Story of Operation Jaywick – Malaya's Daring Raid

Lieutenant Robert Page, Major Ivan Lyon and Lieutenant D.M.N. Davidson

The Heroes Were Here: The Untold Story of Operation Jaywick – Malaya's Daring Raid That Humiliated the Japanese Empire

Growing up, we learned about the heroes of World War II. We heard about the beaches of Normandy, the dogfights over Britain, the tanks at Stalingrad. The stories were always set in Europe, in places we had never seen, fought by men whose names we could barely pronounce.

But what if I told you that one of the most audacious, successful, and daring special operations of the entire war happened right here—in our waters, off our shores, in the heart of the Malayan archipelago?

What if I told you that six men in collapsible canoes paddled into Singapore Harbour—the very heart of Japan's conquered empire—and sank seven enemy ships before vanishing without a trace?

What if I told you that these heroes weren't thousands of miles away. They were in our backyard.

This is the story of Operation Jaywick—the raid that proved heroes don't just belong to Europe. They belong to Malaya too.
The Discovery: Heroes in Our Waters

For decades, the narrative of World War II has been dominated by the European theatre. The beaches of Normandy, the Battle of Britain, the Blitz, the fall of Berlin. These are the stories that fill our textbooks and our screens.

But the war in the Pacific—the war that came to our shores in December 1941—has its own heroes. Men who fought and died in the jungles of Malaya, the waters off Singapore, the skies above Penang.

Operation Jaywick is one of those stories. It is a story of courage, ingenuity, and audacity. It is a story that should be celebrated alongside the great raids of Europe. And it is a story that belongs to us.
The Brainchild of Two Escapers

The operation was the brainchild of two men who had fled Singapore just ahead of the Japanese advance in February 1942: Major Ivan Lyon, a 28-year-old British officer of the Gordon Highlanders, and Bill Reynolds, a 61-year-old Australian civilian who had lived in Malaya for decades.

Both men knew the waters south of Singapore intimately. Both men wanted revenge.

Lyon, who had served with the Allied Intelligence Bureau, was determined to strike back at the Japanese in the one place they would never expect: their own harbour. Reynolds, a former ship's captain and businessman, had the perfect vessel—a captured Japanese coastal fishing boat called the Kofuku Maru, which he had used to evacuate refugees from Singapore before the fall.

The boat was shipped to Australia, renamed the MV Krait—after a deadly snake found in India and Malaya—and refitted for a mission that most military planners would have dismissed as impossible.
The Plan: A Snake in the Harbour

The plan was elegantly simple, and terrifyingly dangerous.

A team of commandos would sail the Krait from Australia to an island off the coast of Singapore, disguised as a Malay fishing crew. From there, small teams in collapsible canoes—known as folboats—would paddle into Singapore Harbour under cover of darkness, attach limpet mines to Japanese ships, and then slip away before the mines exploded.

The Krait was a slow-moving, wooden-hulled vessel about twenty metres long, and it suffered from sporadic engine trouble throughout the voyage. It was crammed with 11 men, three collapsible canoes, limpet mines, communications equipment, weapons, and supplies. The men stained their skin and wore sarongs, doing their best to look like local fishermen.

The mission was codenamed Operation Jaywick—after a popular brand of lavatory deodoriser, a name chosen to sound innocuous.
The Crew: Z Special Unit's Finest

The operation was carried out by members of Z Special Unit, a joint British-Australian commando formation that would later be described as "the origins of our SAS". The team comprised four British soldiers and 11 Australian Army and Royal Australian Navy personnel, commanded by Major Ivan Lyon.

The men of Z Special Unit were trained at a secret commando school on Fraser Island (now K'gari) off the Queensland coast, where they practised parachuting, canoeing, anti-tracking, mining, and medical response techniques. They were, in the words of one historian, "thoughtful, resilient, and bright. But most of all they were tough".

Among the key figures were:

Lieutenant Hubert Edward "Ted" Carse, captain of the Krait


Lieutenant Donald Davidson, Lyon's second-in-command


Lieutenant Robert Page


Corporal Andrew Crilly


Leading Seaman Kevin Cain


Leading Stoker James McDowell


Able Seaman Mostyn "Moss" Berryman


Able Seaman Arthur Jones
The Voyage: Three Weeks in Enemy Waters

On 1 September 1943, the Krait slipped out of Exmouth Harbour in Western Australia, heading north towards the Netherlands East Indies (now Indonesia). The journey would take three and a half weeks, crossing the Lombok Strait, the Java Sea, and sailing along the south-west and western coasts of Borneo before turning south towards Singapore.

The men faced constant danger. Japanese patrol boats and aircraft scoured the waters. Local fishing vessels could easily report a suspicious boat to the Japanese. The Krait's engine sputtered and failed repeatedly. But the disguise held, and the Krait pressed on.

On 19 September 1943, the Krait pulled into a small, hilly, jungle-clad island called Pandjang Island, where the six men of the raiding teams—Lyon, Davidson, Page, Crilly, Jones, and Falls—were offloaded with their canoes and equipment. Before dawn the next morning, the Krait left to spend over ten days sailing north toward Borneo and back, hoping to avoid detection while the canoeists prepared for the raid.
The Raid: Paddling into the Lion's Den

The canoeists faced their own challenges. Their first attempt to reach the harbour failed because the waters were too choppy. They hid on islands, paddling only at night, battling currents and evading enemy vessels.

