LEADING TELEGRAPHIST H.S. YOUNG, WIRELESS OPERATOR ON MV KRAIT, THE VESSEL WHICH TRANSPORTED THE OPERATIVE PARTY OF OPERATION JAYWICK FROM AUSTRALIA TO THE VICINITY OF SINGAPORE AND BACK. OPERATION JAYWICK WAS CONDUCTED FROM 1943-09-01 TO 1943-10-19 AND INVOLVED A CLANDESTINE ATTACK BY A GROUP OF SIX ALLIED OPERATIVES AGAINST JAPANESE SHIPPING AT SINGAPORE. Permalink: http://cas.awm.gov.au/item/045415

It was with great sadness this evening that I learned of the passing of an iconic SRD Man and a great Australian. The Krait’s Wireless Operator Horrie Young passed away last Friday after a short illness.

My deepest sympathies to Mr Young’s family. He will be missed, but will not be forgotten.

The premise of the episode was simple – Z Man Billy Brandis was lost on operation PYTHON in 1944. He was literally lost – the same day he inserted by submarine into the PYTHON party area, he became lost in the jungle for three weeks before he was picked up by pro-Japanese locals and handed over to the enemy.  67 years later, his niece, with the expert assistance of her chaperon, historian Dr Peter Stanley, retrace Brandis’ footsteps as the story of his fate unfolds.

This is a story close to my heart. I was consulted by the producers of the programme and much of my research as well as newly uncovered documents were incorporated into the finished product. As per my request, www.specialoperationsaustralia.com appears in the credits.

After the in-depth research I had done into Operation PYTHON, I knew Brandis’ was a tragic story, but as a writer and researcher used to studying accounts of wartime atrocities and blunders, I found myself unprepared for the very real grief displayed on screen by Brandis’ niece. It has really helped to put my work into perspective and I believe it will take it into areas I had not previously considered.

At this point I could go on about the missing parts of the story which couldn’t be included in the programme due to time constraints, about the training deficiencies, about the blunders and even about the brutal nature of the deaths of Brandis, Rudwick and McKenzie – but I won’t. Instead I would prefer the reader to enjoy this compelling episode of “In Their Footsteps” as it has been presented. It is not the story of SGT Brandis, it is the story of a family’s search for the truth about the fate of a loved one executed by the Japanese during wartime. In this context, it is enough and I am proud to have been able to make a contribution.

Channel 9 has graciously uploaded the episode to youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qK9FR2jfk-k

SOA Books is the official publishing imprint of the Special Operations Australia website.

Dedicated to telling the untold stories of WWII Special Forces and intelligence operations, the catalogue of SOA Books titles will expand to include Official Histories, Veteran Memoirs, Biographies, Technical and Operational Training Manuals as well as books written by or based on years of research by Special Operations and Espionage writer, C.A. Brown. Units covered include Special Operations Australia (Z Special Unit), Coastwatchers, The Philippines Resistance, Netherlands East Indies Intelligence Service, Special Operations Executive, Office of Strategic Services, Australian Commandos and Independent Companies, British Commandos, British Parachute Regiment, US Rangers and more! Many of these materials are presented here for the first time, having been classified for decades.

In most cases, books published through SOA Books are original wartime publications published under arrangement with the US National Archives and Records Administration, the National Archives of Australia, the New Zealand Defence Force National Archive, The Australian War Memorial, the UK Imperial War Museum and the UK National Archives. In the case of Veteran Memoirs, these are published with the assistance of the Veterans themselves or their estate. With a slew of original works by Yours Truly in the pipeline concentrating on the as-yet untold stories of WWII, SOA Books is in a unique position to educate the public about these mostly-forgotten unconventional warriors and their secret and very personal war.

All SOA Books are high-quality paperbacks, printed in the United States and in the interests of easy and wide availability, are distributed online through Amazon.com and its partners worldwide.

Where possible, professionally-formatted Kindle editions of the books are made available, allowing them to be read on current book reading hardware including: Kindle, iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Android Tablets, PCs and Macs.

I have finally tracked down the original rough VHS video thanks to Mr Ian Bauer. It is a rather poor VHS copy of the original colour 4:3 aspect ratio 16mm film and appears to have originated from an archival collection. The film itself depicts SRD’s training facility on Fraser Island as it was during the month of January of 1944. At the time of shooting, the school had been in operation for just over two months.

