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

by Geoffrey Brooke

  Our part in this was soon foreshadowed by the receipt of a thousand camp beds, a thousand deck chairs, mountains of relevant stores-including 6,000 bottles of beer—and, to the astonishment of all except Ruckers who had organised it, 21 attractive nurses and four ditto female Red Cross workers. To cope with the sick, these were accommodated right aft in the Admiral’s quarters under the aegis of Philip O’Rorke (officially Liaison Officer with the Female Staff, but soon shortened to The Chief Eunuch).

  However, before getting down to this new role, there was some letting up to be done, including a few days’ leave. I had a wonderful time with the Osborne family at Currandooly before the ship left Sydney, riding, swimming and eating. There was even a fox shoot but in this I hardly excelled; as my sights came up to a copper flank I saw in my mind’s eye a scarlet horseman raise his cap on the skyline and fired to miss, preferring to be considered a hopeless shot rather than a madman brought up not to shoot foxes!

  HMS Formidable

  10/10/45

  We are just getting into Sydney having been up to Manila to collect 1,000 Australian and 100 British prisoners of war. We didn’t get ashore at Manila. We have no aircraft onboard and are doing a sort of pleasure cruise which has gone very well though quite hard work, I am in charge of the 100-odd officers and their arrangements, which has kept me busy. They are in better shape than we expected though treatment seems to have varied to extremes from one camp to another. Some of them are fit and others almost skeletons. Only a few lucky ones who could pinch food have had anything but boiled rice for four years. I heard that the POW Midshipmen from the Exeter (ex-Prince of Wales) were OK, also Colonel Warren (up to a year back), but no news of any of the people in Sumatra with me, although we are not by any means the only ship doing this.

  One little man came up to me and said wasn’t I the officer in charge of the ferry boat from Penang to Port Swettenham after the evacuation of Penang? We had a long talk. He was a Corporal in the RAOC. Apparently the Japs were absolutely down and out, the POWs got no less food than the civilian population, and the civilians were kind to the POWs when they could be and were very glad when the war ended. On the whole the chances of Japan being reformed seem good. I did my chair act at two concerts. The Aussies loved Uncle Atty’s “Once before death and twice afterwards” story!

  When the last man had eventually disappeared ashore we felt both emotionally drained and glad to have known them; what we found both noble and surprising was a lack of bitterness against the Japanese. This was an attitude which I myself found impossible to adopt when there was news of daring raids which had been carried out on Japanese shipping in Singapore harbour, secret until now. As I read I became rooted to the spot. It was all about Ivan Lyon, Lieutenant Colonel, DSO, MBE (who will be remembered, as a Captain, as having won the respect and affection of us all, though none more than me, in Sederhana Djohanis); one of Colonel Warren’s Special Operations Executive men (the MBE had been awarded for his organisation of the Indragiri escape route), Ivan had at once started to plan a raid—using limpet mines to be stuck to hulls—on shipping in Singapore. Meanwhile his wife and little son had arrived safely in Australia (from Singapore) and he asked her to join him in India. Very persuasive, he had soon obtained the ear of General Wavell and thus backed, took himself to Australia, the obvious base for the projected raid. Having countermanded his first cable to his wife he arrived, in July 1942, to find that not only had she already left but that her ship had been sunk and both of them taken prisoner by the Japanese.

  With Jock Campbell (also of Djohanis) in charge of administration, and using an old ex-Japanese fishing vessel rechristened Krait, he raised, by force of personality and at the outset somewhat against Army inclination, a sort of seagoing commando force. This was mainly of Australians but included all sorts of officers and men with suitable characteristics. After months of intensive training they sailed—it was September 2 1943 by this time—from a small port on the west coast, carrying four special canoes. After many alarms they arrived unsuspected at Pohm-Pohm of all places. Earmarked earlier by Ivan, this was the next island to mine and where Kuala and Tien Kuan had been bombed with such dreadful results (they did, in fact, see the mast of one still protruding and when landing found .303 ammunition, food tins and other evidence of the last unfortunate visitors). Pohm-Pohm was to be the pick-up point a fortnight later.

