Of the sixty small boats that fled Singapore on 13 February 1942, most were captured or sunk, and the majority of the 3000 key personnel on board the boats – staff officers, technicians, nurses – were captured or killed. Of the forty-four people on ML310, only three escaped. Those who perished of disease on the island included the Admiral and the Air Vice Marshall. Others were betrayed, or captured and executed trying to escape. Less than half survived to become POWs.
After furlough, Len and Johnny returned to active service. As part of the war effort, a fleet of twelve Fairmiles was built in Auckland and sent to the Solomon Islands to help provide anti-submarine protection and convoy support to the Allied effort. The two men served together on ML403, Johnny eventually becoming Senior Officer commanding the 80th Anti-Submarine Flotilla. While in the Solomons Len caught up with Lofty again: Signalman Neville was now serving on a minesweeper, but that is another story.
Len built a sizeable business in post-war New Zealand. In a huge irony, he gained success importing Japanese earth-moving equipment, as both New Zealand and Japan engaged in the reconstruction processes vital to their respective futures. Len’s Rotorua-based company was heavily involved in North Island road-building and forestry, as well as hydro-electric projects in the South Island. He had occasion to visit Japan more than once on business, and developed an admiration for the culture and the people. He adopted Japanese habits, and in later life he could be found living a Zen-like life of relative asceticism, shuffling about the house in yukata and slippers, enjoying the occasional sake at sunset.
Len was my father. In the early 1980s, I persuaded him to travel with me to Singapore and Java, with the idea that he might find it worthwhile. While I stayed elsewhere in Singapore, he stayed at Raffles, fulfilling an ambition that he had formed during those dangerous weeks in 1942. Later he and I rattled through Java by train. With hindsight I realise that at no time during that journey did he ever speak of the war. What I knew about his experience I had gleaned over years. I did not understand then that this was the very route that had led him and the others to safety, so his silence on the subject at the time was meaningless to me, but it means much to me to have shared that journey with him.
Years later, in retirement and listening to the radio, Len heard his name broadcast on a programme for returned servicemen. It was a message to him from Jock Brough, still residing in Melbourne. The old comrades never met again, but were able to speak on the phone on several occasions.
Johnny Bull enjoyed a happy marriage and a successful career after the war. He went into business as a trader and led a rich and rewarding life. Apart from his extraordinary encounter with Monk Hendricks, Johnny also made contact with Dutch Captain Hokke of the Sirius. He never forgot his duty to his men, something he shared with me in later life. He passed away in 1996, survived by his son Johnny and his daughter Anne.
Len avoided having to tell Ava of Tim’s probable fate. When they met again, she was already aware that he was missing. Miraculously, however, Tim Hill survived the sinking of ML311. He clung to wreckage for three days before being pulled from the water by the Japanese and interned in Changi as a prisoner of war. From there he was sent to work on the railway in Burma, where he experienced further miracles of survival. In one incident he was saved moments before being executed in reprisal for events in New Zealand involving Japanese POWs, by Australians claiming he was one of theirs. Ava, who worked for the American forces in New Zealand as a typist, only found out Tim was alive in January 1944, when his name was reported in the newspaper. When Tim was finally repatriated in 1946 and the ship berthed in Wellington, his sweetheart was standing on the wharf with her wedding dress over her arm, and they were married forthwith. After the war Tim ran a grain and seed business in Te Aroha with his brother Graham. Throughout the remainder of his days, he refused to allow anything remotely Japanese in his life. Health issues dogged him as a result of his experience as a POW, and he passed away in 1987, survived by Ava and their daughters Christine and April.
Jack Hulbert, too, was captured in Singapore, but survived being a prisoner of the Japanese, and in later years he and Len reconnected. Well into their seventies, the two old mates would disappear out into the Gulf once more, boys again, sailing lazily around the islands on Jack’s boat Ganymede, fishing for their supper and sleeping under the stars.
Len reposes there still. That’s where I scattered his ashes. Tim Hill and Johnny Bull were my godfathers.