Out in the Midday Sun

by Margaret Shennan

  After the outbreak of war, however, it was discovered that this jovial community in Singapore provided a smokescreen for espionage activities. Britain’s natural allies, the Australian and New Zealand forces, acted promptly in occupying the scattered German Pacific colonies in Samoa, New Guinea and the Bismarck archipelago, and Germany’s base at Tsingtao was quickly besieged by the Japanese with British support. But the captured German wireless station of Herbertshohe on Neu Pommern Island (renamed New Britain) provided evidence of how far Germany had anticipated hostilities before the declaration of war.16 A series of wireless stations was already in place; auxiliary ships such as the Comet were equipped with radio installations, as was discovered when she was intercepted off New Guinea. Special land-based offices had been set up in major ports – Tokyo, Tsingtao, Shanghai, Manila, Batavia (Jakarta) and Singapore – under the command of naval officers, in order to gather intelligence, maintain communications and facilitate essential supplies such as coal for steam-powered vessels.

  Suspicion built up that the Dutch, who were technically neutral, were abetting the German naval effort by providing German agents with a safe haven for anti-British activities and by turning a blind eye to their transmission of ship movements. On 1 August, three days before war was declared, Captain Minkwitz of the German freighter Choising quickly left Singapore for the Dutch East Indies, carrying confidential mail from German agents in Singapore which he delivered in Batavia on the 5th. He was allowed to stay in the roads for a month.

  Lillian Newton, who knew many of Singapore’s German-speaking community through her musical connections, had her eyes opened by one curious experience.

  A strange concert we went to at the German Club was one given by the band of a German battleship, when one of the soloists, a sailor, played a xylophone. There was a lady solo pianist, very brilliant, the wife of an employee in a German mercantile firm. When the 1914 war broke out this couple made a quick departure from Singapore. I saw the man in Batavia when I was visiting my Robertson cousins during the war. He was sitting at a table near ours at the Club in Batavia and we were all listening to the band. It was then known that he was a spy, the German mercantile firm was his disguise. He stayed in the Dutch East Indies for the duration of the war. Mother and I often talked about the concert, the wife of the spy, the sailor who played the xylophone, and wondered what had happened to them.17

  So, rightly or wrongly the Dutch appeared to defer to Germany, and the Allies’ suspicion of Mata Hari, the female spy executed by the French for espionage in 1917, was not lessened by the fact that as the wife of a Dutch colonial officer she had lived in the Dutch East Indies from 1897 to 1902. Yet the British authorities, inexperienced in handling a war emergency, were lackadaisical in dealing with enemy residents. Singapore’s German civilians were installed complete with their servants in the Teutonia Club, and the head of Behn Meyer, Herr Diehn, was allowed into town to take care of the company’s affairs. In time the authorities woke up to the error of their ways. These civilians were transferred to Tanglin Barracks as internees, although as middle-class Europeans they were still well treated. In the Federated Malay States measures were equally slack; no attempt was made to confine German civilians until events forced a change of policy. Initially, however, sixty-five German men, women and children were allowed to go about on parole. Later, in 1915, they were brought by ship to Singapore for internment. ‘We treated them with every consideration,’ the officer in charge of the operation confirmed, ‘although of course we had sentries at different places to keep them in one part of the ship and the daily routine was prescribed for them.’18

  However, another section of the alien population – Singapore’s European prostitutes – fared less well than middle-class Germans. As a safety precaution, the authorities halted official recognition of the brothels and closed them down. Roland Braddell accepted the logic. ‘Our European maisons tolérées, which used to play a very essential part behind the scenes of the white settlements in the Orient, were all closed during the Great War, principally owing to the fact that their inhabitants were almost all of enemy nationality.’ So prostitution was driven underground; and the result, according to Braddell, was widespread venereal disease, broken health and ruined careers, even though the image of Singapore and Kuala Lumpur was improved.19

