Alarm Starboard!: A Remarkable True Story of the War at Sea

by Geoffrey Brooke

  The ship was located at last, having just completed coaling and ready to go. Terry’s bearded face welcomed me from the rail with ‘Where the hell have you been? We gave you up for lost. You’ve nearly missed the ship!’ I refrained from saying how right he was, took my hands back to the lorry and was busily employed when a voice said ‘Looting eh?’ It was a Captain in the Indian Artillery whom I happened to have met somewhere before. ‘The Navy going?’ he repeated incredulously and then, visibly shaken, helped me to unload. He was pathetically optimistic—someone had told him that the Loyals had pushed the Japs back six miles in the Pasir Panjang district—and I felt very bad as we worked alongside each other, I with some chance, he with none. Eventually I gave him the keys of my car and said goodbye, leaving him looking up at the Kung Wo from the desolate dockside.

  An ancient Yangtse river steamer of about 5,000 tons, very tall and straight with a single thin funnel amidships, she was not unlike a Mississippi steamer at first glance with curious balcony-like protuberances built out over the water. Closer inspection revealed her to be completely unarmed and in superficially poor condition, many near misses having peppered her above the waterline. She had been converted to minelaying (though there were no mines on board) and was nominally Naval, her Captain and the half-dozen officers being reservists.

  Having put my kitbag in an upper deck cabin liberally ventilated with splinter holes, I repaired to the saloon to find Terry, Surgeon Commander Stephenson of the MG and a rather unlikely assortment of civilians including an attractive Chinese girl in blue trousers. She belonged to a party—under the auspices of a Captain Steel who seemed a cheery character—representing the remnants of what is now called the media, accredited to Singapore command. After a few minutes’ enjoyment of the luxury of being served with a drink I found myself prone between the mine rails on the waterline aft, listening to the whine and BRUMF of bombs nearby and feeling the tremor of those that burst in the water. When the ‘All Clear’ sounded, merely a blast on somebody’s whistle, as the local sirens had given up the unequal struggle, I found I had brought a glass of sherry all the way down from the upper deck. We slipped immediately to anchor in the harbour.

  Everyone was in good spirits and supper went with a swing even if it was eaten with no lights and little cutlery. The Chinese girl, who did not lack attention, was called Doris Lim, and had apparently been left in the lurch by her MGM cameraman boss. There was Yates McDaniel, an American of Associated Press, Athole Stewart, an Australian I think of the Public Relations Office, an Australian Flight Lieutenant called Downer and a man called Wellby from the censorship department. So far the Kung Wo had borne a charmed life and we fervently hoped this would continue, especially as it was now only a few hours off Friday the 13th. She had been bombed at Hong Kong before being brought down to Singapore, bombed again at the Naval Base-taking a direct hit just forward of the funnel that had wrecked most of the cabins near the saloon—and narrowly missed several times earlier in the day while coaling. However, she could still do a fairly respectable 14 knots.

  Awaiting the signal to sail—every hour of darkness that went by without it seemed like a nail in our communal coffin—we congregated on the upper deck. The long searchlight beams groped desperately for their tormentors, weaving silver patterns above the mottled pink and black of the glowing, smoking shore. The sea, which should have been her mainstay, threw back the last agony of Singapore in a glittering kaleidoscope. We stood in a row at the rail and watched, our faces lit by the glow, the air foul with the smell of burning. Sometimes a flare-up— demolition—would reveal every expression. There was little talk; I suppose we realised we were watching one of the biggest things of the war. Further disasters, hitherto only speculation, were now certain. The Dutch East Indies would be the next to go, and then what of Australia? Or India? ‘Singapore cannot fall’ … ‘Singapore will not fall’ … It was all terrible. But at least for a serviceman it was but one more example of ‘what we had joined up for’; the plight of civilians was infinitely worse. How would the victorious Japanese behave? One turned from the thought with shudder. At about 21:00 Lieutenant Commander Pickard—who I think was Assistant Harbourmaster—came out in a launch and shouted for information on the numbers on board and number and state of the lifeboats. The answers were 120 naval personnel in all, some 20 non-naval passengers and three boats, all damaged by splinters, at which he went away. Later another launch loomed up containing many women and children; on hearing the state of our boats it too made for another ship.

