter operation,
also deals briefly with JAYWICK. 374
JAYWICK was designed to demonstrate to the Japanese that the British could strike
at the heart of their new empire and, at the time, there was no feasible alternative to
the use of irregular means. The scale of the success of the JAYWICK raid can easily be
overlooked. This was brought home to the author as he contemplated a memorial in the
USN’s Washington Navy Yard commemorating the career of the fleet submarine USS
Balao. In two years of war and a number of war patrols, the 2700-ton Balao and her
company of more than 70 accounted for less tonnage of Japanese shipping than JAYWICK.
An examination of the quality of intelligence support provided to JAYWICK, however,
indicates that the operation’s ultimate success owed more to the resourcefulness of the
personnel concerned than to any good planning and management by the RAN, GHQ
SWPA, its organs or, in some instances, by the JAYWICK team leaders themselves.
The origins of JAYWICK are clear. The operation was conducted under the aegis of the
Services Reconnaissance Department, an agency of Britain’s Special Operations Executive
(SOE) in Australia and, from July1942, one of the four AIB agencies under GHQ SWPA.
Formed in Melbourne in March 1942 as the Inter-Allied Services Department (ISD), of all
the ‘irregular’ organisations of the Allies this most personified the term. 375 The passion
for secrecy was so ingrained in ISD that, for example, it was not until Krait had sailed for
Singapore that the other ranks of the raiding party were told their destination.
The operation was conceived in India by two British Army officers, Majors Lyon and
Campbell, who had escaped the fall of Singapore and engaged in a series of rescue
operations in the NEI using commandeered small craft before sailing to Colombo. They
developed a plan for attacking shipping in Singapore using similar craft, and presented
this to the Indian Group of SOE in early 1942. 376 Key points in British acceptance of the
proposal — it needed the approval of the Commander-in-Chief India and Commanderin-Chief
Eastern Fleet — were that the Japanese were expected to struggle to exercise
control over the large number of small watercraft in their newly annexed NEI waters,
and that Lyon had a good knowledge of the waters around Singapore, based on fiveyears
yachting experience before the war. Lyon appears to have personally convinced
Commander-in-Chief India of the soundness of his proposal. 377
For operational reasons, SOE decided the mission was better mounted from Australia,
where the two officers were sent. 378 It was not clear under whose authority the project
should fall: the SOE report simply stated, ‘they formed a separate operational unit in
that country’. The two officers had an entree into the highest levels of Australian society,
being billeted in Melbourne with the Governor of Victoria and dining with the Governor-
General. It was probably through one of these two avenues that they were put in touch
with DNI Commander Long. Long’s contacts and influence were critical to the conduct of
the operation. 379 It was undoubtedly Long who arranged the meeting of Lyon with ACNB
on 17 July 1942, at which he was advised that JAYWICK ‘as originally planned would