From a 1945 SRD study on training …

“Early in Jan 44 Dr. Frank Tate of Melbourne arrived at F.C.S. and during his stay of approx. one month, he took movie photographs of all phases of training, including parachuting, all of which resulted in a film which was somewhat disappointing for training purposes but provided an excellent colour film of the Island which was frequently shown at F.C.S. for entertainment purposes.”

Dr. Frank Tate was a medical doctor from Melbourne who took up filmmaking full time in order to follow his dream to become a film director. Apart from this footage shot for the Department of Information, his body of work is limited to educational documentary-style films covering areas such as Tasmania and Japan.

Apart from its immense historical value as a colour record of SRD training, the footage was shot only a few months after Operation JAYWICK and a short time before the RIMAU party moved to Careening Bay Camp for advanced training for that ill-fated mission. As such it contains colour footage of many of the members of both JAYWICK and RIMAU, including; Horrie Young, Bob Page, Walter Carey, Donald Davidson and Andrew Sargent to name a few. Also included are various senior SRD officers including ‘Jock” Campbell, SRD civilian HB Manderson and a number of Timorese and Malay operatives.

Please note that the video has been watermarked with an SOA logo and the website address (covering a particularly jittery timecode window). This is not an attempt to claim ownership of the footage, but rather to discourage others from using these uploads for “fundraising”.

Commentary – Clip 1:

A dinghy brings various trainees and officers to shore from the motor launch “Orama” which was leased by the army from Mr EW Horn from Maryborough for 10 pounds per week. The sailing vessel beside the launch is the lugger “Charm”. Various trainees and officers exit the launch and are greeted by Lt Donald Davidson, RNVR of JAYWICK fame. The tall man in the dark suit and hat is Mr. HB Manderson who was head of SRD’s Timor section.

The Scot is Major HA Campbell, Commanding Officer of the Fraser Commando School from October 43 to January 44. Along with MAJ Lyons Campbell was one of the architects of Operation JAYWICK.

At this early stage in its development, the camp consisted mainly of tented lines and marquees. One or two Sydney Williams huts had been erected on site as well as a power house for the generator.

Transport on the island was 90% horse drawn as evidenced by the use of horses and wagons in the footage. At the time the footage was shot, there were only two jeeps on the island which were used to haul stores from the beach to the camp.

Physical training was a very important aspect of the instruction at the school. Daily calisthenics, runs, unarmed combat sessions and swimming all served to toughen up the men. The training was hard but there was no bastardry involved. As one former FCS PT instructor told me “We knew that the fitter the men were, the more likely they’d survive on operations behind the lines”.

The section on Jungle Craft illustrates the wide variety of kit issued to Z Operatives. Australian shirts and weapons, US hats, boots, trousers, packs and webbing. Z had the pick of the latest Allied equipment. Great emphasis was placed on navigation skills. As evidenced by the title of GB Courtney’s book “Silent Feet” a large part of an Operative’s field training was stealthy movement. The footage shows an Operative demonstrating the correct method of silent movement. Toe down first, then roll the foot until the sole is flat on the ground. Repeat for each step after making sure there are no twigs or noisy leaves underfoot. When walking with normal studded AB boots, sand and debris is often kicked forward, making the Operative easy to track unless he pays attention to lifting each foot straight up before moving forwards. In the footage it appears that they were advocating the use of bare feet, possibly to imitate natives. The trainee Operative then demonstrates movement through vegetation, taking care to move the branches and leaves out of the way rather than just barging through, which creates noise. Of course this method of movement through close country leaves less top sign for an enemy tracker to follow. Stealthy movement while prone is then demonstrated. The Operative uses his hands to clear away any obstructions and pushes himself forwards with his elbows and toes.

Commentary – Clip 2:

A trainee demonstrates the “Snatch”. The sequence begins with the Operative dumping packs, silently moving to a place of concealment, then jumping the “enemy”, as he walks past. This method involved a hand over the mouth to stifle any yells or screams, then a half hip throw to bring the enemy to the ground where he could be subdued.

