Missing Pieces: - Royal Australian Navy

Taking The OFFensiVe 1942–45
In the end, JAYWICK succeeded because of the raiding team’s tenacity and courage
and Krait’s provenance, together with the cautious policies Carse adopted to avoid
being sighted. The laxity or absence of Japanese patrols, about which Intelligence had
been able to say nothing, also aided their approach and escape. It was an operation
carried out despite the lack of intelligence on the enemy, the man-made and natural
hazards that the raid could expect to encounter, and the target itself. Intelligence
was either unavailable, was not made available, or was not applied correctly by the
mission planners. Any oversight of the mission by DNI Long or his staff also failed to
detect these gaps and errors. The operation’s intelligence jigsaw was missing many
of its important pieces.
A sad footnote to the success of JAYWICK is that the operation’s much more ambitious
and well-equipped follow-up exploit, Operation RIMAU in October 1944, failed utterly.
The raiders were compromised by their attack on a Malayan Auxiliary Police post before
launching their raid, and all personnel, including the leader Lyon, then a lieutenant
colonel, were either killed or captured, and later executed by the Japanese. The failure
of the expedition was detected in Sigint.
Task Force 74 at Biak, June 1944
Opportunities for fleet actions occurred rarely in the SWPA. While there was intense
sea-fighting in the neighbouring Central and South Pacific Command areas in and
around the Solomons, neither the IJN Fourth Fleet nor the Allied 7th Fleet had the naval
forces with which to confront each other. This situation continued until the middle of
1944, when the Allied amphibious assault on Biak Island at the western extremity of
the island of New Guinea brought SWPA to the attention of the IJN Combined Fleet.
The operational commander at the scene was Rear Admiral Victor Crutchley, RN, as
CTF 74. His first experience of engaging a Japanese surface force had been at Savo
Island, where the honours went decisively to the IJN. Another opportunity loomed
in 1943 when his Task Force was loaned to SOPAC to make up for some of the US
cruisers lost in dislodging the Japanese from the Solomons and Bougainville. However,
the Japanese force was defeated before he arrived. His final opportunity was to be at
Biak in June 1944. 399
The transformation of the battered remnants of TF 44 at Savo into the confident TF
74 which faced the Japanese at Biak is not only a tribute to Crutchley’s drive and
personality but also the developments in naval tactics. The use of technology and the
growth in the support provided by intelligence to operational commanders made great
strides in the two years between the encounters. As recounted in Chapter 3, Crutchley
had been RACAS for a mere eight weeks when he and his force were thrust into
Operation WATCHTOWER at Guadalcanal. The Battle of Savo Island yielded startling
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