In Extremis - Stories from the Edge of History

In the final episode of the Jaywick arc of Britain's Greatest Soldier , Major Ivan Lyon and 13 other operatives move to the execution phase of the most audacious commando raid of the Pacific war.After a tense passage through the Lombok Strait, with Lyon's hand on the detonator that would obliterate the Krait if Japanese capture became inevitable, the men sail acros the Java Sea to the Riau Archipelago — making landfall on Panjang Island on 18 September 1943. From there, the six-man raiding party paddles the 50 kilometres into Singapore Harbour, ground they had to give up to the Japanese eighteen months earlier.On the night of 26 September, the three folboat crews — Lyon and Happy Huston, Bob Page and Joe Jones, Donald Davidson and Walter "Poppa" Falls — attach Mark I limpet mines to seven Japanese vessels. Davidson and Falls paddle into Keppel Harbour through an open boom gate. Page and Jones strike the Bukom Island wharves. Lyon and Huston attack a 10,000-tonne tanker in Examination Anchorage— and are nearly discovered by a sailor at an open porthole.Seven explosions tear through the harbour at dawn on 27 September.The return journey to the Pompong rendezvous is a five-night ordeal through hostile waters, in waters thick with Japanese patrols, on a deadline the Krait will not wait past. Lyon and Page miss the rendezvous by 21 hours. The Krait is then nearly destroyed by a Japanese minesweeper in the Lombok Strait — eight minutes that the crew would remember as the longest of the war.The episode closes with the political fallout. Why the Australian and British governments suppressed news of the raid. What Lord Mountbatten asked SOE to do next. Why Ivan Lyon — recently told that his wife Gabrielle and son Clive were alive — could not be satisfied with Jaywick's success.And how the silence the Allies maintained about the raid would soon unleash a reign of terror on Occupied Singapore — and on a Singaporean schoolteacher named Elizabeth Choy.Next week: Heroine of Singapore, a two-part series on Elizabeth Choy.RESEARCHResearch for this particular episode comes predominantly from my own book, ⁠Survival in Singapore: Elizabeth Choy, Operation Jaywick and the Battle for Truth in Changi⁠. They also relied on the below secondary sources:⁠Deadly Secrets⁠, by Lynette Silver⁠Operation Rimau⁠ by Peter Thompson and Robert Macklin⁠The Heroes⁠ by Ronald McKie⁠SOE⁠ by Charles Cruickshank

Eighteen men. One vessel. And an ocean that offered no second chances.In Part Two of Britain’s Greatest Soldier, Ivan Lyon takes command of a 25-tonne Sumatran prahu — a vessel with no keel, threadbare sails, and a dangerous tendency to roll under pressure. It is top-heavy, temperamental, and wholly unsuited to the journey ahead.And yet, either they sail or they will be captured by the Japanese.What follows is a voyage across the Indian Ocean defined by extremes: towering tempests that threaten to tear the vessel apart, long stretches of dead calm that sap strength and morale, and the ever-present menace of submerged reefs, which, should they be struck, would end everything in an instant.This is a tail of seamanship, nerve, endurance, and leadership under relentless pressure.Because out here, there is no hope of rescue. They only have each other. And in the Indian Ocean, there's no margin for error.RESEARCHResearch for this particular episode comes predominantly from my own book,⁠ ⁠Survival in Singapore: Elizabeth Choy, Operation Jaywick and the Battle for Truth in Changi⁠⁠.They also relied on the below secondary sources:⁠⁠Deadly Secrets⁠⁠, by Lynette Silver⁠⁠Operation Rimau⁠⁠ by Peter Thompson and Robert Macklin⁠⁠The Heroes⁠⁠ by Ronald McKie⁠⁠SOE⁠⁠ by Charles Cruickshank

After nearly two months stranded behind enemy lines on Japanese-occupied Timor, Bryan Rofe and his party of Australian airmen face their most desperate moment. A submarine has attempted a rescue, but the rendezvous has been missed. Now, with four men dead, supplies exhausted and illness spreading, time is running out.Worse still, the Japanese have dispatched a force of 300 soldiers to hunt them down. They are only days away.This is the final chapter in one of the most extraordinary survival stories of the Second World War.Research for this podcast comes from my book, Rescue at 2100 Hours (Penguin, 2013). Here's a link - https://www.penguin.com.au/books/rescue-at-2100-hours-9781742537627

A young RAAF flight lieutenant is thrust into command when 28 Australian airmen are stranded on Japanese-occupied Timor in 1942. Cut off, outnumbered, and hunted, he must lead with limited supplies and no clear rescue. The episode explores leadership under pressure, fragile morale, and the thin line between discipline and survival as the group navigates danger, uncertainty, and the realities of war at its most unforgiving edge.