  As it happened, prostitution came briefly under the glare of publicity during the first confrontation of the war in Malayan waters. Shortly after war was declared, the German light cruiser Emden (of football fame), under the command of Captain Karl von Muller, was diverted from the main German East Asiatic squadron in the Pacific, to serve in the Indian Ocean. Like the French corsairs of earlier times, the Emden’s captain had orders to carry out the maximum damage to British merchant shipping. He also hoped to track imperial troop carriers crossing Indian waters, and believed that the presence of a German cruiser off their shores would demoralize the Indian people. In three weeks during September 1914 Muller carried out a series of outrageously successful attacks in the Bay of Bengal. The Emden captured, commandeered or sank eighteen British merchantmen, causing havoc in the sea lanes between Calcutta, Burma and Singapore, and Muller even dared to shell the vital Burmah oil installations in the port of Madras. TheTimes, reporting ‘More successes for the Emden’, published a full list of ships that had fallen victim to the raider. Small wonder that Britain’s naval Commander-in-Chief, China, Vice-Admiral Jerram, was greatly exercised by the need for a blackout on information as vital contingents of Indian, Australian and New Zealand troops were being shipped over to the European zone.20

  While Winston Churchill at the Admiralty fumed at the failure of China Command to anticipate the Emden’s movements, Muller planned his next manoeuvre: a hit-and-run attack on the shipping in Penang harbour, using a camouflage device. It was no secret in Malaya that

  a number of warships, whose mission it was to assist in the hunting down of the Emden and bringing her to book, had their base in the harbour of Penang. These ships were the English cruiser Yarmouth, the Russian cruiser Zemtchug [sic], a small French gunboat … and two or three French torpedo boats. The captain of the Yarmouth apparently took precedence over the Commanders of the other vessels … and when the Yarmouth was in harbour there was strict discipline aboard her, and vigilance was shown not only on her, but on the vessels of the Allied Powers. The Yarmouth, however, often went on extended cruises in the Indian Ocean in search for the Emden, and in her absence matters became very slack indeed amongst the ships left behind. Evidently the captain of the Emden learnt of this state of things from Dutch sympathisers and determined to take advantage of it. This he did in a very sporting way.21

  The German commander planned to pass the observation post overlooking Georgetown in the murky light before dawn and anchor in the man-of-war anchorage. By erecting a fourth funnel of canvas and wood, he hoped that land-based observers would be deceived into thinking the Emden was HMS Yarmouth. Although the Empire was at war, the lights of Penang were still burning, which increased visibility. It was just after 5 a.m. when the cruiser was clearly revealed, flying the Royal Navy’s white ensign. A few minutes later, just before opening fire, the flag was exchanged for German colours (in accordance with the rules of war). A British eyewitness, R. K. Walker, takes up the story:

  I was manager of a Rubber Estate in Klang and had been given a week’s leave in late October. My wife and I decided to go to Penang Hill. We left Port Swettenham on Sunday and arrived on Monday morning by sea in one of the Straits Steam Ships at Penang, and after lunch at the Hotel, we were taken up the hill by coolies and were given a Bungalow named the ‘Dove-cot’. We spent a quiet and peaceful time until the last day, I think it was Saturday the 28th Oct., when we were woken by heavy Gun Fire from the harbour area. I at once slipped on a coat and made for the veranda overlooking the harbour, quickly followed by my Wife. There was a little mist in the harbour, but we were able to see what was happening.22

  At the same time three men sharing
the Medical Officer’s house in Butterworth, across the straits from Penang, were also wakened by the din. Maurice Hillier recalled the scene:

  The first salvo brought us quickly out of our beds, and into the verandah of the house with our field glasses. We had, so far as the dim light permitted, an excellent view of the Harbour … It was obvious that the Zemtchug was being heavily shelled, and we soon came to the conclusion that the other ship was not the Yarmouth but the Emden. During the engagement two shells came over our heads, one pitching on the golf course directly behind our house ploughing a furrow in the turf there and then ricochetting away into the rice fields: the other falling directly in the rice fields … it was generally thought that the two shots … were aimed at the Butterworth Oil Tanks. Personally, I believe that they came from the Russian. They were fired during the fight, and I think the unfortunate crew of the Russian vessel panicked, and fired every available gun they had regardless of the direction of their shots.23

