大象传媒

This story has been submitted to the People's War website by Don and Betty Tempest of the Lancshomeguard on behalf of Ron Bowey and added to the site with his permission.

In 1938 I joined the Royal Marines and became first a Physical Training Instructor and then a Corp Photographer and Film Cameraman, recording events for the Chief of Naval Information, the Chief of Naval Intelligence and the Commandant General of the Royal Marines at Queen Anne鈥檚 Mansion.

In 1942 and 1944 I suffered injuries to my legs which left me with a pronounced gait when I walked, but due to metal plates that were fitted to my legs, it did not affect my film and photo duties.

I was unable to return to being a Physical Training Instructor so I was transferred to the Royal Navy to join the Film and Trials Unit at the Royal Navy School of Photography.

I was recommended to join His Royal Highness Prince Phillip鈥檚 World Tour and I joined the entourage in civilian clothes. I made two films for world distribution and for TV News Services, worldwide.

My health was causing some concern and after a survey in the Royal Naval Hospital, I was discharged with a war pension and the Kings Silver Badge for Loyal Service.

After a number of operations, metal plates and three attempts of metal joints, I lost both legs and my fingers, which had gone into a fist position, became infected and nine of them were amputated.

During my career I had travelled around the world and had visited Singapore in 1945 to film and photograph Earl Mountbattern take the Japanese surrender. I was also in Rangoon in 1945, and whilst there I visited the Htaukkyant War Cemetery, where many of our soldiers who had been killed during the war with the Japanese, were being laid. The cemetery at that time was very basic, but work was being done to improve it.

Many years later I re-visited Singapore and Burma, in my wheel chair, and with the company of a nurse. My reason for returning to Burma and Singapore goes back many years to the time when I got access to an Intelligence Summary of H.Q., MALAYA COMMAND, which referred to a report of the circumstances under which three Japanese Officers of 7th. Area Army Intelligence Staff committed suicide at Rengam on the 28th. December 1945, by 鈥淎MENDE HONORABLE鈥�.

These three Japanese Officers had confessed to the torture and personally beheading three British POWs, Major Maxwell RM, Sgt/Major Smith RM and a young Naval Pilot called Tomlinson on the 20th. July 1945. They had feared that an investigation that was taking place would unearth the crime and bring discredit to their Senior Officers.

Major Maxwell RM., who I knew, and Sgt/Major Smith belonged to a SOG party that had landed by canoe from a submarine in March 1945 on the island of Phuket on the West Coast of Siam (Thailand) to get information on the two Japanese Airfields on the Island, also to get beach gradient and if possible prisoners.

They were part of a highly specialised group of Royal Marines who came under the title of Small Operations Group (SOG) who had been carefully selected from volunteers to be trained in silent killing, experts in handling explosives, clearing and laying mines, snatching Japanese prisoners or local natives from Burma, Siam, or the Western Coasts of Malaya and a host of many deceptive operations to dismay and confuse the enemy.

Selection of the volunteers and tough training in the Havant and Portsmouth area whittled them down to the operational numbers they required, they then took passage on a Fleet Aircraft Carrier to the Trincomalee area of Ceylon where they undertook intense training in jungle warfare, survival, day and night navigation and endless operations in canoes embarking and disembarking with Submarines, Destroyers, Motor Launches and RAF Catalina Flying Boats.

The mastermind behind the SOGs was Colonel H.T. Tollemache R.M. and Lt. Col. H.G. Hasler who in December 1942 led an attack against German blockade runners lying in Bordeaux.

The SOG party that landed at Phuket in March 1945 were met with a fire fight by the Japanese. Sgt Major Smith was badly wounded and Major Maxwell stayed with him but they were subsequently captured by the Japanese, and taken, together with Naval Pilot Tomlinson, to a hill north of Pasir Panjang, Singapore, and because they refused to answer any questions, the Japanese Officers, Ikoda and Kajiki, beheaded them.

The remainder of the SOG party had become separated during the fire fight but they were later captured by the Siamese Troops and kept as POWs for the remainder of the war, and treated within the terms of the Geneva Convention.

A fourth person, Major R. Ingleton of the Royal Marines, joined the service at the beginning of the war. His natural ability as a 20year old to lead, and his athletic prowess, quickly took him from a Marine to a temporary Commission, and finally brought him to the 345 officers and men of the SOGs under the command of Colonel H.T.Tellemache RM.

All the officers were trained on special subjects by Lt. Col. (Cockleshell) Hasler RM, but Major Ingleton was then attached to Lt. Col. Ivan Lyon of the Gordon Highlanders, who was making plans to carry out a raid on Singapore Harbour.

The men, 19 Australian and 4 British, completed intensive training on Garden Island south of Perth and became 鈥淥peration Rimau鈥�. They departed from Freemantle to carry out their 鈥極peration鈥� on HM Submarine 鈥淧orpoise鈥�.

They left the submarine when they captured a 鈥楯unk鈥� and moved aboard. Unfortunately the rig on the 鈥楯unk鈥� they captured was not the same as that on 鈥楯unk鈥� built in the Singapore area. Their luck ran out when an inquisitive Japanese boat converged on them and they were forced to open fire and sink it.

Lyons and his men scuttled the 鈥楯unk鈥� and retained their 鈥榝oldboats鈥� and the limpet mines. History has revealed that the following night they sank 3 large Japanese Merchant ships near Sanbo Island.

They made their way, paddling by night and resting during the day, 70miles to Merepas Island. There, Lt Col Lyons and three others were killed in firefight s with the Japanese.

Major Ingleton and his party laid up on Marapas awaiting pick up by the HM Submarine Tantalus. Unfortunately the submarine did not arrive when expected. When it did arrive, some two weeks later, there was no sign of Major Ingleton and his party. They had made the decision, because they were running out of food, to head for Australia.

About a month later the Japanese finally caught up with Major Ingleton and L/cpl Hardy, who was wounded. During the next few weeks the others were captured by the Japanese Police.

The captured men of Operation Rimau were persistently questioned, but refused to answer and it was then decided that they would be executed. They had been persistently tortured during their months of interrogation, but just prior to them being beheaded, gave a display of light banter as they gave their final farewells to each other before kneeling for their decapitation.

My return trip to Singapore and Rangoon was very memorable and sobering. When I visited the cemeteries I faced the headstones, closed my eyes and said a short prayer. I felt my years slip back to my early twenties, which would be the average age of the majority here. They had been gently recovered from jungles, the swamps and from the jails and brought to the cemetery. They were no longer in isolation, scattered across the battlefields and where ever else they fell. Now they were all together, in serene peace and harmony, with the loving care and dedication by the workpeople of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

I am most thankful for being able to undergo that second trip, but I couldn鈥檛 leave there without the message from our fallen comrades ringing in my ears.

鈥榃HEN YOU GO HOME TELL THEM OF US

AND SAY

FOR YOU鈥橰E TOMORROW, WE GAVE OUR DAY鈥�

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.