PREVIEW: ORDERS, DECORATIONS, MEDALS & MILITARIA: 17 JANUARY

So secret was Operation Jaywick that the Allies never claimed responsibility for its success for fear of jeopardising future missions against the Japanese in Singapore – and the Military Medals awarded could not be listed in the London Gazette.

Now, as one of those medals comes up for auction in this sale, it provides a fitting opportunity to recall this most daring raid from the Second World War.

The plan was to send a clandestine force from Australia to Singapore by boat to mine Japanese shipping in the harbour of the occupied territory.

The Z Force team, as it later became known, comprised officers and men drawn from the Australian and British armed forces, whose mission was to travel in a vessel disguised as an Asian fishing boat before completing the trip in collapsible canoes known as folboats.

After much preparation, the force set off from Exmouth Gulf, Western Australia on 2 September 1943, having stained their skin brown to resemble Asian fishermen. Just over three weeks later, on the night of 24 September, six of the men climbed into the folboats and paddled 50km to establish a forward base in a cave in an island near Singapore Harbour.

The following night they paddled into the harbour, placing limpet mines on several ships before quietly withdrawing to their base. Shortly after, the mines exploded, claiming seven ships (later revised to six) and accounting for around 39,000 tons of shipping.

Successful in staying hidden, the attack force returned to the fishing boat and, with one close shave after being closely approached by a Japanese auxiliary minesweeper in the Lombok Strait, returned to Australia.

The Japanese, never suspecting a raid from Australia, assumed it to be the work of local saboteurs and guerrillas, and took out their anger with reprisals on local civilians.

By keeping the mission secret, Z Force were able to follow it up with another less successful – and indeed tragic – raid on Singapore Harbour, Operation Rimau, a year later in which Captain Ivan Lyon, commander of both raids, was killed and which ultimately led to the death of every member of that latter operation.

Among the Jaywick party were two British men, including Welshman Acting Sergeant, later Major Ronald George ‘Taffy’ Morris of the Royal Army Medical Corps who was attached to the Special Operations Executive (S.O.E). His son, who has recently written a book about his father’s exploits, The Tiger’s Revenge, has put up his medal group here with an estimate of £60,000-80,000.

Morris was born at Pentre, in the Rhondda Valley, on Christmas Day 1918, and after leaving school at the age of 14 was employed as a miner. After five years in the South Wales pits, he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps on 30 May 1938, and after Japan entered the War, he was recruited as a Medical Orderly to join the Special Operations Executive, Orient Mission, arriving in Singapore on 19 April 1941. Here he met fellow S.O.E. Operative, the charismatic old Harrovian Captain Ivan Lyon of the Gordon Highlanders. It was this meeting that resulted in Morris becoming part of the Commando force led by Lyon that undertook Operation Jaywick.

Morris was honoured with a ‘secret’ Military Medal for his gallantry and distinguished service as Medical Orderly during the hazardous and highly audacious 48-day, 4,000-mile round trip on what proved to be the deepest surface waterborne penetration behind enemy lines undertaken by special forces in the Second World War.

Morris retired from the British Army with the rank of Major in 1972. Returning to Wales, he died in Wrexham on 19 January 1999. His son, Evan, would later write: “My father’s life was shaped by his war experiences as he had achieved the almost impossible by joining the army prior to the War as a private soldier and rising up through the ranks to become a major. Something quite incredible for an ex-miner from the Rhondda. However, in the following years and throughout his career he never forgot the loss of his wartime colleagues, especially Ivan Lyon. From Miner to Major – a fitting epitaph.”