The trainee then demonstrates a takedown of an “enemy” sentry as per the title plates on the footage. Note that the process has been sped up dramatically for the benefit of the camera.

The next section shows a “hideout” in the jungle in Fraser Island’s interior (near Central Station). This dense rainforest proved to be an effective training ground for the Operatives. The footage then demonstrates the excellent US jungle hammock with its waterproof canopy and built in mosquito net.

A trainee Operative cleans his Austen SMG while a mess tin full of water boils on a makeshift stand over a twig fire. The trainee then demonstrates removing all traces of the fire.

A trainee demonstrates the correct method of gripping the Smith and Wesson Victory model revolver and how best to fire it from cover in various situations.

FCS chief weapons instructor WOII Ainscough demonstrates the correct method of drawing and then firing the revolver from the hip as well as how to stay fluid in order to rapidly engage multiple targets.

A trainee demonstrates the quite odd “instinctive shooting” method with an Austen SMG. The butt is placed on the belt buckle and the weapon sighted by looking directly over the barrel. Although appearing a little cumbersome, this method of shooting was very effective and saved the lives of several Z men during contacts with the enemy.

WOII Ainscough oversees a comparison demonstration on the SMG range. One man fires the weapon from the shoulder while another uses instinctive shooting. Both hit what they are aiming at.

FCS unarmed combat instructor WOI Cusack leads a series of demonstrations of unarmed combat techniques. The methods where based on standard Australian army unarmed combat but included several SOE moves as devised by Fairbairn and Sykes.

PT runs are shown. The usual route was from McKenzie’s Jetty to Lake McKenzie.

Commentary – Clip 3:

After their run, the men swim at Lake McKenzie. The makeshift platform was not far from the current main beach at the lake. The dodgy backwards film in this section makes me a little embarrassed for Dr Tate. I don’t think he quite understood the purpose of the film he was making. And while I’m whingeing about the director…it’s clear that the footage was originally supposed to have a sound commentary and there is probably a script floating around in the archives somewhere. Dr. Tate unfortunately copped out and left the footage mute with a bunch of less than enlightening title plates. No wonder SRD HQ wasn’t happy with it; the film has lost nearly all its context as you can see by the amount of information I have had to insert into this text commentary to help parts of it make a little more sense.

The Equitation scenes are some of my favourites from the whole film. SRD operatives were originally trained in the military use of horses and mules for pack and riding purposes. Training was given by LT Greaves of Operation LIZARD who was an expert horseman. In an attempt to streamline Operative training and concentrate on raiding tasks, the equitation syllabus was binned. This segment shows Lt Davidson cantering and galloping across the parade ground, and then cuts to the (embarrassing) “sea horse” segment where we see a forlorn Able Seaman Horrie Young of Op JAYWICK fame sitting on a smelly horse in his “Number Ones”. Able Seaman Young had just gotten ready to leave for Brisbane for a period of rec leave when he was ordered onto the horse at the behest of Dr Tate who wanted to inject a little comedy into his film. Horrie Young later said that he was on the train for three or four hours stinking like a sweaty horse which effectively scuttled his chances of meeting any girls.

The next section shows the signals marquee. Using an SOE B MKII “suitcase” radio, this station had direct comms with SRD HQ in Melbourne. The marquee only lasted for a few months due to the weather conditions on the island. Soon after the footage was shot, the sigs station was moved into a prefabricated hut.

As part of the signals syllabus, all trainees were required to learn basic semaphore and Morse. While semaphore was replaced on operations with mirror and torch signals, Morse was the lifeline for Operatives in the field.

A sergeant demonstrates the use of the Lucas lamp. This was a self-contained unit which used a Morse key to signal an extraction vessel or aircraft.

In a “coastwatching” demonstration on the edge of the camp behind the signals marquee, two trainees demonstrate the use of the American M49 observation scope and the SCR536 “handie talkie”. The trainee on the left originally came from a militia unit as evidenced by his wool puggaree, while the colour patch on the AIF puggaree worn by the trainee operating the scope indicates that he came to SRD from an Independent Company, possibly No. 1 Indep. Coy. This serves to illustrate the fact that SRD Operatives came from all walks of life.

