by David B Hill
It was a smaller group that arrived at the Naval base at Portland on the south coast of England for final training in new Fairmile motor launches. Len, Tim, Jackie Hayward and Jack Kindred were billeted in Brixham over a five-week period, and because they had to wait for delivery of their boats, they obtained leave and rail passes and travelled all over Devon and Cornwall, from Exeter to Land’s End, Penzance and Newquay. Tim even made them go to Mousehole, just to see why it qualified for the name.
When the Fairmiles were finally delivered, they went to sea, and for three weeks they worked up their skills in this new class of high-speed wooden-hulled motor launch, executing search and rescue, escort and anti-submarine patrols. By the end of October they were ready for active service. They had come a long way from the Hauraki Gulf and the Wakakura. When they finally embarked for the Far East, they were filled with self-belief and high expectations.
First, though, the Kiwis had to travel north again, back to Glasgow, where their convoy was assembling. By now Len had developed an affection for the English countryside and took simple pleasure in gazing quietly out at the passing scenery. The others were similarly quiet, no longer the boisterous colonials, but mature realists with combat experience and a stoical appreciation for the meaning of duty. The hedgerows and neatly groomed fields spread out to the skyline on either side of the train. The ploughed soil and rich array of gold, brown and red that coloured woods and coppices heralded the arrival of winter. When they reached the Clyde they couldn’t believe their good fortune to find themselves boarding MV Aorangi for the voyage. Aorangi was familiar as a liner on the New Zealand passenger run. Built in 1924, she had accommodation to rival Aquitania. The Kiwis wasted little time settling in and getting familiar with the ship’s amenities. They were a small part of the Coastal Services draft of four Fairmile crews, fifty-six men, who had to share space with over 2000 other military personnel on board Aorangi. Until departure, they had no idea how many ships might be involved in the convoy, which was called WS.12Z.
WS.12Z sailed on 12 November. Two troopships carried over 4000 soldiers of the British 53rd Infantry Brigade, a small cargo vessel carried ammunition and ordinance, and Sussex had fifty Hurricane fighter aircraft on board, all still in their crates lashed to the decking, as well as twenty-four pilots and other air force personnel to maintain them. This small group of vessels was defended by a changing force of warships and shepherded between rendezvous points, arriving in Freetown thirteen days later. There, the men were not allowed to disembark. By its very nature they knew the convoy was heading for a potential combat zone, and their confinement only heightened the tension. After three days, the convoy continued on towards Durban.
Every day had its routines during the voyage: watch routines, drill routines and routines of eating and exercise. Over three weeks into the voyage, at around midday on 08 December, the men were surprised to be called to muster on deck for a public address. They were even more surprised when a message from the fleet commander was broadcast over the convoy’s Tannoy. Japan had entered the war! There was momentary hubbub as the message was absorbed and understood. In the lull that followed, it was announced further that Singapore itself had been attacked and that the convoy was proceeding with all caution. Instantaneously uproar broke out again, as the ramifications of this were relayed throughout the crowd, and then they were dismissed.
The convoy sailed on, exercising due caution, and eleven days later on 19 December, it arrived in Durban. The men had now been at sea for five weeks – almost as long as the voyage from New Zealand – yet they had travelled only half the distance.
This time they were allowed ashore. They revelled once more in the warmth of the climate and the hospitality of the local people. Dressed in their tropical Number Twos, they ambled along the Durban waterfront, wandered through markets and shopping streets, sat in parks and drank coffee before midday and beer after, but all with uncharacteristic restraint and solemnity. They had a greater sense of themselves now, as being more than simply sailors. They had begun to see themselves as seamen, entirely comfortable on the seven seas.
In Durban they learned of the sinking of the Prince of Wales and Repulse north of Singapore on 10 December. The news had been kept from them in the belief that to acknowledge such a loss so soon in the campaign would affect morale. The two great warships had been sunk by the Japanese as soon as they had put to sea, ill-defended and without any air cover.
‘Fuck me,’ Jack Kindred muttered under his breath when they heard the news.