  The Russians were not the only ones to be thrown into confusion when gunfire shattered their sleep. Some of the locals wrongly believed the intended target was the Butterworth tin-smelting works owned by the Straits Trading Company, which was well within gun range. Watchers on Butterworth beach panicked when a shell burst behind them, getting inside the smelter, and some residents of Georgetown were also bemused by the noise. An elderly British woman – ‘a lady of near eighty, of the old pioneer stock, very much a grande dame with her straight figure and shining mass of white hair’ – rushed out of her house in a state of complete confusion and ‘yelled alternately,”I’m shot!” “No, I’m not!”’ On reaching the waterfront she was humiliated to find that she was completely bald and ‘in plain view of all Penang’! The glorious silver wig which had fooled people for years had been left behind in the rush.24

  This personal disaster, however, was nothing compared with that of the Zhemshug. Walker saw

  the Cruiser ‘Emden’ with a ‘Rigged-up’ … Funnel slowly coming from the right firing salvo after salvo with her 4” guns at point blank range at the Russian cruiser ‘Zemshug’, anchored some hundred yards from the harbour, in front of the E. & O. [Eastern & Oriental] Hotel … The noise was terrific.

  The Zhemshug received two devastating torpedoes ten minutes apart, as well as a bombardment of shells which turned her hull into a sieve: ‘the Russian Cruiser … suddenly blew up in dense flame and smoke. She quickly sank, leaving only her masts showing above the water. The loss of life must have been terrible. The “Emden” quickly increased speed and made for the open sea.’25

  The Zhemshug had gone down within fifteen minutes of the first missile striking, with casualties reported to be 89 dead and 123 wounded, of whom many were critically injured.

  Major Arthur Thompson of the Royal Engineers added detail to Walker’s account:

  The ‘Emden’ did not disclose her identity until she opened Fire upon the unfortunate vessel, most of whose officers were on shore. The Captain saw his Ship sink from the E & 0 Hotel Verandah. The Crew were having a great time. The Bodies of a Dozen or more Japanese Girls were amongst those washed on Shore. The ‘Zemchug’ did not have an earthly chance and did not get off a single shot until she sank. The ‘Emden’ steamed round her using both Broadsides until she went down. What the ‘Emden’ did not know or discover, they were so intent on the ‘Zemchug’, was two French Torpedo Boats were tied up at the Wharf within 200 or 300 yards of her when she came round. Unfortunately neither vessel had their Compressed Air up and were unable to fire a Torpedo. A third T-boat, ‘Le Mousquet’, returning from the Watch they were keeping on the German vessels who had taken refuge in the Sabang Bay of Pulo Weh, was met by the ‘Emden’ going out and simply blown out of the Water without leaving a trace.26

  The only survivor, according to Maurice Hillier, was ‘an Annamese sailor, who, clinging to a hen-coop, was washed ashore on the Province Wellesley coast’.27

  Meanwhile, Hillier later reported, one of the Butterworth observers – a Mr Ballantyne, Secretary of the Penang Harbour Board and a member of the Penang Volunteers – knew that ‘it was his duty to report himself immediately at the Volunteer Headquarters in Penang. He had struggled into his uniform as quickly as possible, and started for the pier at Butterworth, hoping to find some means of crossing, when to his surprise the Ferry Boat arrived.’ The indifference of some of the Asians to the sight of European naval guns blazing across the harbour caught the British by surprise:

  the Ferry boat which, morning after morning, left Penang to cross to Butterworth at twenty minutes to five, crossed at the usual time although this naval fight was proceeding in the harbour only a few cables’ length away … he [Ballantyne] went on board and commandeered her to go to the assistance of the drowning men. To this both the Malay ‘Nakhoda’ (skipper) and the Chinese supercargo strenuously objected, but by threatening them with his bayonet he made them obey him, and he picked up and took to Penang twenty-two of the Russian crew. Many others were rescued by launches and boats from the Penang side and all were taken to the Hospital. Many Penang ladies immediately gave their services in assistance to the Hospital staff in this emergency, and pyjamas and other clothing were requisitioned by telephone from numerous male residents.28