  Aboard Sederhana Djohanis: Cox, Holwell and Fraser.

  Putting in at the last island for coconuts and water and to land the native crew.

  The sternsheets: Waller, Broome, Gorham, Davis and Lind.

  One of the author’s watercolour paintings depicting Sederhana Djohanis menaced by a waterspout.

  View from bowsprit: Rowley-Conwy on left, author on right.

  The MV Anglo-Canadian stops for us; Campbell has put on uniform for the first time in 37 days.

  Sederhana Djohanis drops astern-not very shipshape!

  By 23:00 several vessels had gone past us and out, and there were none left that we could see. The Captain signalled by lamp to Laburnum for instructions; after some delay a reply came from a motor launch, saying he was alone and waiting to embark Rear Admiral (Malaya). After passing some further information about minefields he suggested that we sailed. I wondered if it was Dunbar*. The anchor was weighed just before midnight, without further orders, but we had apparently been forgotten and the few remaining hours of darkness were now beyond price. Getting clear of the harbour was a tricky business with the many small craft about but at last the Kung Wo was in the open sea and on her way (straight through a minefield, though I did not learn this until later).

  From a distance Singapore was strangely like London in peacetime with the same overhanging ruddy glow. On our other quarter the island oil depot of Blackang Mati was a sheet of flame. This was a night if ever there was one. Comparatively well off as we were, I felt a strong foreboding not allayed by conversation with the Surgeon Commander as we sat in deckchairs before turning in. He said that running the gauntlet to Batavia, our destination in Java, would of course be no joke with the Japs having complete command of the air and sea. If we survived the first bit we would have to pass between Batavia and the enemy-controlled Banka Island. This gap—the Banka Strait—had become known as Dive Bomb Alley and was almost impassable. Although touched on often enough recently, my thoughts on evacuation had never progressed beyond getting on board a ship. Colombo via the Malacca Strait had been the obvious route until lately denied and I had never studied the southern alternative. In fact I was crassly ignorant of the whole area. Stifling uneasiness, I felt I could go into this next day and, after laying out the rubber lifebelt issued, turned in and slept soundly.

  A cold bath was very pleasant at 07:30. It was fortunately over and I was nearly dressed when the ship began to vibrate and I heard the sound of running feet, above, change to an urgent clatter as they came down successive ladders. Two seconds saw me flat on the deck in the passage outside. There was a roar overhead and then the unpleasant period of suspense … Crump, Crump, Crump. The ship shuddered, lurched and then righted again. I thought we had been hit, but all seemed well and someone said ‘Coo—narrow shave!’ At once there was a rush down to the mine flat, which served as a very effective shelter, being three decks down and with steel channels in the deck into which one could wedge oneself. I grabbed my tin hat and followed suit. The place looked like a giant sardine tin, thick with bodies. Some were burrowing among the baggage piled in a corner, though one man stood by a port watching two aircraft. Completely unarmed as the Kung Wo was, it was likely that we would just have to take it, the aircraft going back for more bombs if necessary.

  ‘Coming round again’ said the man at the port and lay down between the rails. Above the laboured breathing one could make out the engines (they were fighter-bombers with small calibre bo
mbs) coming nearer. They increased to a roar. I squirmed a bit closer to the motherly steel rail. Swoosh … CRASH! … The ship shook violently, and a series of minor thuds ensued. I leapt up and went to look at the damage. We were hit amidships, the bomb bursting on the second deck and blowing out the side of the ship and superstructure there, as well as making a gaping hole in the deck. Dust rose all round and up through the breaches. Fortunately very spectacular from the air, but no serious harm done, and no casualties.