The loss of the two capital ships eliminated the British Navy’s control in the region; it was a blow against empire that destroyed its cutting edge. The sea now belonged to the Japanese, a fact not lost on the sailors. The survival of British territorial and commercial ambitions in the Far East now relied solely on Fortress Singapore.
Then came news of the sinking of Neptune.
On the same day the men had arrived in Durban, 19 December, Neptune had struck a mine off the Libyan coast. Disabled, the light cruiser had drifted further into the minefield, hit a second mine and blown up. There was only one survivor. Among the 764 men who perished were 150 New Zealanders, many of them men from Ngapona. The news did not impact on the convoy at large, but it had a significant impact on the New Zealanders. While no one knew the detail, all knew somebody among the crew, and Len for one sat somewhere between disbelief that so many close friends had perished and the grim realisation that it might happen to him at any time.
On the last day of their shore leave, Len, Tim, Jack Kindred and two of their new English mates, Harry Swift and Johnno, a motorman, met once more near the public gardens for a beer. There they were approached by a local African rickshaw driver, a tall, strapping Zulu dressed in native garb: a black warrior with a horned headdress, who offered them a ride. At first they resisted, not wanting to demean the man, but he persuaded them that this was the way he earned a living. He explained that the deal also included their photograph, taken by a confederate conveniently stationed nearby. Somewhat reluctantly, they positioned themselves on and around the rickshaw, but recent events had cast a sombre mood over them all, and Len, for one, found no reason to smile for the camera.
The price turned out to be for one photograph. Since there were five sailors, the debate about the cost for the extra photographs became vigorous, which enlivened them hugely. In the end, they had a copy each when they returned to Aorangi late in the afternoon. That night, 24 December 1941, they sailed for Singapore.
★ ★ ★
The departure was businesslike and without excitement. Len and Tim found their way to a spot beneath a lifeboat, similar to the one where Len and Haami Parata had sat together on the Aquitania. Durban was blacked out, and as they sat silently watching, they could sense more than see the mass of Africa diminish and disappear in the night.
For several days, the convoy was shepherded cautiously across the Indian Ocean towards its final destination. They were joined one night by another troopship carrying almost 5000 more men, from the British 18th Division. Now designated DM.1, this group left the protection of Attu Atoll on 05 January, and on 10 January a fleet of eleven Allied warships met the convoy to escort it for the last days of the voyage. These ships represented one of the first operational responses of the newly formed American British Dutch Australian force, otherwise called ABDA. It included four ships from the Royal Netherlands Navy, one from the Royal Indian Navy and the British light cruiser Exeter, and the Kiwis cheered at the sight of the Australian frigate Vampire. The convoy crossed the Andaman Sea heading east towards the Malay peninsula, using Sumatra as a defensive shield against detection and attack for as long as they could.
January was monsoon season, and the Andaman Sea was an intolerable place of impossible humidity and blinding rainstorms. Almost three weeks had passed at sea as the convoy had ranged slowly closer and closer to its destination, cautiously seeking to avoid any contact with the enemy. Now the proximity to land was beginning to be felt.
Pressure systems built and vented. Typically monstrous black clouds roiled vigorously overhead, releasing downpours of heavy rain that came straight down and made the surface of the sea seem to boil before suddenly stopping, when the sea would become oily and flat calm. As the convoy neared its destination, the continuous presence of heavy cumulonimbus weighed oppressively on all the men, who sweated from every pore. Whenever they were able, they made for the upper decks, trying to gather some relief. Standing in the rain was a pleasure.
The ships entered the Malacca Straits on full alert when the call to action stations suddenly came. On board Aorangi there had been drills, but it was quickly understood that this was no drill. They were now well within range of Japanese aircraft. Len and Tim went below deck when the attack began, behind watertight doors, and listened to the sound of bombing and anti-aircraft fire. The assault was short and sharp, and they could do nothing but hang on.
★ ★ ★
The convoy finally arrived at the Straits Settlement on 13 January, when Aorangi passed through the anti-submarine boom and entered Keppel Harbour.
