The Fall of Singapore - 75 Years Ago Today

[Dave Homewood]

Remembering the Fall of Singapore, 75 Years Ago Today. The invading Japanese forces had overwhelmed the British and Allied defences on the island fortress of Singapore and British forces officially surrendered on this day. This was the greatest defeat and humiliation the British Empire had ever suffered, Singapore had been branded as impregnable and the cornerstone of security in Asia. New Zealand had supplied many servicemen, mainly Royal New Zealand Air Force pilots, to Singapore and they bravely fought hard in the defence following the attacks that Japan first launched on the 8th of December 1941. This massive defeat saw tens of thousands of men and women imprisoned in inhuman conditions by their captors. That included many New Zealand civilians and service personnel. It also caused widespread panic for people in New Zealand and Australia, as well as other Asian and Pacific nations that were now in direct threat. Singapore remained under Japanese rule till the end of WWII.

[tbf25o4]

Dave, while there were many kiwi pilots at Singapore both in 488 and other RAF squadrons, usually overlooked are the kiwi ground crew who supported those squadrons, the Singapore Flying Boat delivery contingent, and No1 Aerodrome Construction Squadron. The "groundies" had a horrific experience, trying to escape, some successful, others enduring the harsh conditions as POWs

[Dave Homewood]

Indeed, that's absolutely right. And those who did escape and got back to New Zealand were then told they were under no circumstances to talk about what had happened there or to even admit they'd been in Singapore when they got to their next NZ posting, so as to not cause panic, fear and rumour. That must have been very hard indeed on those guys.

[jessie26]

Hello Dave, I am trying to get some information on my Father's service in the RNZAF, in particular his time in Singapore. He was in the "Far East 15th September 1941 to 16th December 1941. At that time he was Pilot Officer Eric Royden Banks Official Number 405002.He disembarked Singapore 5/10/41 RAF station Kluang then on the 15th transferred to RAF station Kallang and on the 16th he is listed with "Y" Squadron Kluang. The next notation is he disembarked N.Z. 24/3/42.I would like to know what Squadron he was in and how he "escaped" Singapore. He achieved the rank of Flying Officer 16th August 1942....He died 12th April 1956.

Any information would greatly appreciated. (I am one of his sons).

jessie26

[Dave Homewood]

I believe Y Squadron RAF was a Detachment of CAC Wirraways, that had broken away from No. 21 Squadron RAAF. They were used to convert pilots coming from places like New Zealand who'd trained in fixed undercarriage, open cockpit biplanes onto retracting gear, enclosed cockpit monoplanes before they moved on to the Brewster Buffalo and Hawker Hurricane fighters based in Singapore and Malaya.

[errolmartyn]

Feb 16, 2017 14:12:19 GMT 12 jessie26 said:

Hello Dave, I am trying to get some information on my Father's service in the RNZAF, in particular his time in Singapore. He was in the "Far East 15th September 1941 to 16th December 1941. At that time he was Pilot Officer Eric Royden Banks Official Number 405002.He disembarked Singapore 5/10/41 RAF station Kluang then on the 15th transferred to RAF station Kallang and on the 16th he is listed with "Y" Squadron Kluang. The next notation is he disembarked N.Z. 24/3/42.I would like to know what Squadron he was in and how he "escaped" Singapore. He achieved the rank of Flying Officer 16th August 1942....He died 12th April 1956.

Any information would greatly appreciated. (I am one of his sons).

jessie26

Jessie,

The following might be of interest to you?

15 Sep 41 Johan van Oldenbarnevelt Wellington-Australia (Sydney?), t/ship to (ship?) for Singapore, arr 5 Oct.

RNZAF for att to RAF: 25 Pilots
died: Boyd, K L; Brown, D R L; Kinder, H; Newman, R J; Reynolds, A R; Steele, G B; (6)
survived: Baber, B K; Banks, E R; Bartrum, P M; Davidson, J; Gifford, P D; Gormley, H P; Greening, R S; Kelleher, B J; MacMillan, R W;
McGechie, W F; Miller, J E; Reid, R J*; Russell, I W; Smith, E B; Stewart, R M (for Singapore flying boat delivery, also i/c of draft);
Stringer, B D; Stubbs, M G; Sweeney, J; Waters, M W; (19).

1 Equipment Assistant – survived: Cook, J W; (1).
3 Aircrafthands – survived: Burnell, K F; Gillatt, R W; Hooper, E C; (3)

* - Reid became a PoW of the Japanese in about March 1942.

