Collections
A new acquisition of national significance Operation Jaywick material related to Lt Hubert Edward ‘Ted’ Carse, RANVR
Operation Jaywick was the codename for an incredible feat of daring that occurred on the night of 26 September 1943, when members of Z Special Unit, aboard a small boat named Krait, carried out a clandestine incursion against Imperial Japanese shipping in Singapore Harbour. The museum recently acquired an important collection relating to the raid and the life of Krait’s commander, Lieutenant Hubert Edward ‘Ted’ Carse of the Royal Australian Naval Volunteer Reserve. By Dr James Hunter and Daina Fletcher.
OPERATION JAYWICK IS LEGENDARY as one of the most audacious operations of World War II. A 14-man team of Z Special Unit commandos motored from Australian waters deep into Japanese enemy territory, disguised as local fishermen aboard a Japanese-built fishing vessel renamed Krait. Six of the men then launched their attack using folding kayaks and limpet mines. The mission was a complete success, resulting in damage to, or destruction of, seven Japanese ships, with no Allied losses. A nationally significant collection of items owned by Krait’s commander, Ted Carse – service medals, personal papers, a military-issue knuckle knife, and a fake Japanese flag flown from Krait as it traversed enemy waters – was recently acquired by the museum. This was made possible with the support of the Australian Government through the National Cultural Heritage Account and the Australian National Maritime Museum Foundation, and through the generosity of the families of Ted Carse’s brothers. The Carse collection was formally accepted into the National Maritime Collection on 20 April by the Honorable Paul Fletcher, Federal Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts, in the presence of the Carse family and special forces veterans. Minister Fletcher noted that the collection ‘contributes to our understanding of an extraordinary mission of remarkable courage ... with challenges unimaginable in ordinarily civilian life in peacetime’.
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Signals 135 Winter 2021