Few of the men knew much about Singapore, which had begun life as a fishing village at the foot of the Malay Penninsula. Len and the other New Zealanders did understand its strategic importance, lying as it did midway on the trade route between Britain and its remote Dominions. And virtually all maritime traffic between Asia and Britain and Europe passed through Singapore. The value of this trade was enhanced by rich deposits of tin and the development of rubber plantations in Malaya itself. While the port and the rubber were substantial prizes for any invader, their loss to Britain would have been incalculable.
In peacetime, the city had flourished as an outpost of Empire, sustaining a cosmopolitan population of native Malays, Chinese and Indians, as well as a wealthy class of British government officials and expatriate merchants and entrepreneurs. At its heart was the busy port. Along the shoreline stretched a field of green, home to the Singapore Cricket Club, and behind that a number of fine civic buildings, including the Supreme Court building with its conspicuous dome easily visible from the harbour. Nothing expressed the triumph of British colonialism more than Raffles Hotel, with its sparkling white facade, linen-suited clientele and decadent atmosphere of cheroots and stengahs. Beyond this impressive centre a sprawl of mostly wooden dwellings, home to Singapore citizens of all ethnicities, stretched out to the edge of the jungle.
Now, in wartime, the old order was being demolished by Japan, intent on expanding its own sphere of influence. In the five weeks since the attack, the Japanese had enjoyed supremacy in the air battle. It seemed that outmoded British aircraft and poor planning had failed to prevent the enemy from bombing the city with impunity; they arrived punctually every day at the same time to do so. Bombers in flights of nine, eighteen, twenty-seven or more systematically carpeted the city’s harbours and their defences with high explosives or incendiaries. All this became dramatically clear when Len and the others prepared to disembark.
There was a large anti-aircraft battery located right beside the dockyard gates. The men saw destroyed and damaged buildings that blazed in and around the dockyard, sending thick smoke skyward to further inflate a huge grey cloud anchored like a dirigible in the sky over the city. Gunners manned anti-aircraft emplacements, and two ambulances stood on the wharf with their doors open.
Lining the rail prior to disembarking, Len and Tim gazed out over the scene. The smoke and destruction wasn’t unfamiliar. The scale of it was though. They were landing into a war zone.
Tim spoke. ‘I think I preferred the old war.’
Len nodded. ‘This looks like a land war to me.’
Tim nodded back. ‘It looks like a short war to me.’
★ ★ ★
On disembarking, the Coastal Services men reported to the local Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve base Laburnum, where a Staff Officer, Commander Pendarvis Frampton, controlled all coastal patrol boat operations. The Laburnum was a relic of the Great War and survivor of the China Station, an old sloop that did not look so out of place moored among the smoking wreckage and the other battle-worn small vessels crowding the Telok Ayer dockside for servicing. The men who drew up on the wharf came from various sources. The four crews sent from Britain discovered how much had changed during their voyage. Malay seamen had been released already from service on the patrol boats, on compassionate grounds, and their places taken by survivors of Prince of Wales and Repulse, who were now standing among them. They also discovered that a number of the officers standing at the rail of Laburnum were Australian or New Zealand members of the Volunteer Naval Reserve.
From the rear rank of the assembly, Len scanned the officers facing him. One of the New Zealand officers seemed familiar. He discreetly nudged Tim and whispered out the side of his mouth, ‘I think I know that bloke.’
Tim waited a moment before risking a reply. ‘Which bloke?’
‘The short bloke.’
‘They’re all bloody short.’
‘Quiet at the back!’ bellowed a Chief Petty Officer, standing beside the officers on the deck.
The two stood impassively, staring straight ahead with the rest of the assembled group. After a few more moments, Len whispered again. ‘The one on the left.’
Tim allowed his eyes to stray to the left, and surreptitiously surveyed a shortish man in his late twenties, who looked back over the group with a keen interest in his eyes and a half smile on his face, apparently pleased at what he saw. Tim thought he too had seen this person before. ‘Must be from home.’