(From my For Your Tomorrow - A record of New Zealanders who have died while serving with the RNZAF and Allied Air Services since 1915 (Volume Three: Biographies & Appendices)

Errol

[Dave Homewood]

Oh wow, that POW was my friend Ron Reid, and also on the list was his best friend, and my friend, Brian Baber. Very recently I released an interview with Ron about his time in the Air Force, including as a POW. Both these great men are nw no longer with us.

www.cambridgeairforce.org.nz/WONZShow/2017/01/ron-reid/

[smithy]

Thanks for the reminder Dave about this, one of my great uncles was captured at the fall of Singapore and had the dubious pleasure of being a guest of the emperor on the Burma Road. He was British Army though, not NZ.

[buffnut453]

Feb 16, 2017 14:12:19 GMT 12 jessie26 said:

Hello Dave, I am trying to get some information on my Father's service in the RNZAF, in particular his time in Singapore. He was in the "Far East 15th September 1941 to 16th December 1941. At that time he was Pilot Officer Eric Royden Banks Official Number 405002.He disembarked Singapore 5/10/41 RAF station Kluang then on the 15th transferred to RAF station Kallang and on the 16th he is listed with "Y" Squadron Kluang. The next notation is he disembarked N.Z. 24/3/42.I would like to know what Squadron he was in and how he "escaped" Singapore. He achieved the rank of Flying Officer 16th August 1942....He died 12th April 1956.

Any information would greatly appreciated. (I am one of his sons).

jessie26

Hi jessie26,

Sorry for coming late to this thread...I've been absent from this excellent forum for too long. Y Sqn was formed at Kluang, ostensibly as an Operational Training Unit to help convert newly-arrived pilots to operate the features of "modern" combat aircraft - fancy things like retractable undercarriage, flaps, enclosed canopies etc. Many of the pilots assigned to fly Buffalo fighters in the Far East came straight out of flying training schools where the most advanced aircraft they'd flown were Hawker Hart trainers - fixed undercarriage, no flaps, slower landing speed than a modern fighter etc etc.

Early in 1942, it was decided to repurpose the Y Sqn Wirraways for use as dive bombers. A number of Wirraways that had been packed up for shipment back to Australia were reassembled by 151 MU at Seletar and provided to Y Sqn. Some airframes were modified by the addition of a "soup plate siren", essentially a hand-held air raid warning siren that was bolted onto the side of the fuselage with tin vanes added to spin it in the aircraft's slipstream. The intent was to produce a scream when diving similar to the German Stuka dive bomber. The pics below show Wirraway A20-86 'GA-O' which served with Y Sqn and was ultimately captured by the Japanese in the Dutch East Indies. These photos uniquely show the soup plate siren installation.






21
The aircraft still wears the code letters carried during its prior service with 21 Sqn RAAF. It's possible the aircraft also wore 21 Sqn's well-known "boxing kangaroo" badge on the port side. The pic below is the badge reportedly cut from a Y Sqn Wirraway in January 1942 but, unfortunately, no photos exist showing the badge applied to any 21 Sqn Wirraways.



Unfortunately, details of Y Sqn's operations are pretty limited and they seldom get recognized for the courage displayed not only by the pilots and gunners but also by the groundcrew. For several weeks, Y Sqn was the only RAF flying unit permanently stationed in Malaya after the Buffalos retreated to Singapore just before Christmas 1941.

I do have a few additional details and can point you to the few scarce references on Y Sqn. Feel free to contact me off-forum at [e-mail]

Kind regards,
Mark Haselden

[Dave Homewood]

Interesting stuff Mark. How did the Wirraway stack up as a dive bomber in the end? Was it effective?

[Mustang51]

Dave, The last of the Wirraways was the CA-16 which was fitted out for dive bombing with another set of "airbrakes" above the flaps and strengthened positions under the wings. I would be very interested in finding out as much as possible about "Y" Sqn for my Wirraway commentary at Temora. I knew a little bit of the above but all of it is good gen to me. Would have been interesting to see how the early Wirraways performed as dive bombers.

[buffnut453]

I think the term "dive bomber" when applied to the Y Sqn Wirraways is probably a bit of an overstatement. Certainly, they could do steep dive attacks but nothing like the near-vertical profile of something like the Stuka. Sadly, there are no contemporaneous accounts of its performance in the role. The best description I've found is in "Bloody Shambles" which focuses on a single raid over Muar on 19 Jan 42. I'd be surprised if that was the only combat operation by Y Sqn but, alas, there are no other formal records that I've been able to trace. I did interview Wg Cdr Donald Pearson who had commanded W Flt until he transferred to fly PR Buffalos with 4 PRU. He recalled flight testing the Wirraway with the soup plate siren and called it a death trap because recovery from a spin did not follow any standard convention.

