The odd puff from a Japanese gun or mortar rising from the jungle opposite was visible from time to time, followed by the rush of shells arching overhead to land in the dockyard. Though an Indian AA gun nearby had taken a direct hit from a bomb, killing all the crew, nothing seemed to be happening beyond this whine and crump in the dockyard, probably intended to annoy any troops in possession rather than demolish buildings. The FSA was not being molested, except for occasional sniping if one showed oneself. Overall was the uneasy feeling of calm before the storm.
We continued to be employed on ad hoc emergency jobs as they arose, usually unloading stores or fighting fires in Keppel harbour. It must have been there that I watched the men from the unfortunate 18th Division disembark, with the realisation that they were destined for disaster. One could see by their pink skins that the poor devils needed months of acclimatisation and special training before they should be faced with a fanatical enemy, flushed with success. Most were to be fighting for their lives within ten days and marching into captivity in 20.
Another forenoon in the docks I was caught in the middle of a ‘pattern’, only just getting under a lorry in time. The din was almost unbearable but between the tremors and flashes I could hear different and reassuring detonations, accompanied by the unmistakable tinkle of cartridge cases falling on to a steel deck. With the sort of urge a homing pigeon must know and rather shaken I crawled out in a lull and made towards the sound. It was the Australian cruiser Hobart secured on the other side of some go-downs. As I went up the gangway another formation came over, her 4-inch guns opened up again and it was like moving into another world, mentally as well as physically.
Stalwart guns’ crews, mostly in the hoods and gloves of anti-flash gear, worked methodically at their guns, passing the gleaming ammunition from its stowage to the shell handing numbers; the twin breeches recoiled with the discharge almost as soon as the brawny arms rammed home, fists clenched against the brass-based ammunition. Smoking shell cases bounced out on to the deck to lie in awkward piles until cleared away and the whole scene, in contrast to the jittery world only yards away ashore, was enacted with the unconcern of Melbourne ladies passing cups. When the last wave of aircraft had gone the men pushed the white hoods off their faces and mopped perspiring brows. With great reluctance I took myself ashore.
The Naval Guard had been disbanded shortly after evacuation of the base but nobody seemed to want my car back and, of course, it was very useful. Another one became the cause of a severe fright. Abandoned cars were two a penny, often with doors open and ignition keys in place, their owners having just driven up to the dockside and embarked. They were also to be found elsewhere and I was not at all surprised to come upon a brand new green MG ‘TC’ sports, chromium gleaming, parked with keys in place among some trees at Seleta. After two days I decided it would be more convenient, and much more fun, than my big Ford saloon and made the exchange. The little car burbled happily along on return from somewhere one evening and my thoughts were anywhere but on personal trouble. Anthony Terry came out to meet me as I switched off the engine. ‘Now you’ve done it!’ he said. ‘That car belongs to a Surgeon Commander Stephenson. You have been reported to the Admiral as having taken it and he wants to have you shot.’ I put my head back and roared with laughter but he cut it short. ‘I am deadly serious. I’ve been arguing for you most of the afternoon and he is not decided yet. As you know, the penalty for looting is death. They shot a sepoy yesterday for stealing a motorcycle and the Admiral says there should be no favouritism just because you are white and an officer. He’s not at all averse to making an example. I tell you its touch and go.’ He turned back to his hut leaving me aghast. Rear Admiral Spooner, undoubtedly under severe strain, had been making some other strange decisions, and Terry was not exaggerating as I soon learnt from several sources. The owner of the car was actually very nice about it and good enough to be somewhat upset at the turn of events. As can be imagined the following day or two went rather slowly. However, I heard no more about it.
