Lynette Ramsay Silver
Binda, NSW: Sally Milner Publishing, 2010
ISBN: 9781863514101
In February 1942, when Australian Bill Reynolds escaped from beleaguered Singapore in a battered Japanese fishing boat, he had no idea that his nondescript vessel would be the catalyst for Operation Jaywick, one of the most daring missions undertaken behind enemy lines in World War II. Using Reynolds' boat, now renamed Krait, a small band of intrepid men attacked enemy shipping in Singapore Harbour - an action that would have far reaching and tragic repercussions on the people of Singapore. The following year, members of the same team embarked upon a second and far more ambitious raid, Operation Rimau. Although this mission was partially successful, every member of the party was killed.
In telling the story of both these raids, author Lynette Silver reveals a number of deadly secrets, and gives an insight into the world of covert operations, partly through the eyes of Denis Emerson-Elliott, a British secret service agent closely associated with both missions. She also lays to rest a number of myths which have arisen in the sicty-five years since the Singapore raids took place. A sobering aspect of many of the special operations carried out by Australian forces during World War II is that many fine men who volunteered for hazardous service died while carrying out missions that were politically, rather than militarily, motivated. Even more sobering is the fact that on the Australian army's post-war assessment, many of these operations, including Jaywick and Rimau, achieved nothing but death, misery and suffering.
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