Operation Jaywick and Rimau Memorial Garden

About

This war memorial is a garden, dedicated to those who served and died during Operations Jaywick and Rimau in the Second World War. The garden features several large sandstone blocks, which bear plaques that tell the story of the operations.  The garden includes a flagpole and is surrounded by tropical plants, to replicate the area in Singapore where the executions of Australian service personnel took place. In front of the memorial is a paved area, providing a space for commemorative services to be held.  Originally dedicated on 21 September 2003, the memorial was fully refurbished in 2019. The updated memorial was designed by Patrick Marsh OAM and sponsored by the Rotary Club of Erina. It was dedicated on 12 October 2019 by Captain Rixon of the Royal Australian Navy, on behalf of the Chief of Navy. The below is a statement of support regarding the historical significance of this site, made by Lynette Silver OAM in 2017: In September 1942, a secret camp was established at Refuge Bay on the Hawkesbury River to train volunteers from the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) prior to a sea-borne raid on enemy shipping in Singapore Harbour. As part of that training, the naval recruits undertook intensive folboat exercises on the Hawkesbury and Brisbane Water, where they mounted dummy raids on bridges and land targets. The actual mission, carried out in September 1943, was code-named Operation Jaywick. A joint Special Operations Executive (SOE)/RAN mission, Jaywick has unique status among covert wartime operations in Australia and was the only wholly successful mission of its type to be carried out in the Second World War. Kofuku Maru, a captured Japanese fishing vessel renamed Krait and commissioned into the RAN, took the Jaywick team deep into enemy-held waters. From 1964, when the ship was recovered from Borneo, until 1984, when custodianship passed from the Volunteer Coastal Patrol to the Australian War Memorial, Krait was a familiar sight in and around Broken Bay and Brisbane Water, carrying out patrol duties and serving as a training vessel. In 1944, many of the Jaywick team volunteered for a follow-up raid, Operation Rimau, which took the lives of all 23 men involved. The memorial at the RAN establishment at Point Clare highlights the link between the RAN, the Jaywick team, Krait and the local area. Its location, on a well used cycling and walking trail, is ideally positioned to help educate the public on the contribution made by RAN personnel to the success of the Jaywick mission, and serves as a memorial to those who lost their lives on the ill-fated Rimau raid.