"Operation Jaywick: A Reassessment of Results" Topic

"Preserved in Sydney harbour today, as part of the Australian National Maritime Museum vessel collection[1], is a small former Japanese fish carrier that has in recent years became a symbol of military pride within Australia. Renamed KRAIT the vessel was used by a diverse group of servicemen serving in Z Special Unit of Special Operations Australia (Services Reconnaissance Department) to attack and sink several Japanese merchant ships at anchor off Singapore on the night of 26/27 September 1943, a raid known as Operation Jaywick.

But although the raid was pronounced successful at the time, though kept secret in order to confuse and demoralize the enemy, the total extent of the damage done by Jaywick has remained shrouded in mystery, even with postwar analysis of Japanese records. This article seeks to determine how many vessels were probably sunk and their likely identities

A detailed overview of the background and planning as well as the key personalities is outside the scope of this study and has already been covered in detail by several books[2]. In summary KRAIT left Exmouth Gulf, WA on 2 September 1943 and disguised as a Japanese fishing boat, passed through the Lombok Strait and on to Panjang Island in the Riau Archipelago, where a party of six men in three canoes[3] were landed on 17 September. These three 2 man canoes then paddled in stages to islands south of Singapore. After an attack from Pulau Dongas on the night of 24/25 September failed owing to tides, the canoeists shifted to Pulau Subar, approximately 4 miles west of Pulau Sambu, the DEI oil terminal near Singapore, and launched a successful attack on the night of 26/27 September with the canoes returning to Pompong Island where they met up with KRAIT and returned to Australia…"

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