# Loss of the Vyner Brooke, 14th Feb 1942.



## Harry Nicholson

> According to the memoir of Lt Mann which existed only on typed foolscap, that I've now passed to the Australian memorial archive, Vyner Brooke was lost this day in 1942 - Bombed off Banka Island, Dutch East Indies. I've published Lt Mann's account on Amazon as 'One Jump Ahead'. The sinking is infamous because of the massacre of her Australian nurses and other survivors when they struggled ashore. Here is an extract from his memoir:
> 14th February 1942. We officers were on the bridge during the forenoon, talking, and keeping a lookout. At 1100, with a deafening roar of engines, a plane swooped from over the island to starboard and over us. It looked like a Lockheed Hudson. It showed the red triangular markings of the Dutch under the wings and the R.A.F. roundel on the fuselage. This seemed strange to me. I told the captain I’d never heard of such dual markings. However, it circled the ship and signalled by light, 'What ship?' I told the signalman, a Malay, to make the challenge, which he did, but the aircraft replied with three letters whereas the replies should have been four letter groups. The aircraft again circled the ship and made, 'Name please?'
> ***I asked the captain if I should tell him our name but, while he considered, the aircraft swooped across our bows with a machine-gun going full blast. He was not firing at the ship, but into the water across the bows. Having done so, he flew off without further ado.
> ***He may have been an Allied aircraft warning us to get out of there, but if so, he could have told us without the mysterious goings on, as he must have seen the White Ensign. I have considered he may have been Japanese trying to get us into better position for attack, but if so he could have peppered the ship with his guns instead of the water. To this day, the incident remains a mystery.
> ***However, the occasion caused the captain to get on the move again. We obviously were not hidden, and may as well be on our way taking risks, as take them at anchor. I don’t think anyone could argue with his decision. We weighed and steamed for the Bangka Strait that runs between the island of Bangka and Sumatra. It is a tortuous strait with a strong current running through. Several ships had been attacked by aircraft in the Bangka Strait. It had become known as 'Eastern Bomb Alley'. It made our only route to reach Batavia.
> ***It was a lovely day. The blue sea lay calm, the sun shone in clear sky. The palm-covered island of Bangka spread itself ten miles away to port. We could discern a white, slender lighthouse ashore. All felt peaceful.
> 
> At 1330 in the afternoon watch, from the north came a group of six twin-engined aircraft. They appeared to be going to pass well ahead, and to ignore us. We hopefully thought they were ours, but as we watched, they swung round towards us, and came purposefully on. As they passed along the port side, the Red Japanese disc showed only too clearly on their wings. The alarm had been given on sighting them, and the guns were manned, all we could do was wait for it and hope. We steamed on.
> ***The day after leaving Singapore a Leading Seaman of the Royal Navy had come to me and suggested as there were sufficient European service men aboard, it might be better to form them into a crew for the 4-inch gun. This I agreed to. It transpired we shipped odd naval ratings who had been told to get away from Singapore if they could find a vessel, and a lone Australian soldier whose presence remained a mystery. Later, when I viewed the list of the gun's crew, I noticed he had volunteered to make one at the gun. The Leading Seaman had detailed himself to the Lewis gun.
> ***Just after the outbreak of war in the east, we had been supplied with four rounds of shrapnel shell for the 4-inch gun; these were the only time-fused shell on board, and only time-fused shell are any use against aircraft. The gun could be elevated to 17 degrees only, so unless the aircraft came low we had not a hope of doing damage. I believe the idea was defence against torpedo-carrying aircraft, which would come in low before dropping the weapon. There was the question of fuse-length to govern the moment of bursting. We carried no range tables but had been instructed to set the fuse to a given setting and leave it at that. It was a million to one chance the shell and the aircraft would arrive at the same place at the same moment. I suppose it was the best that the 'powers that be', in Singapore, could do. We had feeble hope from a total of four rounds.
> ***The aircraft detached themselves into two groups of three. The leading three turned towards us and came in from for’ard, unlike the other attacks we had experienced, in which they always came in from astern. I think they must have realised they had nothing to fear from our 4-inch gun on the foc’sle. Not that they had much to fear from aft, either.
> ***The captain performed his usual dodging act. Hard-a-starboard as the bombs came wiggling down, and, oh Jubilato! they fall clear. On over the ship went the three and circled for their next run in. The other three followed the first with the same result, and so it went on for five runs, each time the ship wriggling herself free.
> ***The chief officer was below trying to keep up the morale of the passengers, and to stop them from coming on deck. I manned the bridge with the captain. The four-inch had fired twice, but whether or not the aircraft entered the gunlayer’s sights is uncertain. Possibly the report of the gun, with its feeble hope of hitting back, gave encouragement to the crew stuck out on the fo’csle. We had no visible result. The aircraft were undeterred, they came in just the same.
> ***After the fifth salvo had missed us, I thought we would see it through. We had dodged them on every occasion and were doing it again; just a matter of carrying on with the game until they had no more bombs. I was soon disillusioned.
> ***In they came from for’ard for the sixth time. Bombs on their way — hard-a-port. The captain and I had our heads out of the bridge windows watching the bombs descend, but the ship wasn’t swinging fast enough. The bombs fell right before us, ten feet away in front of the bridge. They fell through the covers on No.2 hatch, then through the covers on No.2 ‘tween-deck hatch, to explode in the lower hold.
> ***Captain Borton ordered me to the wireless cabin to get a signal off for immediate assistance. On opening the door of the wireless cabin I found the Malay navy Leading Telegraphist sitting in a corner looking scared — not to be wondered at.
> ***When told to get a message off he said, 'But look at the set, sir'.
> ****I saw what he meant. The glass valves and bits and pieces were shattered. One did not need to be an expert to see no message could be sent from there.
> ****I told him, 'All right, you get out and stand by a boat, it’s no good staying here.' I suppose he did, but I never saw him again. He was an exceptionally nice little chap, came from an influential Kuala Lumpur Malay family and, I suppose need not have been there at all, poor lad.
> ***On going for’ard I saw clouds of smoke coming up from No.2 hatch. I dashed to run out a hose and direct it down the hatch. I ran out one length, but on testing, found the system dry. A nurse came to me and asked for first aid equipment saying there were many people badly injured down below. As we spoke, I heard the aircraft coming in again from for’ard and dragged her into a nearby cabin where we both laid on the deck to avoid flying glass. A stick of bombs fell close to the port side, so close that they shattered the bottoms of the port side boats as they hung in the davits. The cabin we lay in was part of the suite reserved in peacetime for the Rajah, Ranee, and the Dayangs of Sarawak. It was the Ranee's. I told the nurse she had better get to a boat as there would not be time to attend the injured. The ship was already taking a list to starboard.
> ***I hurried to the bridge where the captain still stood. He called out to the starboard boat-deck to hurry and get the boats away; they were already being lowered. I noticed nothing was being done with the port boats, so got hold of the naval rating who had been at the wheel, the ship now being stopped. We began to lower the for’ard boat.
> ***The rating called, 'The bottom's stove in, sir!'