  ‘Take cover!’ sent us all dashing back to the mine flat again and a repeat performance. This time they came low and made sure of it. Two heavy shots rang out in quick succession, which turned out to be an enthusiast with an elephant gun, blazing away from the bridge. There was a vivid orange flash, an earsplitting explosion and a wave of scorching air. The deck leapt and bounced under me, showers of metal fragments seemed to clang everywhere and then came the hiss of escaping steam. They had put one, possibly two, almost into the same hole as the first, so that it burst somewhere over the engine room and just forward of the mine flat. Stokers came tumbling up the ladder from below, staggering through the smoke and dust and followed by white clouds of steam. The noise of it escaping became almost unbearable. I went through the steel door and down a few rungs of the engine room ladder but was forced back. The Chief Engineer appeared outside. He was very fat and rather past it, asking ‘What’s happened … What’s happened?’. I went up to the bridge to ascertain the situation. The ship had stopped and had a considerable list to port. Either the first near misses which were just off the stern, or one of the hits, had started her plates and it was presumably a question of time. There was a chain of islands about six miles to the east of us, small, steep and thickly wooded; surf could be seen breaking on the sands of the nearest.

  After flying round us for a good inspection the aircraft made off. All at once the steam stopped, the ensuing quiet seeming strange after the last hectic minutes; the Second Engineer had got down and found the valve, a fine piece of work. The engine damage proved irreparable and we at once set about organising our departure.

  The three boats were lowered in rather unnecessary haste, the first setting off before full up and with no extra provisions. Terry took charge from that moment, which was just as well and not unreasonable—though a passenger, he was the senior officer present. He forbade any baggage beyond a single bundle per man, but the ship’s company had already got at the canteen store and were loading up large cartons of cigarettes until stopped and dispatched for tinned food. Water had appeared in the bilges of the other two boats and as they made for the shore one could see those men not rowing baling furiously.

  Those of us left on baord set to, making rafts and securing them to the side. Barricoes were filled with water—the supply or lack of the latter ashore would determine our fate—and every possible receptacle pressed into service. The scene of confusion was considerable, the ship being mostly wood and very thin, poor steel. Girders and stanchions were twisted into grotesque contortions, bulkheads were riddled with holes, and large sections of the deck were missing. One walked on a carpet of splintered wood, glass and other fragments, in and out among fallen beams and festoons of wire rigging. I half expected her to sink before the boats returned.

  Suddenly there was a cry of ‘fire in the bunker’, a most unhealthy locality, and a chain of buckets was organised. It spread to a pile of wood which had been the middle deck planks and was only accessible from the hole above. This looked serious, but was eventually extinguished. There was no breeze and the heat was terrific. When there was nothing more to do we sat down and discussed the possibilities, which did not help much. The outlook was not good. Even should we make it ashore in the unseaworthy boats there was the small matter of getting away again with the enemy everywhere; they might even be on the island. We were 80 miles from Singapore, 400 from Batavia and some 30 from Sumatra, still, as far as we knew, in Dutch hands. But we were at least fortunate in having land as near as it was and only one casualty. A Chinese foreman had been discovered stiffly upright in a corner of the coal bunker, stone dead with a bit of shrapnel through the temple.

  I went to my cabin and chose what I would take away. It seems incredible that I could have overlooked the value of some things, though I believe other people looking back have found the same. I would have given the earth for an overall or blanket a few hours later, on the first of many encounters with mosquitoes. The war correspondent, McDaniel, provided considerable relief, as he would pop up at the most annoying moments, Leica to eye and notebook ready. This was going to be the biggest scoop of his career!

  The little white boats grew smaller and smaller. We saw the first skirt one island and make for the next. Suddenly the drone of an aeroplane made our hearts sink. Here they were, back to finish us off. It was a single-float seaplane this time. He circled round and round very near. The observer could be seen watching through binoculars, and we walked cautiously round the deck, keeping something in the way in case he should turn bellicose. Apparently satisfied, he flew off to look at the boats. With experience of the Prince of Wales I hoped it might be Japanese policy not to machine-gun boats. We continued to watch anxiously and then to our relief he departed.

  A bottle of hock was discovered and split between the war correspondent, the girl, the RAF and myself, which did not go far, especially as the RAF broke the neck off much too far down, but we drank to the future and hurled the glasses against the saloon mantle-piece—now at an angle of 15 degrees—in the right style.

