David M. O. Miller - Special forces operations in South-East Asia 1941-1945 : Minerva, Baldhead and Longshanks/Creek

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Operations Minerva, Baldhead/Hatch and Longshanks/Creek, 19421945

First published in Great Britain in 2015 by
PEN AND SWORD MILITARY
an imprint of
Pen and Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street
Barnsley
South Yorkshire S70 2AS

Copyright David Miller, 2015

ISBN: 978 1 78340 063 8
PDF ISBN: 978 1 47387 423 7
EPUB ISBN: 978 1 47387 422 0
PRC ISBN: 978 1 47387 421 3

The right of David Miller to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.

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Contents

Dedication

Those who died on these operations are all commemorated on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission roll and named on a war memorial except for one. So, let this be his memorial:

SERGEANT LAU TENG KEE
of the British Army
died on (or shortly after) 20 December 1942
while taking part in Operation Minerva in Sumatra

List of Illustrations

Operation Minerva, Sumatra

Operation Baldhead, Andaman Islands

Operation Longshanks/Creek, Goa

List of Tables

Operation Minerva, Sumatra

Operation Longshanks/Creek, Goa

Preface

This book tells the stories of three exciting and daring special operations in the Second World War, all in South-East Asia. One achieved brief fame in the early 1980s, thanks to a book and a film, while the other two remain virtually unknown. One was a complete success, one achieved a totally unintended success, and the third was a failure. In one the troops deployed by surface ship, in the second by submarine, and in the third by flying boat. All three were carried out by men of great courage and ability, who took great risks, and some of whom gave their lives they all deserve to be remembered.

Operation Minerva was, most unusually, mounted by a staff branch in General Headquarters India and involved five men landing on Sumatra on 20 December 1942. Their task was to cross that island, whereupon two would go on to Singapore to assess the situation regarding the Allied prisoners-of-war, while the other three would seek to find any Allied personnel still at large in Sumatra. All five disappeared without trace and their fate remains unknown to this day.

Operation Baldhead, later known as Operation Hatch, was a series of landings on the Japanese-occupied Andaman Islands, which took place between January 1943 and May 1945. In these, successive parties of British and Indian troops spent months ashore and carried out daring reconnaissance patrols, gaining very valuable intelligence in the process. They were never once detected by the Japanese, but, had they been, they were grossly outnumbered, there was no prospect of rescue and they would have been annihilated.

Operation Longshanks, also known as Operation Creek, was the attempt on 8/9 March 1943 to capture one of the four Axis merchant ships sheltering in Portuguese Goa. It was a classical cutting-out expedition, with the aim of overpowering the crew and taking the ship to Bombay. This was not achieved, but all four of the Axis captains scuttled their ships, thus playing into British hands by removing the threat of any of them trying to escape. The episode was dramatised in a book Boarding Party followed by a film The Sea Wolves both of which were not only highly inaccurate, but also overplayed the amateur status of many of the participants.

To assist the reader, a glossary and list of abbreviations is at , respectively.

I have observed the following conventions:

Place Names. All place names are as they were in 194245. Some names in the (then) Dutch East Indies were spelt in a variety of ways: Dutch, Malay, local usage and British maps. I have standardised on the latter.

Ranks and Titles. These are as they were at the time of the operations described.

Lists. Where any names are in a list, this is in alphabetical order of surnames, according to the English spelling and regardless of rank, importance or this authors personal preferences.

Times. All times are local, unless specified otherwise, and use the 24-hour clock.

Ship Measurement. mentions merchant ships and their tonnage which can be expressed in various ways. I have standardised on Gross Registered Tonnage (grt) which was in use from 1854 to 1969 and was calculated on the basis of one registered ton equalling 100 cubic feet (2.83 cu m) of enclosed space. i.e., it represented the total internal volume of the vessel. This was the figure used to calculate harbour dues and to report wartime losses. For warships, I have used Full-Load Displacement, which is the weight of water displaced by a ship when fully loaded with fuel, ammunition, crew and stores.

Abbreviations. Despite my best efforts, a number of abbreviations appear in the text. These are explained on first appearance, but are all also listed in .

Acknowledgements

Personal Records

It is surprising how many veterans of the Second World War kept very quiet for many years about their wartime experiences but in later life either wrote it down for their family or made an audio recording for an archive. Most of these documents are unknown outside the family, or, in the case of tapes, listed in an obscure archival catalogue until some persistent researcher comes along. I would, therefore, like to thank the following most sincerely for allowing me to access and quote from such accounts:

Bickersteth, A.C., privately published diary; book; via Joan MacMaster (daughter of Major Beaton Shearer, 4/10GR).

Bremner, Mrs Anne, unpublished memoir; document; via Mrs Ayeesha Nickol (daughter) and Dr Ian Bremner-Macdonald (son-in-law).

Croley, Major Terence V., Skinners Horse; Andaman Sortie; unpublished memoir; document; via Brian Duncan, Esq (godson).

Davies, Commander B., RN (retd); Boarding Party (copy of book marked with extensive MS notes); via Cethin Davies, Esq (son).

Duguid, Lieutenant Robert H., Calcutta Scottish; Account of Operation Creek; unpublished memoir; document; via Mary Donald (daughter).

Grice, Lieutenant-Colonel William H., Calcutta Light Horse; Operation Creek 13th February to 10th March 1943; unpublished memoir; document; via Jane Lloyd (daughter).

Pugh, Lieutenant-Colonel Lewis, Royal Artillery; unpublished memoir; document; via his family.

Rijnders, Lieutenant-Commander Gerard F., DFC, Royal Netherlands Naval Air Service; unpublished memoir; document; via Gerardjan Rijnders, Esq (son).

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