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## BillH

The following is extracted from research I have on Straits Steamship Co. for a potential book 

H. M. S. Vyner Brooke had been ordered south to Tandjong Priok and was to become yet another victim of Japan’s Invasion forces. Her Captain was E. (Tubby) Borton of the Sarawak Steamship Company and he’d sailed from Singapore on the night of the 12th with 64 Australian nursing sisters amongst his 192 evacuees. On entering The Banka Straits he was attacked by nine Japanese planes at 1pm, Tubby Borton zig-zagged Vyner Brooke in an attempt to out manoeuvre the planes. Vyner Brooke was hit repeatedly with the Bridge being totally destroyed, the steering gear out of order, the ship on fire Captain Borton gave orders for the ship to be abandoned. In just over twenty minutes H. M. S. Vyner Brooke sank, Captain Borton was in the water for eighteen hours before making landfall at Mungtok Lighthouse. Most of the other survivors who also spent all afternoon and night in the water landed on a beach near Muntok where they set up a camp and commenced tending the wounded. A couple of days later on the 16th they were discovered by a Japanese patrol consisting of ten men and an Officer. Those that could walk including Chief Officer W.S. Sedgeman and Second Engineer J.J. Miller were marched round a small headland lined up and shot, those who were lying wounded were bayoneted to death, one survived the bayoneting. The nurses were then ordered to walk into the sea, on reaching waist height the Japanese commenced to machine gun them and all were killed save one, Sister Vivien Bullwinkle who was shot through the throat. Vivien Bullwinkle said in a later interview that she lay floating for what seemed hours before raising her head to find the beach deserted save for her dead comrades floating around her and those that had already died on the beach. Mr. S.A. Anderson, of Ritchie & Bisset wrote 

‘She was brought into the former Labour Lines of Banka Tinwinning group which already housed many prisoners. There were two Doctors, Dr. Paddy West from the Federation of Malaya and Dr. Reed of Mata Hari. She was unconscious and in a terrible mess from sun and sea exposure. Life was barely there. Her chances of survival were very slim. Because of sun blisters, her mouth was completely closed and eventually the doctors fed her through a small opening at the corner of her mouth by means of a small glass dropper’. 

