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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 40
MISSION X (Part 2)
World War 2: January 1942. Penang fell to the Japanese a month earlier and Kuala Lumpur is now occupied. It is obvious Singapore could not be held. There is very little time for Sir Laurence to execute his dangerous plan to tow a cache of precious machine tools from Singapore to Australia ahead of the encroaching Japanese who would employ the tools as weapons
I
outlined my plan to the War Cabinet to load the machine-tools on to the Royal Navy floating dock and tow the lot home to Australia. "There's no time to lose. I could go right now”. "What do you want from us?" they asked. "I want an aircraft, and one or two fellows to go with me. There's a fellow called Jackson here in Melbourne. Used to be managing director of the Borneo Company when I was in Singapore. And then there's Captain John Williams the salvage expert - dependable and resourceful, with a good knowledge of ships.'' "All right," they said. Frank Forde (Deputy PM) turned to me and said: "You'll need a lot of money for this, Mr. Hartnett. I'll fix that up immediately." "Yes," said one voice at the table. "Make sure he's got plenty of gold.” As one man, they rose and wished me good luck. I left the room, and sped back to my office to get ready for a sudden departure. Meanwhile, cables had gone to all the Chiefs of Services in Singapore notifying them of the mission, called Mission X. Twenty-four hours later Jackson, Williams and I were climbing into a flying-boat at Rose Bay in Sydney, for the start of our flight to Singapore. Jackson and Williams hadn't hesitated. I couldn't tell them many details, because Cabinet had impressed on me that secrecy was essential. But then, there weren't many details to tell. It was all a half-formed plan in my own mind. Get to Singapore, order, cajole, bribe, buy, but get the machine-tools out of Singapore! The flying-boat flew north all that hot summer day. On past Brisbane, over the Barrier Reef, beyond the pretty coral atolls. At dusk we reached Townsville. The town was completely blacked out, except for the Queen's Hotel, which had lights in every window, blazing out across the Coral Sea like a lighthouse. This annoyed me intensely, and I dashed off another of my impetuous memos to someone in authority down south, complaining about it. Next morning we flew on, and landed at an R.A.A.F. base at Groote Island. A signal from Darwin was waiting for me. It told us that a pilot had just landed from Singapore and was about to return. Did we want him to wait for us, and take us, or should he return immediately? I said our captain was confident we could make the flight, but would like the officer to go with us. But the pilot preferred to push on immediately. That pilot got as far as Timor when the Japanese spotted him and shot down his flying-boat. Cabinet had heard of the loss of the flying-boat and had assumed it was our aircraft. Frank Forde went to my home and personally broke the news to my wife, Gladys, that I had been shot down. For a few hours we were considered dead. But fortunately, the true situation was made known to my wife before the day was over.
The Battle of Darwin, 19 February 1942, was the largest single attack ever mounted by a foreign power on Australia. Approx. 240 Japanese aircraft attacked the town, ships in the harbour and two airfields. Darwin was totally unprepared. More than 240 civilians and Australian and US service personnel were killed, including the post master of the Darwin post office, his family and six young women telegraphists. The 64th, and last, air raid on Darwin occurred on 12 November 1943. In total there were more than 90 air attacks on northern Australia.
The-news from Singapore grew worse by the hour. The Japanese were racing toward Singapore. There was not much time left. We were refuelling for the long hop to Singapore when a cable came from Melbourne: "Cabinet desires Mr. Hartnett and party not to proceed. Malayan situation far too serious. Now considered impossible to carry out mission." I showed this to the captain of our aircraft. “What do you think?" He thought he could make it. The prize·was too important. I decided to ignore the cable and carry on. But before our pilot could leave Darwin he had to get a pass-out. His superiors refused to give it to him. So we were stumped by red tape. Our high adventure, upon which so much had depended, had ended in a dismal anti-climax. And what happened to the machine-tools? The Japanese got them, of course, but I believe someone had the foresight to sabotage most of the really important pieces before the enemy marched in. The trip was not entirely wasted. Cabinet asked me to look Darwin over very closely and give them a report on the situation there, from a strictly unbiased observer's viewpoint. I was appalled by the incredible state of unpreparedness and the complacency. The anti-aircraft defences were meagre and disorganized. The few guns were positioned away beyond reach of their ammunition supplies. At the R.A.A.F. base they still had a huge concrete arch at the entrance gates, a perfect landmark for raiding enemy planes. "Can't you blow this thing over, or remove it? It's as good as a neon sign to any Japanese pilot who comes over!" I told some Air Force officers. They just shrugged. "Oh, don't worry, she'll be right;'' they replied. The couldn't-care-less attitude staggered me. Those people didn't seem to realize they were at war. They realized it a few days later, though, when the Japanese came over in force and pasted the town and the harbour at their leisure. Before leaving Darwin I visited a squadron of American P40 fighters that had just flown in from Brisbane. There were fourteen in all. The American pilots were very young, very tense. They had never been in action. Ten of those fourteen boys were shot down when they went up to meet the Japanese bomber squadrons as they began their Darwin bombing raid.
This is an extract from ‘Big Wheels & Little Wheels’, by Sir Laurence Hartnett as told to John Veitch, 1964. © Deirdre Barnett.
AMT DEC/JAN 2021
To be continued…
