Kranji, the Singapore Traitor
Created | Updated Dec 4, 2008
Romen Bose has written three books, revealing different aspects of the Malayan campaign of World War Two. My Chinese friend in the Singapore Police has sent copies of each of these to me. The title Kranji is the site of the Singapore POW War Memorial. The paperback is published by Marshall Cavendish Editions, Singapore, and includes the following revelations, which are, as far as I know, so far unheard of in this country.
Page 92 starts the passage dealing with a Captain who was a spy in the British ranks; he kept in touch with the Japanese forces throughout the campaign by short wave radio. Thus, they knew where to attack at our weakest points, the position of our battlefronts, when and where we were low on ammunition, and such information as would enable our enemy to leapfrog down the Malay peninsula and the amazing rate they did.
Born in New Zealand, the bastard son of a governess, and educated at a British Public School, the spy's name was Captain Patrick Stanley Vaughan Heenan. In 1935, at the age of 25, he was commissioned into the British Army, assigned to the 16th Punjab Regiment, and travelled to India by troopship. He failed to get the Indian Army to accept him, probably because he refused to knuckle down to discipline. He had to serve for a further six months before being accepted. However, he was later posted to their Army Service Corps, to which unsatisfactory officers were usually sent. They didn't like him, and sent him to a different battalion.
Soon, he took a long leave in Japan, where he must have joined the Japanese Intelligence. Back with his regiment, they were posted to Malaya early in 1941. There he was very unpopular, and Lt Col Frank Moore asked for him to be posted. He was sent to Singapore to train in Air Liaison duties (a very convenient post for a spy).
After his training, he was sent with his unit to the Kedah airfields, so that in the months before the Japanese launched their offences, they had a spy right at the heart of our defence. When they attacked on 8 December, 1941, they were guided where to strike by Heenan with a short wave radio, so it took them only three days to destroy our planes, and the RAF virtually ceased to exist.
Col Moore reported that the Japanese were performing very successful and mysterious bombing of the RAF on the ground, so our Intelligence eventually got on to Heenen, and found two short wave radios, one disguised as a typewriter, and the other in a field communion set, plus incriminating papers and a code book. He was caught red-handed sending the enemy information on 9 December.
There follow extracts from a letter to his wife by Flt Lt Alfred Elson-Smith:
When I reported at 7 o'clock tonight, a further shock awaited me. I have told you in past letters of a Captain Heenan who has been liaison officer for the 11th division to the RAF stations of Alor Star, Sungei Patani and Butterworth. Well my dear here's the key to the cause of the walloping that we have had in the north up to date. Major Francis of Military Intelligence arrested him at 2 o'clock pm as a spy. There is no question of the authenticity of this arrest, since they got the dope which proves his guilt beyond doubt. Just realise this b**** has been living with us in our mess for four months, drinking and playing cards and joining in our general living conditions. He has had access to our operational rooms together with full and concise knowledge of our administration, in every form pertaining to our strength, possible strength and in short the guts of everything. This simplifies the whys and wherefores of this dreadful debacle and to what extent his activities have sold us out southwards, to what extent we have yet to experience. No words of mine, or anyone else for that matter, can express the feelings we have to this man, who though clever, has sold us so uniquely. Of course his fate is sealed, yet the damage he has done cannot be estimated, since, according to his own statement when he joined us, he had completed 15 years in the army, serving in all parts of India. This man evidently controlled all the subversive elements in the northern area from the Pri River to Penang and the Thailand border, and incidentally recalls to my mind the type of women he kept company with in Penang. Well, my dear, whatever I might have suspected of the natives I never gave thought to such a climax as this. No doubt the authentic information leading to his arrest will be made public one day, but you can take it from me, it was by the little things and careless indifference to our apparent stupidity that he was finally caught, and thanks to Major Francis who is certainly a credit to our military intelligence service.
Witnesses say that on Friday, 13 February, two days before Singapore surrendered, Heenan was taken down to the quayside by the military policemen. He was told to look at the setting sun as that would be his last sight of it. A single bullet was fired by an M.P. into the back of his head and the body pushed into the sea.
For those interested in the Malay/Singapore Campaign, the three books by Roman Bose, Battlebox, The End of the War, and Kranji, are compulsive reading. All are published by Marshall Cavendish Editions.