The Malay camp was, at the time of shooting, a separate camp approximately two miles south of the main camp. Unfortunately for the Timorese, Malay and Indonesian trainees housed there, it was built next to a swamp with a healthy population of mosquitoes and sandflies. Within a few weeks of the footage being shot the camp had been dismantled and the trainees moved to tended lines within the main camp. The “Malays” received similar training to the caucasian personnel, but the bulk of it was delivered in their native tongue. This segment is remarkable in that it is the only wartime photography that exists of several Timorese Operatives including Jose Carvalho who would later perish in captivity during the ill-fated Operation ADDER in Portuguese Timor. For further information on these “Forgotten Men” I would like to direct the reader to the excellent study of the same name by BRIG E. Chamberlain (Ret.)

The focus of the film now shifts to small boats. A trainee inflates a Type Y dinghy and then there is a demonstration of that craft in the surf. The rubber dinghy was often used to ferry personnel and stores to shore from submarines during operations.

Captains Page and Carey, who would both later perish on Operation RIMAU, demonstrate the erection of an Australian-built MKII Folboat. After a particularly difficult birth due to faulty design, the MKII folboat eventually became the standard “canoe” for SRD and was used on operations including the JAYWICK, PYTHON and AGAS projects. The two captains then demonstrate various folboat manoeuvres and recovery drills on Lake McKenzie and in the surf off McKenzie’s Jetty.

Commentary – Clip 4:

After further folboat instruction in the surf by CAPTs Page and Carey, the film shifts to para-dropping. Here we see USAAF 380th Bomb Group B24 Liberator “Beautiful Betsy” dropping operatives singly and in “sticks”. “Beautiful Betsy” was one of two USAAF B24s modified for paradropping by SRD in Darwin in 1943. These modifications included fitting a “slippery dip” into an enlarged camera port near the tail of the aircraft and padding the sides of the port to prevent injuries. Special methods and drills had to be devised as the B24 was only capable of dropping parachutists at a higher speed than the usual paratrooper’s aircraft the C47 Dakota. The second aircraft, “Big Ass Bird II” was lost with all crew and an SRD party during Operation HAWK of Babo Island in March of 1944. “Beautiful Betsy” herself failed to survive the war. She disappeared in 1945 and was not found until 1994, which is a story in itself.

After a particularly low level static line jump, a trainee demonstrates the use of the one-man dinghy and the “weird but they sorta work” paddle gloves.

The next section is literally priceless. It covers all of the demolitions equipment used by SRD. For many of these items, which include once top secret SOE devices, this is the only footage known to exist. To have colour footage showing these items in an instructional setting is remarkable. Items include the Wreath Charge, the flexible link charge, the wing charge, PE No. 2 plastic explosive, various firing devices, instantaneous fuse and cordtex. Various devices are detonated for the camera including a “Tar Baby” incendiary, a small PE charge, and a TNT charge used for fishing at the jetty.

The ship featured in the next segment is the SS Maheno. During the war she was used as a target by both the RAAF and by SRD. In this segment we see her front mast taken down by a PE cutting charge.

Loading of the Type 6 limpet mine is shown next and continues into the next clip…

Commentary – Clip 5:

Three complete and primed limpet assemblies are laid out on the beach and are then placed on the hull of the Maheno and are detonated resulting in a surprisingly small explosion.

A large wreath charge is then placed on the superstructure and when the smoke clears it can be seen that the shaped charge has blown a nice square hole through the steel plate. This wreath charge was a protoype. The production models were about half the size and were designed to be used on oil storage tanks in conjunction with an emplaced or floating incendiary such as the Tar Baby.

AWAS Cipher Operators at LHQ Melbourne - - AWM100374

For every Operative on the ground behind the lines, there were dozens of support staff working non stop to keep him fed, supplied and informed. Without support, an Operative was ineffective.

Perhaps the least-known of the Z Special Unit and Services Reconnaissance Department personnel were the female staff. They included civilian clerks and typists, members of the Australian Women’s Army Service (AWAS), members of the Women’s Australian Auxiliary Air Force (WAAAF) and members of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY), a cover organisation for female Special Operations Executive staff from the UK. In most cases, these women were just girls in their late teens and early twenties. They had volunteered to work in a top secret organisation where an honest typo could mean that Operatives on the run missed their submarine extraction, were captured and then executed.  It was a massive responsibility to shoulder and these young women grew up fast.