They listened while a Royal Navy officer addressed them. They heard how they were now part of Britain’s Far East defence strategy, tasked with patrolling the waters of coastal Malay, and that they were to be the eyes and ears of Fortress Singapore, guarding against infiltration. It sounded soft; the word ‘invasion’ didn’t enter the speech, but to most the message was implicit. The role was dangerous, and it was vital. The brief ceremony was concluded, the men brought to attention and dismissed.
‘Hey, you two!’
A number of people turned towards the speaker, including Len and Tim. The man caught their eye. It was the officer they thought they had recognised.
‘Yes, you two!’
The three came face to face in the middle of the dispersing crowd. The two able seamen stiffened and saluted their superior.
‘At ease, at ease,’ he said. ‘Johnny Bull. Don’t I know you two?’ He thrust out his hand to each in turn. ‘You’re RNZVR?’
‘Yes, sir. Len Hill.’
‘Gidday. Tim Hill.’
‘Kiwis. Brothers?’
‘Nah, mate. There’s a few others in this mob too. Kiwis, I mean,’ Tim added.
Johnny cast his eye around the mob and back to the two younger men, his hands on his hips, his cap pitched just slightly to the back of his head.
‘You’ve come from England. You must be Second Echelon. Ngapona boys. Wait a minute. I know! You two were in the pinnace race on Anniversary Day. Beat us by a couple of lengths! The Squadron,’ he said, gesturing towards himself and some other officers: gentlemen sailors of the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron. ‘We never did train like you fellows.’
‘That’s right,’ said Len. ‘I knew I had seen you before.’
‘You were on the tiller,’ said Johnny, looking at Len. ‘I couldn’t get out from under you for more than a moment. It was a great day’s racing.’
The three men stood smiling, reflecting on the memory, then Johnny stiffened. He told them how he was among the thirty-two New Zealanders in Scheme Y: older, experienced yachtsmen commissioned and sent to Singapore to help command the coastal defences.
‘Been here for over a year now, and this has become a real mess. It’s no use pretending. We are going to have plenty to do. Your sailing mate is up the coast somewhere on survey. You two need to watch yourselves: these Japs mean business. I’ll see you later.’
Did he mean Jack? As he walked away, Len looked at Tim and
winked. ‘How about that, eh? Seems like a decent sort of bloke.’
Tim grunted, ‘Yeah, well, I hope they all know what they’re doing.’
With that the two picked up their kit and headed to the Navy office to find out what vessel they would be sailing.
★ ★ ★
To their delight, Len and Tim were immediately assigned to crew one of two Fairmile Motor Launches, ML310 and ML311. These boats were in the service of the Singapore Harbour Board and had been in the water barely a month. They were of wooden construction, 112 feet in length, and powered by two huge twelve-cylinder petrol engines developing 1260 horsepower. They were bigger and faster than the two other Harbour Defence Motor Launches, HDML1062 and HDML1063, and carried twice the armament. The Fairmiles were the very boats these men would have chosen to fight their war.
Len, Tim and Jackie joined ML310’s crew of sixteen. Apart from their Commanding Officer, Sub-Lieutenant Maynard, the crew included Malcolm Henderson from the Royal Australian Naval Volunteer Reserve as Executive Officer. Henderson had spent most of 1941 in England training under Scheme Y and had only recently arrived in Singapore as a Sub-Lieutenant himself. A number of sailors were from the Royal Navy, including Motor Mechanic Petty Officer ‘Johnno’ Johncock, and the Coxswain, Andrew ‘Jock’ Brough, a twenty-one-year-old fisherman from Kirkaldie in Scotland. These two had considerable experience as seamen. There were also Irishmen, including Dubliner Ronnie Johnson. Jack Kindred went to ML311, and the rest of the Coastal Services complement were dispersed either to ML311 or to the HDMLs 1062 and 1063.
As the crew boarded ML310, air-raid sirens began to wail to the north, on the other side of the island. When everyone had boarded, Malcolm Henderson addressed them.
‘We need to get the boat off the pier and onto an anchorage in the roads. If they come here …’. He hesitated. ‘When they come here, we sure as hell don’t want to be sitting around. If anything else happens, we want to be first out the door.’