  The Krait took three of the canoes and their crews to another island nearer Singapore, landed them and withdrew. Setting off on the night of September 27, the canoes entered Keppel Harbour and all attached their mines successfully (Ivan Lyon and AB Huston were surprised in the act and actually watched by a Japanese seaman for some time). Getting away safely, though not without incident, all returned to the advance base to hear their mines explode. (Pictures of them on this island were to appear in the Illustrated London News. One shows Ivan nonchalantly studying Singapore shipping through a telescope; I could imagine how in a tense moment he would have been asked his opinion and the answer—‘I keep an open mind’.) The Krait duly picked them up at Pohm-Pohm and got clean away, though the hue and cry can be imagined. She anchored whence she had came after 5,000 miles and 47 days away. Some 39,000 tons of Japanese shipping had been sunk. Lyon, Lieutenant Davidson, RANVR, and Lieutenant Page, AIF, received DSOs, three ABs DSMs and Krait’s crew two MMs and several Mentions in Despatches.

  The following year Ivan Lyon put more ambitious plans into motion. The success of ‘Jaywick’, as the operation had been called, smoothed the way and this time he was given a submarine, HMS Porpoise, to do the infiltrating. When she sailed almost exactly a year after Krait had done, the object was much the same. Porpoise landed the canoes and retired, to return on November 8. No-one knows exactly what happened because not a man survived. Lyon, Davidson, a Lieutenant Ross and several others died fighting one of the many Japanese parties that were scouring the area. The remaining ten were rounded up piecemeal and put in Outram gaol in Singapore. They were tried as spies because they were not wearing uniform. The story of the magnificent behaviour of this gallant, tragic little band is a saga that was never given the publicity it should have been, at least in the UK. They could have saved their lives by making degrading admissions, but none would (a Royal Marine Major, R.N. Ingleton, and Lieutenant Page, were now the leaders). After being kept in captivity for months all were beheaded on July 7 1945, only a few weeks before the Japanese capitulated. Their bearing during their last days and at the end was so good that the Japanese Commander in Chief, General Itagaki, addressing the full staff of his Army said: ‘We Japanese have been proud of our bravery and courage in action, but these heroes showed us a fine example of what true bravery should be. Unless we try much harder to make ourselves better soldiers, we ought to feel ashamed of ourselves before these heroes’.

  I was thankful that poor Ivan (who was, in fact, recommended for the VC) did not have to endure the last drawn-out chapter. I may be maligning it, but his regiment seems to have taken very little notice.

  There was an immediate and poignant sequal to this news of Ivan.

  HMS Formidable

  Sydney, 24/10/45

  … I also dined with the Lyons. Mrs Lyons mentioned a young woman she’d met who had just got back from a POW camp with a small boy, both of them having been caught in a liner going to India. I said it must be Mrs Lyon (wife of the Gordon Highlander in the prauw) and it was. He is now missing since November, having been doing very dangerous sabotage work against ships in Singapore. The Japs say they shot him in November and as there is no reason to disbelieve them, I’m afraid it’s true. However, I contacted Mrs Lyon, who is a very pretty Frenchwoman, and gave her some prauw photographs and a copy of the story which I also told her. She is very brave but realises there is not much hope I think. He arrived in Australia five days after she left (in 1942). Isn’t it a tragedy?

  I expect you have heard my news … Everyone has been very nice about it. Admiral Vian congratulated us and said to me ‘You certa
inly earned yours’. We had a cocktail party on board soon after to which I invited half a dozen friends and T. and I went out to dinner, etc, afterwards. Went for a sail with some friends of Robin’s, the Parkers, and have been up to Aunt Nell often. She had a very good dance which was especially put off for me because the ship was late getting in.

  We are sailing today for Rabaul, Singapore, Madras, Batavia and Sydney in that order. Taking Indian ex-POWs from Rabaul to Madras and afterwards Indian soldiers from India to Batavia. We call at Singapore to oil and I shall, of course, do my best to get ashore.

  A sideboy from the Officer of the Watch had come to say that there was a lady with a small boy to see me on the quarterdeck. On the way I braced myself for the possibility of an emotional trial. I had been pretty upset about poor Ivan and goodness knows what sort of state his widow must be in. I found a charming young Frenchwoman with a delicate oval face under swept-back hair, who spoke with an attractive accent (that in fact never left her). She introduced herself and her four-year-old Clive—who clung to her hand with both of his—in an altogether calm and dignified way. I was selfishly thankful to find she knew all there was to know about her husband. She talked about him quietly and told me her future plans; her parents—her father was Governor of the Condore Islands—had been murdered by the Vichy French just before the war with Japan*; she was going to Ivan’s parents in England as soon as possible. I, who should have been a help, was almost tongue-tied with the pathos of it all. She had indeed missed her husband by a hair’s breath, spent over three years in a prison camp in Palembang in conditions of terrible privation and shortage of food, only to be released to hear of his death. Her son was timid and thin but did not look unwell and obviously this heroic little Amazon had done her very best for him. She was not without a sense of humour even now, and my admiration was only equalled by the frustration of being able to do very little for her as we were leaving almost at once to collect Indian soldiers at Rabaul†.