One of the AWAS cipher clerks working for the Services Reconnaissance Department was 22 year old Sergeant Patricia Rattray.

During a recent interview,  SGT Rattray had this to say about the conditions under which the cipher girls of Z worked…

“There about six of us involved in this particular work at Z. After I went back to to my quarters at the Grosvenor, two other girls came on and there were always more on the day shift, two girls working at a time and the other one was at night. But the girls had breakdowns, they had breakdowns to such an extent that they were unfit to serve anywhere in the army, whatsoever. They had to be discharged.

It was a great mental strain apart from anything else. I mean, you had to do your job and there was a great deal of responsibility on you. You were alone there at night, and you were working, and you’d get these signals and you don’t understand what all these commands are about, people landing and all that sort of thing. You’ve got to work it all out and you’re on your own, and you’re in a big building, the rats are all running around at night, it’s lonely, it’s dark.

I think keeping the secrets got the girls, I think that’s what must have got them, I think they must have worried about the people that they did the signals about. I think that must have worried them terribly that they had such dreadful breakdowns, because for me to hear that two of them, at different times, had been cashiered, put right out of the army altogether, unfit for service, of any kind, meant that they must have dwelt on what they heard, instead of putting it out the back of their mind.

I knew that at nine o’clock one night a submarine was coming to pick up some of our men off a certain beach and you know, I knew very well it wasn’t nine o’clock, because nine o’clock over there wasn’t the same as here, but when nine o’clock came I found myself wondering If the submarine had landed? If the men had gotten out? Wondering this and that… it was a constant worry.

We had one chap sent a message and he said, “Maintain radio silence, Japs all around the mouth of the cave.” Well, we did maintain radio silence but we never heard from them again, obviously. The Japanese found them, and finished them all off, the whole party.

You got some gruesome details. I got one very upsetting, very upsetting message sent to me and it was where the Japanese had raided some sort of a Roman Catholic mission where they had girls and that, and it was horrible the things the Japanese had done with knives… It was absolutely horrible.

And of course, the people sending the message did not know we were women. I think they would have sent the message to guys, but they didn’t know we were women doing this, well it’s still pretty upsetting, but you had to be able to throw it off. You couldn’t worry about those things all the time. If you did you’d be ineffective.”

Paybook photo of AKQ14 Corporal Doreen Horgan, AWAS

The women of “Z” are the unsung heroines of the Secret War in the Pacific. Their names are unknown to the historians and their service has been forgotten.

Until now…

The Women of “Z”

Australian Civilians

Miss I M Metcalfe

Miss E G Patrick

Miss N Davis

Miss N Nichol

Miss E Glasscock

Miss J M Tate

Miss J K Brierley

Miss N Bethune

Miss M E McKay

Mrs P Jackson

Miss D Dungan

Miss F M Whitten

Mrs F O Wilson

Miss M A K Wilson

Mrs P C Oliver

Miss S Hambury

Miss J M Pearce

Mrs R I Everard

Australian Women’s Army Service – AWAS

VF346696 Staff Sergeant EL Sampson AWAS

VF387851 Warrant Officer II L Morris AWAS

QF271518 Corporal N Downey AWAS

VF388456 Corporal E W Brownlie AWAS

VF387998 Sergeant P A Rattray AWAS

VF346608 Staff Sergeant M D Shaw AWAS

VF512389 Corporal E N Drummond AWAS

WF45746 Sergeant I D Harper AWAS

WF90756 Staff Sergeant M M Ellis AWAS

VF515372 Private K Moore AWAS

VF515191 Private F M Stone AWAS

VF389726 Sergeant B D Cooper (nee Godkin) AWAS

VF388418 Signalwoman A J Berryman AWAS

NF392190 Private M L Newman AWAS

NF465686 Corporal D M Horgan AWAS

NF479726 Private JV Mackie AWAS

NF409457 Corporal M F Broadhurst AWAS

QF272035 Sergeant A J Livingstone (nee Jarman) AWAS

VF510932 Private P Campbell AWAS

NF461873 Signalwoman S E Clifford AWAS

Women’s Australian Auxiliary Air Force – WAAAF

104306 Corporal R Reah WAAAF

110403 Corporal M G Bone WAAAF

98187 Sergeant I L Burgess WAAAF

177045 Corporal M A Dawson WAAAF

98420 Sergeant M I Dignan WAAAF

92001 Flight Sergeant J Freeland WAAAF

105289 Corporal S E Jenkins WAAAF

105297 Sergeant B J Nichols WAAAF

94510 Flight Sergeant J R Ohman WAAAF

107315 Corporal G D Leadon WAAAF

First Aid Nursing Yeomanry – FANY (Special Operations Executive)