The next alarm, which must have been about February 7, was in its less dishonourable way, just as narrow a squeak. A summons came from Commander P. Reid (who I think was liaison officer with 3rd Corps) for an officer to take charge of the water part of a raid on the Japanese positions across the strait from Seleta, and I found myself conferring in an attap hut with half a dozen Army officers. Men of the Norfolk Regiment were to be towed across in 14 pontoons to land among mangroves and attack the enemy from behind. It was to take place that night. This was real action at last and I was gripped with excitement until someone detailed the towing craft. These were one diesel and one ‘hard chine’ petrol motor boat. The latter, of which I had plenty of experience as a Midshipman, was of the sort designed to plane out of the water at high speed. Two minute rudders were adequate for this but, combined with the flat bottom, were useless for manoeuvering at slow speed; also the boat would sound like a sports car and its clutches, not designed for towing, would soon burn out. Even if we got to the other side, we would certainly not get back, with or without enemy assistance. The obvious solution was to procure another boat but there was not time. I glanced at the faces around, catching in only one a glimmer of understanding. A young Gunner Captain with a small blonde moustache, who had provided maps, returned my look with a grimace.
The Colonel asked whether I was in agreement with the plan, at which all turned to me. Terrified they would think me afraid, I said yes and the meeting broke up. Outside I buttonholed the Gunner Captain, who turned out to be a small boat enthusiast; ‘Pretty nonsensical’ he replied.
Back at the camp I described the meeting to Terry who said nothing at all. The next thing was to select crews for the boats; they too were pleased at the prospect of positive action but I could not help feeling sorry for them. I had decided that the whole thing was suicide and had managed to reconcile myself to the thought. And then realisation dawned. We were to create a diversion while something more important took place elsewhere! Three or four officers and a number of men were quite expendable under the circumstances. The same sort of thing probably went on all the time. I was thankful that I had not voiced my misgivings, probably to be told with icy politeness to carry on just the same.
The boats were prepared and finally—for the second time in a fortnight—there was nothing to do but wait. As the light failed I prayed that I would acquit myself well and lay down for an attempted nap. Some time later we were roused by a distant but continuous cannonade, shortly after which a message was received that the Japanese were landing and that the raid was cancelled.
A sense of anti-climax was shortlived; morning brought the staccato crack of shells bursting in the rubber trees all round. We ran for the somewhat shallow trenches fortunately prepared, pressing ourselves into the rich red mud and cursing as each salvo whistled and crashed. Nobody was hit though the odd hot fragment would smack into the ground alongside one. There was a 25 pdr battery close-by and this was presumably the real target. The shelling went on all day. The enemy had presumably got guns across the strait (damage to the causeway proved not as great as hoped) and there was no future in this spot as a static base. Accordingly we were withdrawn into Singapore that night and quartered in the Oranje Hotel near the sea front, about a mile east of the centre of the city. It had already been stripped of unnecessary fittings and made a good enough centre for our spasmodic activities.
The enemy made immediate progress (due I believe to communication failures on our side to do with the guns and searchlights that should have made his crossing of the water an expensive business) and was irrevocably consolidated on the island by the following morning. Fighting was heavy and continuous from then on, marked by a steady rumble to the north that drew closer and closer. Bombing and strafing of the city, the docks and various troop concentrations became more or less round the clock, unopposed by fighters. What was left of the RAF retired to Sumatra about this time and I personally never saw any of our fighters again.
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My recollection of the last few days is a jumble of disconnected incidents, mostly trivial, which are impossible to unravel into the right sequence. I remember the flat of an RAF family, there seemed to be two generations there, where I was invited for a quick meal. My host was married to a very beautiful Eurasian girl of about 18 and one could not help wondering what her future would be when the Japs arrived. There was no doubt, by this time, that the end was not in question. They had seen us off all the way down the Peninsula and only a miracle could turn the tables now. Civilians leaving, mostly women and children, had grown to a rush, every ship sailing full up. One saw heartrending scenes at docksides as families said goodbye, husbands and grown-up sons turning back to a grim future. Of course the enemy were bombing ships as they put to sea and the securing of a place in one was no passport to safety. I had some business, forgotten now, with the survivors of the liner Empress of Asia, set on fire and sunk as she neared Singapore.