  Another who had gone to the help of the sailors was the senior harbour pilot at Penang. As soon as the Emden disengaged, Captain William Brown moved in:

  I took a launch over the spot where the Russian had sunk, nosing it into a clear patch among the floating living and the dead. Boats had rushed from the shore and the shipping. I picked up twenty men, one of them in five piece, hanging together by threads of muscle, yet still alive. The Emden stood off and watched while the rescued men were landed and the dead placed in rows on the quay.29

  As a member of the Volunteer Coastal Defence Service, Brown was ashamed that ‘The town and harbour were at Muller’s mercy.’ But there was no time to brood. He had to locate and warn the Penang patrol launch, Sea Gull:

  Not a very comfortable job … but as it happened, just as my launch left the quay, the Emden unexpectedly got under way, and moved ahead of me to the north. I steamed in her wake. Muller it seemed, was not disposed to waste a shell on the pilot launch, and ignored me … his cruiser put on speed as she neared the open water. Her guns roared again, and we ducked.30

  The victim proved to be the little Sea Gull, but, although she was damaged, she managed to make the shelter of the Penang shore. On her way out, the Emden had also fired across the bows of a Glen Line steamer entering port, but then allowed it to carry on unharmed. It was quickly obvious to the Butterworth observers and the pilot, continuing his pursuit, that the cruiser had the French torpedo boat in its sights. They saw the Emden catch her main target just after 7 a.m. Unable to match the Emden’s guns, the unfortunate Le Mousquet was ‘battered into shapelessness’ and went down, as Major Thompson confirmed. As was his custom, Muller ordered his boats to pick up any survivors.31

  The Walkers, meanwhile, ended their holiday and came down from Penang Hill to stay overnight at the E. & O. Hotel. Their curiosity was aroused when they saw the other guests:

  During meals we noticed the Russian Captain and his Wife of the ill-fated Cruiser, were staying at the same Hotel, both seemed much distressed. Later on in the day we left Penang by one of the SS Co’s Ships for Port Swettenham and found the Russian Captain and his wife aboard proceeding to Singapore. What happened to them we never heard.32

  Major Thompson knew rather more of the sequel. ‘Baron Clodt, a Russian naval aide-de-camp to the Czar, came out to conduct an Enquiry. He cut a dazzling figure, White Uniform, Gold Epaulettes, Aigulettes [sic], Sword, Belt and Decorations.’33 The Baron presumably had no difficulty in establishing the facts, for it was observed by a number of prominent people in Penang that the Captain of the Zhemshug, Baron Cherkassov, ran a slovenly ship. By absenting himself from the vessel, he condoned inefficiency and dereliction of duty in his officers, while the corpses of the Japanese prostitutes were e
vidence of poor discipline board. At any rate, a Vladivostok naval court in 1915 found Cherkassov guilty of gross negligence and he received a sentence of 31/2 years in a house of correction, losing his decorations, his rank of Admiral and his status as a member of the Russian nobility.

  The episode showed that, far from being on a war footing, Penang’s defences were totally inadequate to withstand the kind of attack that had damaged Madras. On the other hand, a single ship – even one with an exceptional commander – could not keep up the initiative indefinitely. Even before Muller’s raid on Penang the British had scored a heartening success against him. On 12 October, HMS Yarmouth had caught his two coal supply-ships, the Markomannia and the Greek-owned Pontoporus, off the Dutch-Sumatran island of Simaloer. The Markomannia was sunk and sixty Germans were taken prisoner, including fourteen of the Emden’s men who were aboard the Pontoporus at the time. The Yarmouth transported the captured crew back to Penang, and later they were taken on to Singapore. A second piece of luck came two months later, on 11 December, when the armed merchant cruiser Empress of Japan sighted the British collier Exford, known to have been captured earlier by Muller’s ship. This time seventeen former Emden crewmen were seized. They included Lieutenant Julius Lauterbach, a burly one-time master of a Hamburg-America liner, who knew the China Sea and Singapore like the back of his hand. The Empress took the Exford back to Singapore, and on 15 December the German prisoners were marched off to join the German civilian internees in Tanglin Barracks.