VB3200 Captain M E S Sale (British Army)

Miss M Veale

Miss R Alexander

Miss D J Miller

Miss I M Eustace

Mrs I M Upton

Mrs W G West

Oh, you don’t remember? That’d be because the story died a natural death very soon after it was published. Apart from the newspaper’s limited general readership over in the West, very few people caught the stories. Indeed, they were so obscure that I didn’t even catch them until a month or so after they were published. There was simply no other media interest in slandering a dead war hero.

I’m not terribly happy about giving notional air time to such filthy slander here and thus contaminating my blog, but it needs to be addressed.

You can read the offending article for yourself here: http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/mp/7561202/historian-casts-doubt-on-war-heros-record/3/#comments – sorry, no live link – you’re big boys and girls so cut and paste the URL like everyone else.

Here’s the short version:

The story alleges that Z Man AKR13 Jack Wong Sue DCM, OAM fabricated parts of his 2001 memoir  ”Blood on Borneo” which dealt with his experiences as part of the SRD’s AGAS and STALLION  projects. The writer, Rod Moran was working closely with Author Lynette Ramsay-Silver and the article was based on her research. The story states that Jack Wong Sue fabricated his account of observing one of the Sandakan death marches. It states that Jack Wong Sue’s account of saving the life of fellow SRD Operative LT Don Harlem during a guerrilla raid on Trusan was a falsehood. It states that Jack Wong Sue fabricated his account of  a guerrilla attack on a small Japanese detachment at Pitas.

These allegations are then allegedly backed up by archive records which prove Jack Wong Sue’s claims to be false. I was contacted by an investigator working with Jack Wong Sue’s family for my opinion on the accuracy of these archive files.

To give you a bit of background… when I first started conducting my research into the various “Z” operations I relied heavily upon a document called “The Official History of Special Operations Australia Volume II – Operations”. This document seems to be a one-stop shop for all the gen on the various ISD and SRD operations conducted during WWII. It’s a great resource and gives an awesome overview. The operation summaries which appear on www.specialoperationsaustralia.com are retyped verbatim from an Allied Intelligence Bureau copy of the document that I managed to get my hands on. Unfortunately, I started to see contradictions between the Official History and information from signals, debriefs, post-war interview material with the participants and Party Leader reports. When you cross reference the summaries from the Official History with the operation files and when you actually talk to the men who were involved in those operations, it becomes clear that the Official History cannot be relied upon as an “Authority” source document.  There are many, many instances of dates, place names, Operative’s names, service numbers, etc. being inaccurate. Then of course there’s the fact that it was published in 1946, after the Japanese Surrender, and a period of time when even the SRD NCOs tasked with compiling the various volumes of the Official History didn’t have the full story.  It became like a game of Chinese whispers with typos and errors compounding and omissions being … well… omitted.

Knowing the circumstances under which it was written and compiled, complete reliance upon the Official History of Special Operations Australia Volumes for important research is sheer folly – especially considering it is a secondary source written by men who were not there. And yet, the Official History of Special Operations Australia Volume II – Operations is the main source of the slanderous allegations made against Jack Wong Sue in last year’s West Australian articles.

An Operative’s memoir, even accounting for the amount of time passed, is a primary source and therefore takes precedence over a secondary source such as the Official History volumes. At the very least, these blokes did the hard yards and put their individual and collective arses on the line. That fact alone means that we must give them the benefit of the doubt in the absence of complete information from official sources.

Here’s a challenge for the more research-minded reader. Take a look at this extract from Jack Wong Sue’s DCM citation below.

While in the interior, Sergeant WONG did magnificent work in gathering intelligence, organising native guerillas and harassing the enemy, capturing considerable quantities of Japanese equipment and killing numbers of the enemy.