[Dave Homewood]

Thanks Peter and Mark. Good to see you back here Mark. I guess the Wirraways may have given the Japanese a good laugh if nothing else.

[30sqnatc]

My uncle, a carpenter in the RAF, arrived in Singapore two days before the surrender. Lucky someone in their wisdom realised nothing he could build was going to defeat the Japanese, so he was put straight back on a boat and left the next day. Lucky bugger otherwise he may have been building a railway in Burma.

Paul

[Dave Homewood]

Yikes, that is a very close shave!

[buffnut453]

May 19, 2017 15:26:14 GMT 12 Dave Homewood said:

Thanks Peter and Mark. Good to see you back here Mark. I guess the Wirraways may have given the Japanese a good laugh if nothing else.

Hi Dave,

Actually, I think the Wirraway may have been rather effective in the ground attack role. I'm away from my references but, IIRC, each Wirraway was loaded with 20x40lb bombs on the Muar mission. While the 40lb bomb may not seem like a particularly scary weapon, in the anti-personnel role it's far more useful than dropping one or two much heavier bombs. A large bomb just makes one large hole in the ground. If troops are dispersed, not many will be killed or hurt. Dropping 20x40lb bombs will cover a much broader area, increasing the likely destruction against dispersed forces.

I'd dearly love to learn more about the Y Sqn Wirraways but I suspect the only sources of information would be the logbooks of the pilots (mostly, if not all, Kiwis) and the gunners who were RAAF (former 21 Sqn crews who lost their jobs when the unit swapped the Wirraways for Buffalos). If anyone out there knows of any surviving logbooks for Y Sqn personnel, I'd be very, VERY interested to learn more.

Cheers,
Mark

[Dave Homewood]

Who were the Kiwis in Y Squadron?

[buffnut453]

I'll have to check my sources this evening but I'm aware of the following RNZAF pilots:

Flt Lt J Park-Thompson (commanding W Flt)
Plt Off Bill Annand
Sgt Graham Steele

I'm not 100% sure about Park-Thompson but Annand and Steele were definitely Kiwis. In addition, I believe Sgt A Salter was also RNZAF and served as a gunner on Y Sqn. As noted, most of the gunners were RAAF including:

Sgt Abe Moritz
Sgt Tony Slater
Sgt John Victorsen

I may have other names in my resources at home but I don't have them to hand right now.

Cheers,
Mark

There

[buffnut453]

A few quick updates:

- "Sgt A Salter" may be source confusion with Sgt Tony Slater RAAF. I suspect they're the same person. Again, I'll need to check my other resources when I get home.
- "Bill Annand" could be George William Annand, NZ412181, who remained in the Air Force after the war and flew Meteors. He passed away in 2002.
- Flt Lt J Park-Thompson may be the "John Park Thompson", formerly of 36 Sqn, mentioned in last post of this forum (http://ww2talk.com/index.php?threads/no-36-squadron-raf-operations-in-singapore-java.26061/) in response to an initial question by some chap named Dave Homewood...whoever that is?
- Sgt Graham Steele could be the same person who died on 24 Oct 42 in a Harvard crash (https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=65482).


Cheers,
Mark

[buffnut453]

Ok...back home now. "Bloody Shambles lists the following Y Sqn crews as participating in the 19 Jan 42 Muar raid:

- Flt Lt Park Thompson and Sgt H Colebrook RAAF (Park Thompson is not identified as RNZAF).
- Plt Off A R Hemus RNZAF and Sgt A Moritz RAAF.
- Plt Off G W Annand RNZAF and Sgt A Salter (Salter's service is not identified).
- Sgt E M Castles RNZAF and Sgt J E Fellowes RAAF.
- Sgt G B Steele RNZAF and Sgt J F Victorsen RAAF.

According to "Glory in Chaos" by E R 'Bon' Hall, Park Thompson and Colebrook flew 4 sorties on 30 Dec 41 - 1 Jan 42 in Wirraway A20-47 on attempted intercepts of Japanese aircraft, all of which failed. The book also identifies Australian Plt Off John Maguire as another navigator/observer serving with at Kluang and Bill McGechie (presumably NZ411423 William Francis McGechie?).

So...plenty of Kiwis serving with Y Sqn. If anyone has researched these individuals, I'd love to hear of any details you've uncovered.

Cheers,
Mark