Able Seaman Mostyn ‘Moss’ Berryman

By Captain Peter Hore, RN (Ret’d)

Mostyn ‘Moss’ Berryman was born at Kent Town South Australia on 9 November 1923. His father had fought as a teenaged signaller in the Australia Imperial Force on the Western Front during the First World War.

On 7 April 1942, as soon as he was able, Berryman volunteered to serve in the Royal Australian Navy. He and his friend, Able Seaman Fred Marsh, were still under training in Melbourne when they heard that a British officer was looking for volunteers to do something special. Berryman takes up the story:

A few days later, we were told to pack our bags, we were leaving the navy depot and going to a commando school at Frankston. They taught us a few things that they teach commandos and then at the end of a few weeks, we found ourselves on the Sydney express. We were taken out to the Hawkesbury River to a quiet little bay, Refuge Bay, and we landed on the beach there amongst a great heap of tents and camp stretchers...and cooking utensils. Our instructions were to get all this stuff up to the top of this dirty great big cliff. We were told the quicker you get the tent up and the quicker you get your bed made, the quicker you can have a feed.

They soon discovered that they were members of Z Special Force, commanded by Harrow-educated Major Ivan Lyon, and part of Special Operations Australia, formed to operate behind Japanese lines in South East Asia. On 2 September 1943, Berryman, by then a fully trained commando, along with seven other British and Australian operatives under Lyon's command, sailed north from Exmouth Gulf, Western Australia in a 70-ft former Japanese fishing vessel Kofuku Maru, which had been re-named Krait - after a small poisonous snake. Only when at sea did Lyon tell his men that they were bound for enemy occupied Singapore, some 3500 miles away, “To blow up a few ships”. Berryman knew that the Japanese did not have a reputation for treating prisoners well recalling:

 My mate and I looked sideways at each other. We were basically Sunday school boys. We had no idea how we were going to learn to kill people.

The crew of Krait and operatives of Operation JAYWICK. Left to right (Front): LEUT Ted Carse, LEUT Donald Davidson, MAJ Ivan Lyon, MAJ Jock Campbell (did not accompany the expedition), LT Robert Page; (Middle): CPL Andrew Crilly, LS Kevin Cain, LS James McDowell, L.TEL Horrie Young, AB Walter Falls, CPL Ron Morris; (Back): ABs Moss Berryman, Frederic Marsh, Arthur Jones and Andrew Huston.

Still, I think if we had have known earlier, some of us may not have volunteered. There were definitely times we thought, what the hell are we doing here? We’re getting five bob a day for this?

The two-week voyage though Japanese-occupied waters was uncomfortable, inside the Krait there was barely room to move. All available space was taken up by fuel drums and the crew posing as Malay fishermen wearing sarongs and with a foul-smelling brown dye applied to their skin. Berryman spent much of his time at the top of the mast with binoculars looking out for other craft, which would be given a wide berth. Occasionally, a Japanese float plane would fly over and members of Z Force would wave and stand in a circle pretending to unpick fishing lines. 

On 18 September, Krait arrived off Singapore, which was ablaze with lights and where the Japanese thought themselves safe. Six commandos in three two-man canoes were subsequently off-loaded but much to their disappointment, Berryman and Marsh were ordered to stay behind.

Of course, we put on a bit of a turn, “We’ve done all the training, sir, why can’t we be in it?” And he said, “Nope, you two are going to be baby sitters and look after Krait.”

The canoeists established a base in a cave on a small island and on the night of 26 September they paddled into the harbour attaching limpet mines to seven vessels, later sinking or damaging 37,000 tons of shipping. 

Meanwhile, Krait loitered at sea for two weeks before  rendezvousing at the island of Pompong 50 miles off Singapore on the night of 1-2 October, where only one canoe and its two occupants was found to be waiting. Lyon had told Krait to leave that night no matter what, but:

Being good old Australians, we decided we’d break the law and go back in two nights later.

Happily, with the return to Pompong of Krait at around 21:00 on 3 October the remaining two canoes and their occupants were recovered.

On the return voyage, a few minutes to midnight on 11 October a Japanese patrol boat intercepted Krait in the Lombok Strait. As Berryman crouched low with his Bren gun trained on the warship, Lyon, who had packed Krait’s bows with high explosive, prepared a suicide ramming which would have destroyed both vessels. After the longest 15 minutes of Berryman’s life, the warship drew away without switching on a searchlight or hailing Krait:

It was pure luck.

Krait entered Exmouth Bay on 19 October 1943 after a 48-day mission. Berryman was mentioned in despatches for gallantry, skill and devotion to duty in a hazardous enterprise.

Informal group portrait of personnel connected with Operation Jaywick. Back row, left to right, Major (Maj) Herbert Alan Campbell (did not accompany the expedition); B/2575 Leading Stoker James Patrick McDowell, RN; unidentified; unidentified. Third row: Corporal R G Morris, RAMC; S/6543 Able Seaman (AB) Walter Gordon Falls, RAN; B/1506 Acting Leading Seaman Kevin Patrick Cain, RAN; 66175 Maj Ivan Lyon, MBE The Gordon Highlanders (officer commanding Operation Jaywick). Second row; S3428 Leading Telegraphist

When later in 1943 Lyon asked Berryman whether he would care to return to Singapore as part of a larger, repeat operation, he carefully considered the proposal before declining. On this second operation, Rimau, all were killed in action or executed by the Japanese.

Berryman completed his war service in the destroyer HMAS Vendetta, and was demobilized in February 1946. For many years he was owed the five-bob-a-day danger money which he had been promised, and which, when the government did pay, was topped up to A$5000. 

Berryman was aboard Krait when she entered Sydney in 1964 to become a museum ship, and in 1993, on the 50th anniversary of Operation JAYWICK, he met Lyon's son at Kranji War Cemetery, “The spitting image of his father”. Lyon’s French wife, Gabrielle Bouvier and their baby son had spent the war in Japanese internment camps and together Berryman and the son cried that the son had never met his heroic father. 

Operation JAYWICK, one of the most successful clandestine raids in Australian history, left a bitter aftermath. Lyon had intended that JAYWICK be publicised to rattle the Japanese and boost Allied morale, but senior commanders decided against this as they wished to conduct similar raids in the future. Not having the slightest idea of how the attack had been mounted, the Japanese inflicted savage reprisals on Singaporeans, who they suspected of aiding the attack. 

A troubled Berryman mused in later life:

Sometimes, I feel that we shouldn’t have done it because they murdered untold number of people trying to find out who did.

Postwar, Berryman returned to the stockbrokers SC Ward & Co, where he had been a clerk, and remained there until retirement 46 years later. He married his childhood sweetheart, Mary Cant, who predeceased him in 2018.

Moss Berryman passed away on 6 August 2020, the last living participant of Operation JAYWICK. He is survived by his four daughters.