After recovering Vivien was able to relate to others what had actually happened on the beach but was ordered to stay silent for her own safety, the Japanese certainly wouldn’t have allowed the only surviving eye witness of this massacre to go on living. Vivien survived the War and was one of Australia’s Official Representatives at the dedication ceremony of the Kranji War Cemetery Memorial in Singapore.

VYNER BROOKE (1928 – 1942)
Liner. 35 first class plus deck passengers. Royal suite for Rajah and family.
1670g. 713n. 240.7 x 41.3 x 16.1 feet.
Two, T.3-cyl. (16”, 27” & 44” x 30”) engones by the shipbuilder. Twin-screw. 297 NHP.
10.11.1927: Launched by Ramage & Ferguson, Leith (Yard No. 264) for Sarawak Steamship Co. Ltd.
2.1928: Completed.
1931: Control of owners acquired by the Straits Steamship Co. Ltd.
1941: Requisitioned by RN as (Armed Trader). Equipped with a 4-inch gun forward, depth charges and a Lewis gun afeet. Lt. Mann, RNVR, in charge of armament.
14.2.1942: Sunk by Japanese aircraft off Tanjung Ular, near Muntok, Banka Island, Sumatra, NEI. Approx position 1º 53’. S. 104º 59’ E. 125 lives lost.


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## Harry Nicholson

Hello, Bill,
Thanks for the interesting details of Vyner Brooke. Here are two more snips, relating to captain Borton, from my publication of Lt Mann's memoir 'One Jump Ahead'. One Jump Ahead: Escape on the Vyner Brooke eBook : Mann, Lt. A J, Nicholson, Harry, Nicholson, Harry: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store



(1942) I saw Captain Borton close by, he clung to a canvas bed which had poor buoyancy. He looked a bit shaky. Seizing an identical piece of wood to the piece I'd held on to, I gave it to him. He refused it until I'd explained I would get the other. Once I'd recovered my own timber, we floated side by side to watch the ship. Captain Borton had been in command of her for several years; it must have been a sad moment for him when _Vyner Brooke_ turned over.
He called out: 'There she goes'.
'Yes, that’s it, sir'.
She slid beneath.


Much later, post war;

Hong Kong
In 1947 or 48, I stood for the National Anthem in the King’s cinema in Hong Kong, at the conclusion of the programme. As it ended and the patrons turned to move out, I was tapped on the shoulder. It was Mr Thomas, who served as Chief Officer of _Vyner Brooke_ until relieved to take _Lipis _to Kuching on the outbreak of war in the East. It will be remembered how 'Ginger' Sedgeman had come to us in his stead. Thomas was accompanied by his wife; we adjourned to the Hong Kong Hotel to exchange news over a drink.
Having briefly related the fate of poor _Vyner Brooke_ (Thomas was fond of her too), I expressed the thought I was the only officer to survive. To my surprise, Thomas declared: 'Oh no you aren’t! Captain Borton is still alive and is now in the United Kingdom preparing to steam out the new _Vyner Brooke._'
The last I had seen of the captain was when I had passed him a lump of wood to hang on to. He had looked to be considerably distressed then. As I'd seen no sign of craft rescuing people, I was astonished to learn he had survived. He'd spent the rest of the war in a P.O.W. camp in Sumatra, and even survived that. I was delighted to hear of it — he was a grand old chap to serve under. He grew to be an institution in the few ports on the coast of Sarawak where he became a well-known figure for possibly twenty years.

When going ashore he always carried a black, silver-knobbed walking stick, but on occasions returned aboard minus the stick. The absence of the stick on the following morning was indication he'd had a rather good evening ashore, and indulged in 'one over the eight'. The stick invariably returned, either the next day or when next the ship called. In an eastern country, such is sufficient testimonial to Captain Borton's popularity.

The day after the meeting with Thomas, I wrote to Captain Borton care of the former agents of _Vyner Brooke_, in Singapore, and duly received a reply from him. He was living in Bradford in England — his doctors had advised he should not return to the East. He did not say much, other than he had been 'In the Bag' and gave nothing to explain how he was picked up. He confirmed he had attended trials of the new ship and was sorry he could not take her out to Singapore and Kuching. His letter concluded with the news his 'B.E.M. had just been announced', but I imagine it was small consolation for the tragedy of _Vyner Brooke,_ of which he was so fond.
****

ps: Straits Steamship co. still have an office in Kuching. I contacted them to arrange use of their image of Vyner Brooke.


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## BillH

Harry,
If you send me your e-mail address via the private message system, I will send to all I have on Straits Steamship up until I stopped research in 2013


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