The Japanese continued a steady if slow advance, mainly down the Bukit Timah road to the west, occasionally breaking through and being thrown back. Rumours abounded but no-one seemed really to know the state of affairs. Rubble in the streets opposite the occasional yawning gap often made one’s progress slow, mushrooms of smoke rose gently in the hot air to mark the latest bombing which in some places combined into a brown pall, and always one moved with an eye cocked on the sky. Fortunately most roads and streets had wide open drains which afforded excellent temporary shelter. A Zero fighter was shot down near the Oranje Hotel and I passed it, its red-blobbed tail high in the air like an encouraging monument, on the way to and from assignments.
An unpleasant development was the appearance in the streets of Australian soldiers in their bush hats and leather equipment. They came to us asking for food, hung around at street corners and a number eventually congregated alongside HMS Laburnum, the Naval Headquarters ship, which was approaching through a sort of small park. Instructions came from the Admiral that we were to evict these undesirables and I arrived with a dozen bluejackets to be rather alarmed at the sight of several hundred soldiers camped on the grass. Plumping, perforce, for the velvet glove, I told my men to fix bayonets but stay in the lorry, and advancing with as much nonchalance as I could muster, picked out an officer in the middle of the throng and gave him his marching orders as pleasantly as possible. There was a long moment while he conferred with his immediate entourage and then to my relief they got to their feet and ambled off. Going round the other groups was not difficult and soon they were all on their way. This may have been the party that eventually stormed a merchant ship, shot an officer who went to stop them and forced the master to take them to Java.
These Australians let their country down disgracefully, though fortunately for them there were few witnesses who escaped to report the fact. We had no idea of their origins and I was later to feel somewhat ashamed of my anti-Australian sentiments when it became known that they were recent arrivals from recruiting camps with virtually no training. Of course the original Australians of the AIF in Malaya fought well to a man, as did their brothers in the Middle East.
Three or four more days and nights followed each other; living for the moment, one lost count. For the first time I experienced a strange feeling of unreality, not even engendered by the sinking of the Prince of Wales; surely things couldn’t be as bad as this? It must be all a dream.
By February 10 the rumble had turned into a series of clearcut explosions intermingled with machine-gun fire. They were in the outskirts of the city. By day billows of brown smoke covered the western horizon where oil tanks had been deliberately set on fire and at night the sky over Singapore was permanently lit by conflagrations. Rumour had it that the enemy had taken the main water reservoirs and if this was true the end must surely be near. There was still a number of quasi-naval ships in the harbour, some armed, some not, and we knew that if the Admiral was going to embark us for a getaway it would have to be soon. I suggested to Terry I should get a list of all the ships and their exact whereabouts so as to be ready, and obtained this from the Naval HQ in the Municipal Building. Captain Atkinson was there, unruffled as ever. Commander Alexander of Penang and other officers.
At last, on February 12, the expected orders came. I sometimes feel that if I never have any more luck for the rest of my life it will only be fate re-adjusting the balance. We fell in on the ground floor of the Oranje Hotel for Terry to go down the ranks with a paper in one hand, which he consulted for the names of ships, while ‘cutting off’ the ratings in batches with the other. Thus were the remaining officers and men of Force Z consigned to death, captivity, or in a handful of cases, freedom, according to the fate of the vessel assigned. There were six I think: the Kung Wo, Ping Wo, Shuan Quan, Tien Quan, Mata Hari and possibly another. I was to see three of them sink; none got through. Terry and I and a hundred men were to go in the Kung Wo, as far as I knew an old China coast steamer pressed into Naval service.
No-one was to embark until the evening and that afternoon we were all employed commandeering tonkans and sampans—that were moored up the river mouth that cuts into Singapore—and securing them along sea-walls. Presumably they were to assist evacuation and some were doubtless used later by enterprising troops. Anyway, it was good employment for the hands, even if not enjoyable having to eject a protesting Chinese family from its home-from-home, ‘cheese-eyes’ (babies), pots, pans, dhobey, dried fish and all. In the middle of this I was shouting directions from a bridge to some sailors below when suddenly surrounded by my friends the Australian soldiers, all saying ‘Where’s he going?’ ‘Can we have one?’ ‘How do we get down there?’
