Missing Pieces: - Royal Australian Navy

Taking The OFFensiVe 1942–45
A similar fate befell the plan that Krait should lie up concealed in mangroves to await
the return of the raiding parties. This was said to have been the suggestion of Admiral
Koenraad, who seems to have known a lot about this highly secret expedition, but
it may also have come from reports by British naval officers who had escaped from
Singapore in February 1942. They had operated for some weeks along the east coast
of Sumatra evacuating stragglers, as had Lyon, and concealment in mangroves with
nipa palm camouflage had worked for them in many cases during their retreat west. 396
In the event, this suggestion was found to be impractical because of the native activity
in and around possible lying-up sites: instead Krait loitered off the coast of Borneo
while waiting for the attack parties to return to the recovery rendezvous. A track
chart of the approach and withdrawal of Krait and the raiders, based on Silver’s Krait,
is shown at Map 13.
The raiders themselves now experienced the complications of inadequate intelligence,
and bad planning. Initially, Lyon had selected the island Pulau Kapal Kechil, which
enjoys an excellent view of Singapore Harbour, as the point from which the raid would
be launched. The attack team instead decided that the island of Dongas, 13 kilometers
east of Kapal Kechil and a similar distance from their objective, should be the launch
site for the final assault. It was uninhabited, had a prominence from which a good view
of their target area could be had, and adequate cover for them and their kayaks. But
they had, unaccountably, failed to take into their calculations the current that sweeps
from west to east through the Singapore Strait. It seems unlikely in the extreme
that this well-known feature of the strait could have been unknown to either Lyon or
Davidson. The Admiralty’s Sailing Directions that Carse continually used contained
this information. Thus the first assault attempt failed because the kayak crews were
unable to paddle across the powerful current, and were forced to call off the attempt
and reconnoitre a new base. This was found 7nm to the west of Dongas, after a night
paddle against the current through severe weather, which threatened the safety and
survival of the raiders, and left them physically exhausted. 397
There were other odd aspects of JAYWICK, which can only be attributed to the command.
The need for the raiders to darken their skin colour was a feature of their training:
‘During training as little clothing as possible, to allow the maximum of sun tanning, has
been worn’. 398 Their tans were supplemented with a skin dye, which proved difficult
to apply and harder to maintain, and was not trialled before the operation. Neither
were the japara suits that the raiders endured throughout the kayak stage tested
before being donned for the raid. They proved to be uncomfortable and odiferous.
Krait nearly foundered in the Arafura Sea because the bulletproof coating applied to
the upper deck adversely affected her stability. The medical supplies embarked were
inadequate to treat common tropical ailments, such as prickly heat and tropical ulcers,
which appeared during the voyage, and an eye complaint which nearly left Carse, the
only qualified navigator, blind.
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