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HISTORY
Big wheels & little wheels – the story of UK-born Australian Sir Laurence John Hartnett (1898 – 1986) Australia’s “Father of the Holden” and much more
PART 39
MISSION X (Part 1)
It is January 1942, and the Japanese are racing towards Singapore, whose fall is imminent. A precious horde of precision machine tools, located in Singapore must not fall into the enemy’s hands. Sir Laurence volunteers to make the dangerous journey north to rescue them.
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The letter in my wallet was quite explicit. It said I could spend £500,000 of Australian Government money how I liked, and if I wanted more, all I had to do was cable for it. I could make any commitments, enter into any deals, and no questions would be asked. I had bags of gold and silver coins, thick bundles of U.S. dollars, Dutch guilders, Portuguese escudos. No private citizen had ever left Australia armed with such complete authority over such a large amount of the nation's cash. But then, to my knowledge, no private citizen had ever gone off on a mission for Australia that was quite so desperate – and quite such an obvious gamble – as this one. It was late January 1942, and the Japanese were racing down the Malay Peninsula, sweeping everything before them. They were heading for Singapore, and so was I. I was flying north in a R.A.A.F. flyingboat, at a time when every other private citizen with any sense was heading away from Singapore. My mission was to get to Singapore before the Japanese, and beat them to the richest war-industry plum in South-East Asia: the magnificent collection of precision machine-tools, worth at least £5 million, in the Royal Navy workshops at Seletar, on Singapore Island. How I would get such a huge amount of machinery out of Singapore ahead of the Japanese, I had only a vague idea. But money can work miracles, and I had plenty of that. There was a half formed scheme in my mind to commandeer the huge floating dock, load the stuff on it, and, somehow or other, tow it south to Australia and safety. What a crazy scheme it was! But, in those times, the maddest plans sometimes came off. This one simply had to be attempted.
had not yet started. And in Singapore was the answer to our most serious machinetool problems. No machine-tools means no munitions. From Australia's war production point of view, the loss of those machines to the enemy would be as great a disaster as the fall of Singapore itself. I had felt for weeks that Singapore was doomed. I knew it first when I met AirMarshal Brooke-Popham, the tall, gaunt G.O.C. of British forces in Malaya, who paid us a flying visit just after the Japanese had invaded Malaya. The man was obviously depressed. He walked around my office, his manner distant and distraught. "Look, we're in a pretty poor plight," he said. "We must get more arms and equipment. What have you got that we could have?" I suggested the best thing we could send was a supply of two-inch and threeinch trench mortars. But he didn't seem very interested. He didn't rate his chances high even then. We agreed to arrange the shipment of a supply of mortars, with ammunition, on top priority. He left my office, still in his distant, worried state. The poor fellow was up against it and he knew it. Then I began to get copies of cables sent urgently by General Gordon Bennett, commanding the Australian Eighth Division in Malaya. He was pleading for arms of any kind. As the situation in Malaya worsened, it seemed quite obvious that Singapore
could not be held. I began to think more and more seriously about the Royal Navy's beautiful workshops at Seletar in Singapore. Australia had been sending supplies there - items such as hexagon brass, steel plates and rods and one such consignment had been assembled and was even then awaiting transport. How utterly stupid it was! With the Japanese on the doorstep we were still sending raw materials to Singapore. I suggested to my Minister Norman Makin that instead of us sending raw materials to Seletar, we should be trying to get the machinery out. I begged the Government to do everything possible to save the precious machine-tools. For a week I awaited an answer. The frustration was almost killing me. Daily the Japanese came closer and closer to Singapore; hourly, our chances of rescuing the equipment became slimmer. Finally I was summoned to a meeting with the War Cabinet, in Victoria Barracks, St.Kilda Rd. Melbourne. I outlined my plan to load the machine-tools on to the Royal Navy floating dock and tow the lot home to Australia. "Would you do it?" I was asked. "I'd like to have a go at it," I replied. "I used to live in Singapore. I speak Malay”. “All right" they said. "When would you go?" "There's no time to lose" I said. "I could go right now”.
As Director of Ordnance Production, one of my biggest handicaps was the lack of precision machine tools. LendLease, upon which we were to rely heavily before the war ended,
Japan invaded and captured the British stronghold of Singapore on 15 February 1942. It was considered the largest British surrender in history.
This is an extract from ‘Big Wheels & Little Wheels’, by Sir Laurence Hartnett as told to John Veitch, 1964. © Deirdre Barnett.
AMT OCT/NOV 2020
To be continued…