Now have a look at the Official History of Special Operations Australia Volume II – Operations as well as the AGAS and STALLION operations files at the National Archives in Canberra and show me where they describe Jack Wong Sue killing numbers of the enemy and capturing quantities of their equipment. I’ll save you the trouble – these events aren’t mentioned.

So using Lynette Silver’s logic, Jack Wong Sue somehow convinced his commanders to “make shit up” in order to make his DCM citation look prettier?

Of course not, I was being sarcastic, but it does serve to prove my point that there is far more to these men’s stories than appears in the official records.

You can’t call a man a liar when you weren’t there and when you aren’t in possession of the whole story.

If anyone’s interested, the complete report by Australian Investigation Corporation Ltd into the allegations made in the offending newspaper articles has been posted to my Scribd channel with permission of Jack Wong Sue’s family. I had a read of the report (which includes my points made above) and noticed that Australian Investigation Corporation has come up with a hell of a lot more on this issue than just the fact that Lynette Silver relied upon dodgy files for her research. Have a read…

http://www.scribd.com/doc/48076498/Silver-vs-Jack-Wong-Sue-Report

Please note that I am NOT an “esteemed historian” and in no way consider myself to be. I’m just a writer who can barely string two sentences together who’s trying give these blokes their due and tell their stories.

This miniseries is closely based on Ronald McKie’s book of the same name. Keep in mind that the book was written in the 1960s and the TV miniseries in 1988, 7 years before the SRD/Z records were fully declassified. They did an awesome job in getting it as right as possible.

Also, take note of the rickety fishing boat used in this series, to me it looks identical to the KRAIT. Perhaps the KRAIT was used for the production? That would have been a mind-job for the cast and crew, many of whom had liaised with surviving members of the JAYWICK party.

If you wish to compare fact with fiction (or in this case, docu-drama), check out my page on Operation JAYWICK – http://specialoperationsaustralia.com/soa/operations/247-isd-ops-jaywick.html which is closely based on Lyon’s own log of the operation. Photos on that page also marry up very closely with instances in the film where John Bach, the actor playing LT Davidson, takes happy snaps on board the KRAIT. Really well done.

Please keep in mind that Steve from the UK who digitised and uploaded this film onto youtube was working from an old VHS tape. Audio is good but the image is a little soft – best to watch in full screen mode. Once again, many thanks to Steve for his hard work in making a rare part of Australia’s Film history available to a modern audience.

The Heroes:

Some enterprising soul has placed the first hour on youtube with the apparent promise that the rest will follow. If and when that happens, I’ll post an update. In the meantime, it’s worth watching and can be found on Amazon.com, ebay and oztion.com.

EDIT: 03AUG2010 -

Steve from the UK (youtube user aQSteve) has finished his marathon upload of the nearly four hours of video which comprises “Heroes II – The Return”. Accordingly, I have edited this post and embedded all 23 chunks of the film via youtube. I have been advised that he is working on “The Heroes”, a 1988 Channel 10 Miniseries which covers Operation JAYWICK and includes many of the cast and crew from “Heroes II – The Return”. Many thanks to Steve for making this material available.

Stay tuned for a further blog post on “the Heroes”.

Youtube links:

I’ve made some changes to the site. The most visible change is that I am in the process of removing the PDFs which are hosted on specialoperationsaustralia.com and making them available through the Scribd.com “ipaper” service. Unlike standard PDF files, this allows me to embed documents inside SOA website pages and allows visitors to read them online without having to first download them. With some of the file sizes approaching 13 Mb, this is an easier and more efficient way to display documents on the site.

Note that on request I can make PDF copies of any given document available for anyone that would prefer a PDF file on their hard drive for offline reading. Shoot me an email at info@specialoperationsaustralia.com and I’ll send the file/s through.

Wireless Section

You may have noticed I have updated the “W/T & Signals” section of the site. Having zero knowledge of wireless mumbo jumbo or radio propagation sorcery, it’s been interesting. Along with quoting directly from several SRD Directorate of Signals documents, I’ve liaised with several knowledgeable folks both here and overseas in order to make sure I’ve gotten the info right.

The section is still under development, but if you’re a radio enthusiast, there’s more than enough in there right now to sink your teeth into.