  After some hours two of the boats could be seen returning, and eventually took us all off, except for the First Lieutenant and half a dozen volunteer seamen, who had to remain. We pulled away from the Kung Wo, baling hard all the time. The tide was out when we made the island. The sun was beginning to set and our figures cast long shadows across the sand as we waded round the boat, trying to pull her in across uncomfortably sharp coral. Someone came splashing out with the welcome news that an Australian soldier had found a stream of good water. This was an enormous relief Things seemed even better when the appointed victualling staff announced that there was three or four days’ supply of tinned food. The beach was backed by jungle, where tropical trees, shrubs and creepers grew in dense profusion, but as far as could be seen there were no coconuts or other eatables on the island.

  After a meal of corned beef and biscuits, we curled up on the sand for the night, with the setting sun a sheet of gold behind the black shape of the ship. Though tired enough, sleep was much interrupted. The recent luxury of mosquito netting had made me forget these tormentors, and I was woken several times by eerie touches here and there which proved to be little hermit crabs. Two or three times we were forced to move further up by the tide, so that morning, heralded by a particularly insistent type of cricket that always starts at the same time, found some of us amongst dead trunks of rotting vegetation.

  It was the strangest awakening I have had, and there were to be many with which to compare it. Birds twittered, the sea lapped a few yards off, and the yellow sand of the very pleasant little bay was littered with stretching figures, all wondering where the hell they were. Worries started immediately.

  Two small, grey, sloop-like vessels were anchored by the next island. The Kung Wo was still out to sea, although she had drifted a little, but our best lifeboat, which had gone out at dusk to take off the remainder of the crew, was nowhere to be seen.

  Suddenly a grey launch put out from one of the other ships and went alongside the Kung Wo. Things looked very black. It could hardly be other than Japanese and had probably been sent to clean us up. Our boat was either captured or had escaped in the dark. We expected to be taken prisoner within minutes. There were too few arms (about a dozen rifles and revolvers) to effect resistance, even if that were advisable, for if we beat them off we should be left to starve on what was expected to be an uninhabited island. Succour from our own people was surely out of the question. Better to eat Japanese rice than none at all! Those w
ho had any began the destruction of documents. I got rid of a letter or two addressed to HMS Prince of Wales as I had heard of Japanese ability to extract information and there might be things about her they wanted to know. We began discussing their treatment of prisoners, little being known beyond their appalling behaviour at Hong Kong.

  The launch was seen to take off the men from the Kung Wo and then make straight for us. That seemed to clinch it. We stood on the beach and waited. All at once our lifeboat rounded a headland close inshore and grounded on the beach. The Second Officer and its crew climbed painfully out, exhausted. They had never got to the ship at all, having been swept away in the dark by a current they had been rowing all night. The launch from the Kung Wo came in as near as she dared, while we scrutinised her minutely. A white-uniformed figure stepped on to the fo’c’s’le and gesticulated; he appeared to be European! Our hearts leaped. ‘Send a boat out’ came to us across the water. It was Monro, the First Lieutenant, who had been left behind the day before.

  The news was unbelievably good. The two other ships were the Kuala and Tien Kuan, fleeing from Singapore and trying to hide from aircraft by day. The launch belonged to a planter evacuating from his estate in Sumatra, who had happened to look in on the Kuala on the way. An officer in the latter had persuaded him to go out and have a look at the derelict Kung Wo, in case there was anybody on board. The planter came ashore (I regret I never learnt his name but I think he was Dutch and he had a beard) and a conference was held. Even as this was going on, to a background of hammering as the beached boats were being plugged and patched with tingles, a steam tonkan—sort of bluff commercial maid-of-all-work—rounded the other point and came in. Her origin is forgotten (if ever known) but she too had come to help. It was decided that as many as possible were to go in the planter’s launch and the tonkan that night to Sumatra, whence Terry would arrange further nocturnal rescue trips by the same or other requisitioned craft. It all seemed too easy. We merely had to wait for the dark. Sumatra was only 30 miles away and, even if in enemy hands, was a vast and friendly country. Eventual onward transport to its west coast, and British ships to India, seemed well in sight. How the situation had changed in the batting of an eye!