Finally, on the night of 26 September 1943, they reached Subar Island, just 11 kilometres from Singapore. From there, they launched the raid. The canoes were low in the water, weighed down by limpet mines. Undetected, they attached the mines to several vessels, dumped excess equipment, and paddled furiously to get as much distance between themselves and Singapore before the mines exploded.

Early on 27 September 1943, seven explosions rocked Singapore Harbour. The mines had detonated, sinking or badly damaging seven Japanese ships, including several tankers.

The raiders reached their hiding places shortly before dawn, hearing the explosions echo across the water.
The Escape: A Race Against Time

The rendezvous with the Krait was set for the night of 2 October 1943. The first two canoeists were picked up after midnight. But four men were missing—they had somehow missed the Krait in the darkness and were on the wrong beach.

The crew of the Krait faced an agonising decision. They could sail and leave the four men to their fate, or they could risk detection by staying one more day. They chose to stay.

That night, they returned and retrieved the missing men. Jubilant, the raiding party began the long voyage home.

The journey back to Australia was long and hazardous, with enemy patrol boats and aircraft to be evaded. But the men of the Krait avoided detection, and on 19 October 1943, the vessel chugged back into Exmouth Harbour.

Every man returned. Not one was killed or wounded.
The Aftermath: A Brutal Retaliation

The success of Operation Jaywick was a stunning blow to Japanese prestige. The Japanese military, stunned by the raid, could not believe that Allied forces had travelled so far from their bases in Australia and Britain to carry out such an attack. They assumed the saboteurs must have been local—Chinese guerrillas or internees from Changi Prison.

The Kempeitai (Japanese military police) launched a brutal investigation. On 10 October 1943, they arrested and tortured 57 civilians and civilian internees in what became known as the Double Tenth incident. Fifteen of them died in Changi Prison. Among those rounded up was Elizabeth Choy, a courageous schoolteacher who was released only after 200 days of starvation and repeated torture. She became a celebrated war heroine and died in 2006 at the age of 95.

After the war, twenty-one Kempeitai officers were charged with war crimes. Eight received the death sentence, seven were acquitted, and the remainder were given prison sentences.
The Tragic Sequel: Operation Rimau

The success of Jaywick would have a tragic follow-up. A year later, Ivan Lyon organised Operation Rimau—a larger, more complex raid on Singapore Harbour, transported by submarine.

It went catastrophically wrong. Spotted by a collaborator's launch hours before the attack, the mission collapsed. Thirteen commandos were killed in action, including Lyon himself. The remaining ten were captured, tried for espionage, and beheaded at Outram Road Gaol on 7 July 1945—just weeks before Japan surrendered.

Among the dead were six men who had taken part in Operation Jaywick.
The Legacy: A Snake Preserved

The Krait is now preserved at the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney—one of the most historically significant vessels in Australia. For the veterans of Z Special Unit, it is not just a boat. It is a war memorial.

As one veteran, Douglas Herps, said: "I call it the silly little boat, but you go down there, look at the Krait and marvel at what it did... We regard it as a war memorial. And that's what we want it to be."

Operation Jaywick remains one of the most successful clandestine operations in military history. It showed that even in the darkest days of the war, a small group of determined men could strike at the heart of an empire—and vanish without a trace.

But more than that, it showed that heroes don't just belong to Europe. They belong to Malaya too. They belong to our waters, our islands, our history.

The heroes were here. In our backyard. And their story deserves to be told.
📚 Further Reading on 1942MALAYA

The Sook Ching Massacres


The Fall of Singapore: How 130,000 Soldiers Surrendered


Force 136: The Secret Bicycle-Powered Radio That Defeated the Japanese
🔖 Sources

Australian War Memorial – Operation Jaywick – Official article on the raid, including the composition of the team and the voyage of the Krait.


Australian War Memorial – 75th Anniversary of Operation Jaywick – Commemorative article confirming the details of the raid and its participants.


BBC – The Jaywick Operation by Len (Snowie) Baynes – First-hand account of the operation, including the voyage, the raid, and the escape.


Australian National Maritime Museum – Krait and Operation Jaywick – Details on the Krait and its preservation as a war memorial.


The Straits Times – "Remembering Operation Jaywick" (2023) – Coverage of the 80th anniversary and the Double Tenth incident.


Wikipedia – Double Tenth Incident – Detailed account of the Japanese reprisals and the war crimes trials that followed.


UK Government – 70th Anniversary of Operation Jaywick – Speech by HE Antony Phillipson at Kranji War Memorial, covering the raid and the tragedy of Operation Rimau.


ABC News – "The Story of the Krait" – Interview with Z Special Unit veteran Douglas Herps and historian Ian McPhedran.


Australian War Memorial – Photograph 045413 – Group photograph of Z Special Unit members on board MV Krait during Operation Jaywick, listing crew members.


Wikipedia – Operation Rimau – Account of the follow-up mission and the fate of the commandos involved.

Operation Jaywick is a testament to the courage, ingenuity, and determination of the men of Z Special Unit. Share this article to ensure that their story is never forgotten—and that the heroes of Malaya are celebrated alongside the heroes of Europe.

Thank you for supporting this blog with Buy Me Coffee