  From there we doubled back round the south of New Guinea and then struck westwards between Java and Borneo. Islands were often in sight on one side or the other, long stretches of palm blending into streaks of green or dark grey depending on the direction of the sun, and sometimes steep mountains behind; the whole confection, mirrored in limpid water, certainly took me back. And so did a day at Singapore.

  HMS Formidable

  6/11/45

  We are now between Singapore and Ceylon (going to Bombay), a journey I seem to remember having done before. I had an intensely interesting day at Singapore from 11 am to 10 pm. It was really like walking round in a dream seeing it all again, very little changed, and with the effect increased by the number of things seen in the short time as I certainly got about. I had a great stroke of luck as I met a Pay Lieutenant Reeve in the Naval Office, who had been the Drafting Commander’s Assistant at the FSA and now in charge of the docketing of particulars of people missing, etc, as compiled by released POWs.

  I found that all the people at Padang of my party were put in a camp in Sumatra. Poor Beckwith, Terry and Wood are unheard of—Beckwith almost certainly dead—in fact Terry too as he sailed from Padang (as I thought) in a ship that was torpedoed with one survivor, a Brigadier, who made Batavia and died there. Monro, the 1st Lieutenant of the Kung Wo (on the island with me and later went off to pilot a junk to Sumatra) was also taken prisoner (now released).

  Comander Reid (who detailed me for the raid on the Jap lines) was senior officer of one of the worst camps (at Palembang, Sumatra) and is a byword for his superb courage and leadership among all POWs. Apparently whenever he heard or saw one of the POWs being beaten or roughly handled he would go and put himself between the Jap guards and the man concerned, invariably getting the beating as well himself, until in the end they began to respect him and desisted. Our (BPF) pilots who were shot down over Palembang (when I was in Indom) were shot.

  I think I told you about Lyon. I found my own name and particulars all correct in this book, up to leaving Padang of course. Reading all those names and lists of ships sunk and accounts of horrors both of people who got away before, at the same time, and after me, it is hardly believeable that I escaped. I had hoped we’d pass close to my island but we had to take a roundabout route due to mines.

  Captain X, who got away from the island in the first boat, when asked by Reeve what had happened to Monro said that the latter had been drinking and they had fallen out. If I’d had time I’d have gone round and given him a nasty interview. Perhaps we shall go back there again. Captain Atkinson (Captain of the Dockyard, Singapore) was shot by Australian soldiers when trying to stem a rush on the liner Empire Star. They took her by force and made the crew sail to Batavia. Commander Livingstone (with Atkinson when I last saw them) got to Sumatra but was murdered there by natives who thought he was Dutch. Admiral Spooner and the AOC died of malaria on an island south of Singapore where they had landed after being sunk. The Sub of the Repulse was taken prisoner but is OK. The Surgeon Commander in the Kung Wo (whose car I was nearly shot for stealing) died or was killed in Sumatra, or he may have gone with Terry.

  Anyhow, this chap Reeve told me where to get transport and I went in a sort of shooting brake up to the Naval Base by the Bukit Timah road (down which the Japs advanced on Singapore) I looked all over the FSA which was in good order and used as a barracks again, surprisingly the MAA by remarking that I’d spent many an uncomfortable night under his table! (His office was my passive defence HQ) and also saw the dockyard which had parts of it smashed by Super Fortress bombing. I then came back to Singapore in the evening by the old road down the centre of the island. The native lights were coming out among the trees, and what with the warm sweet smell and the chickens just escaping in time and the black driver beside me it was almost as if the last three or four years had never taken place.

  I went to the Oranje Hotel and looked in my old room. The place where a shell had hit the skylight was still just boarded over!

