Raid Repercussions
The Japanese authorities in Singapore were completely surprised by the raid. Never suspecting such an attack could be mounted from Australia, they assumed it had been carried out by local saboteurs, most likely pro-Communist Chinese guerillas. In their efforts to uncover the perpetrators, a wave of arrests, torture and executions began. Local Chinese and Malays, as well as interned POWs and European civilians were targeted in this program. The incident became known as the Double Tenth, for 10 October, the day that Japanese secret police began the mass arrests.
Given the misery visited upon the local population by the Japanese, criticism has arisen as to whether Operation Jaywick was justified, especially with its relatively limited strategic results. In the aftermath of the raid, the Allies never claimed responsibility for the attack on shipping, most likely because they wanted to preserve the secret of the Krait for future similar missions. Therefore the Japanese did not divert significant military resources to defending against such attacks, instead just using their secret police to enact reprisals against civilians.
Operation Jaywick was followed by Operation Rimau. Three ships were sunk, but the participants, including Lyon, were killed or captured and executed.
Read more about this topic: Operation Jaywick
Famous quotes containing the word raid:
“John Brown and Giuseppe Garibaldi were contemporaries not solely in the matter of time; their endeavors as liberators link their names where other likeness is absent; and the peaks of their careers were reached almost simultaneously: the Harper’s Ferry Raid occurred in 1859, the raid on Sicily in the following year. Both events, however differing in character, were equally quixotic.”
—John Cournos (1881–1956)