Malayan Spymaster by Boris Hembry

Author:Boris Hembry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Monsoon Books Pte. Ltd.

The intention of MULLET was threefold:

1. To establish an ISLD transit camp on the north-west corner of the island of Langkawi.

2. To engage a junk or junks to carry agents between the island, where they would be dropped or picked up by submarine, and various destinations on the mainland of Malaya.

3. To establish a naval observation post on the island, in order to monitor Japanese shipping movements.

The party was to consist of myself, John Llewellyn, three Straits-born Chinese (one of whom was a radio operator), Able Seaman Denning RN, Corporal Johnson RM, and Corporal Flynn RM. With the exception of myself, whom I felt still retained a degree of fitness since training for the earlier Sumatra operation, and was in any case required in Calcutta for further planning meetings, the main party gathered at a specially established camp near Trincomalee and underwent intensive fitness training under the supervision of the Royal Marines. The lighthouse island camp was for agents only.

The departure date was set for 10 February 1944.

All personnel and stores were loaded on to the Tactician on the 9th, and we set sail late on the next day. We arrived in the vicinity of Langkawi on the 19th and just before dusk sighted a large junk becalmed west of the island. Llewellyn and I boarded it and, much to our disappointment, it soon became obvious that it would not suit us. It plied between Kantan, to the north, and Lumut, on the coast of Perak, to the south, with no intermediate stops; and the skipper and crew were so terrified of the Japs that no amount of bribe could get them to co-operate. Our orders stated that, in such eventuality, ‘the junk must be sunk and the crew removed in a manner to be decided upon by the submarine commander and the party leader’. When we returned to the submarine Collett and I agreed that any such action could sour our future relations with other junk skippers, alert the Japs, and bring additional hazards to our agents, so that, on the whole, it would be better to let them go. I did not think that our future plans would be compromised. Anyway, I had not been happy with that part of our orders and thought the matter should have been left entirely to my discretion. We decided to land the party on Langkawi on the following day, but as the landing party were preparing Collett received a signal from Trinco to patrol elsewhere immediately; the ‘exigencies of the Service’. The Tactician headed out into the Indian Ocean in search of prey, but after two days of seeing nothing we were ordered to resume our interrupted activities around Langkawi. It was now the evening of the 22nd; we were three days behind schedule. We launched our two folboats (folding boats) and inflatable recce boats over the side, loaded stores for the whole six days and, in the small hours of the morning, paddled away towards the island. Collett agreed to remain in the vicinity, but warned that he fully expected to be diverted away on another patrol.

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