High level bombing of the harbour and dive bombing, I think of Fort Canning, the Army HQ, was incessant the whole afternoon and one worked, as usual, with many an interruption. It was necessary for me to tow some craft to the far end of Keppel Harbour and on return I found the others had gone to join their ships. Presuming that the Kung Wo would need food for its suddenly inflated passenger list, and to collect my few belongings, I went back to the Oranje Hotel, loaded up the car in competition with several other parties, collected my one kitbag and said goodbye to a malacca cane and other treasured but unreasonable articles. A sound habit of recent days of eating whenever the chance presented itself took me into the so-called Wardroom and I was enjoying the pleasures of anticipation, as the froth subsided on a glass of beer, when there was an almighty bang outside, well above the background noise. I was looking out of the window when there was another that shook the building, and a cloud of yellow dust drifted along the street from the left. This was followed by another somewhere behind. People were streaming down the road. The beer was only half gone when a major detonation rocked the whole house, to be followed by the crash of glass and sound of falling masonry. A shell had hit the roof and bits of the big domed skylight were everywhere as, descending the stairs, I congratulated myself on having left the car facing in the right direction.
The ground floor disgorged blaspheming figures, adjusting tin hats and cramming tins of food into pockets. Sub-Lieutenant Wood, who was getting into a lorry he had just taken from some Chinese looters, threw me a crate of beer as I crossed the pavement and in a second I was doing 70 mph past the crashed fighter. The bangs multiplied and I really thought the Japs were close behind. In actual fact I believe it was mortar fire. My destination was Laburnum where the Kung Wo was berthed.
Laburnum presented a scene of activity and no little confusion. MGBs, launches, Fairmiles (large patrol boats) etc, were three or four deep, embarking passengers, gear and provisions. I found the Kung Wo had gone, no-one knew where. She must have sailed earlier than expected and my spirits rose. Instead of being tied to an ancient deathtrap I could now take my pick with a clear conscience of the small, fast, mostly well-armed craft that would stand ten times the chance of slipping through the net the Japanese had undoubtedly spread for us. As I looked around, a small vessel nosed alongside and Dick Beckwith called out cheerfu
lly from her bridge. I had not seen him for weeks and we exchanged a few words. Eventually I picked out a sizeable armoured motor launch bristling with tommy guns and recognised Sub-Lieutenant Dunbar on the bridge. ‘Got room for a passenger?’ ‘Yes of course, come along!’ I unloaded my kitbag and the crate of beer—gratefully received—and got it on board. ‘I’m supposed to be in the Kung Wo’ I said, ‘but thank God she’s sailed.’ ‘Kung Wo?’ said someone, ‘she’s gone down to the coaling wharf; she burns one hell of a lot of coal and with steam up for the last ten days has run very low.’ My heart sank. ‘Are you sure?’ ‘Oh yes’, said my informant casually.
For a moment I was torn in agonising indecision, then I humped my gear ashore again and, saying goodbye to Dunbar, made for the coaling wharf. As it happens, to the best of my knowledge, poor Dunbar and his launch were never heard of again*.
AA guns a few hundred yards away disappeared temporarily in a brown curtain of bomb bursts as I left for Keppel Harbour, giving a lift to two soldiers on the way. The blue sky was permanently speckled with bursts where aircraft dived in ones and twos or droned relentlessly over. In the lulls the background cannonade seemed nearer than ever. I hoped, not for the first time, we had not left it too late and put my foot down. When we came to the docks ‘You’d better slow down here. Sir, this is “the area”’ said one of my passengers, adjusting his tin hat. I did so, remembering my last view of ‘the area’ from beneath the lorry. The enemy were paying even closer attention to the docks than usual; they appeared deserted except for the bobbing heads of Asiatics looting smouldering warehouses, or of soldiers sent to stop them, both of whom peered at one from drains at the side of the road when a mutual sense of discretion sent them to ground. The road was pitted with bomb craters and the atmosphere of deadness was completed by motor vehicles of all kinds that were dotted about, many undamaged. Dropping the soldiers, I took a wrong turning and getting out to look round, saw a large lorry, full to the top with tinned provisions.
Alarm Starboard!: A Remarkable True Story of the War at Sea Page 18