  The hotel where I had lunch was where Terry and I had an Xmas ‘do’ in December ’41, albeit rather a depressing one. Singapore as a whole is in very good order. All the Japs are in huge camps in Johore to the north, behaving very well. Apparently it is just as well we didn’t have to take the place by storm, which I had thought would have been a very good thing, as they would have (a) razed it to the ground and (b) massacred all POWs and civilian internees. The Malays and Chinese were very pleased to see us back. It was a very full day for me and I nearly secured a Japanese sword, only the officer who dispenses same hadn’t arrived at his office so I couldn’t wait! Sounds like the good old story again.

  One thing I had meant to do at Singapore which I forgot was to leave ‘my’ cowhide boots (in which I walked out of the place) at the FSA. They had belonged to a Surgeon Lieutenant Commander Schofield who I have since discovered was the Durban’s doctor. They ended up by serving me very well in action on the flight deck until the heat melted the soles.

  As the Formidable nosed her way among the crowded shipping in Singapore Roads and came gingerly to anchor, the gruff monotone of running cable had sounded for me like the last notes of a very long march. Singapore—not with its Japanese defenders satisfactorily stunned from wave after wave of attacks, but anyway ours again and what was important, without loss. A slight haze hung over the sea front. The Hong Kong-Shanghai Bank, Union Buildings and the Customs House looked placid enough but I only had to close my eyes to see them silhouetted against an orange glow, with occasional pillars of flame reaching up to the pall above.

  Reeve produced two books compiled by British prisoners of war, one giving the names and details of everyone killed or missing, the other stating the fates of all the ships that had left Singapore in Febuary 1942. Thirty-five vessels (from MLs to quite large ships) left on and after Febuary 13—Singapore fell on the 15th—not one getting through.

  Most of the personal news was bad but among others Pool (Sub of the Repulse), Clark (of the operations up country) and the Prince
of Wales Midshipmen were all right. (I was soon to run into the latter. They had withstood starvation, brutality and disease, all coming through. The spirit that clearly prevailed came out in a story one of them told me; they were working in a nickel mine in a remote part of the Celebes and beriberi, dysentry and malaria were taking their daily toll when an Exeter officer, Lieutenant Mark Kerr, became critically ill. The Midshipmen were keeping watch by his side throughout the night and one of them, unable to detect any breathing, said that he thought he had died. At this Kerr opened his eyes and murmured, ‘Not yet if I can help it!’ I asked the narrator, ‘And did he die?’ ‘Oh no’ was the reply, ‘That’s him over there.’)

  Opposite Dick Beckwith’s name were some cryptic details provided by a Stoker Farrow. I copied them down on a signal form and wrote to Yvonne Beckwith, his wife (she had returned the picture left with her when the ship sailed and we had corresponded from time to time).

  The form reads:

  Beckwith R.C. Lt. R.N. (Prince of Wales) M.L. Elizabeth

  Elizabeth left Singapore night 13/14-2-42. Sunk by gunfire Banka Strait 16.2.42. Passengers R.M.3, R.A.F.6, Army 2. Survivors 2 only, including Sto. Farrow (POW)

  Survivors Fanlin report Elizabeth just behind Fanlin. Saw her ordered alongside destroyer, 20 min. later destroyer hauled off and sank her by gunfire. Fate of crew unknown.

  I will now jump ten years to an RAF hospital in Germany. A tall young woman in Welfare Officer’s uniform came into my room. She looked somehow familiar but I could not place her and after a little conversation asked if she could get a pen out of my reefer jacked in the wardrobe. ‘Oh, you’re in the Navy!’ she said ‘I wonder if you knew my brother, Richard Beckwith?’ I said indeed I had and told her what I knew. She knew more, Yvonne presumably having contacted Stoker Farrow (who had been left to drown but picked up later) and what I learnt made me very proud just to have known Dick. The Japanese destroyer Captain had sent for him as CO of Elizabeth and informed him that he himself would be taken prisoner but that the ML with the rest of those onboard would be sunk. Dick replied that he would rather return to his ship. This was doubtless an understandable request to a Japanese brought up in the tradition of honourable suicide and he said all right, if he wished. Dick returned and the destroyer stood off and shelled the unfortunate Elizabeth with the result known. Thus came the end of a very gallant officer, a cold-blooded sacrifice that lacked the spur of any military advantage. An end to be ranked, in my opinion, with those of Sir Richard Grenville, Captain Oates, or any posthumous VC that was ever earned. There is also a tragic epilogue in that poor Yvonne Beckwith died not long after the war, virtually of a broken heart.