Walker’s Reviews > Return of the Tiger > Status Update

Lyon and Campbell were able to have a mine laying submarine provided by the Royal Navy for the return of the tiger mission to sink Japanese shipping in the Singapore Roads area. With the Sleeping Beauties, they would be able to set the charges on the hulls easier than with the folboats, the collapsible canvas canoes.

This is a fascinating, true account of the WW II operations of Ivan Lyon and his operatives.

After the successful operation, Ivan Lyon met with Chapman of the Special Operations Executive, the S.O.E., in the office on Baker Street in London. Reading about this sounds like one of those James Bond special weapons centers, for that is what the S.O.E. had and did. They developed secret weapons for sabotage. One was a submersible, metal, battery powered canoe they called Sleeping Beauty. Lyon was excited.

This is an absolutely amazing and fascinating account of the mission Ivan Lyon conceived to sink ships in the waters around Singapore during WW II. They paddled canoes and set limpet mines attached by magnets to ships' hulls and sank seven in one night. Hiding by day, paddling by night, they covered over 50 miles to get to their destinations.

Very interesting non-fiction account of an operation during WW II that I have never before heard of conducted by the British and Australians.

Background on Ivan Lyon, from a long line of gentlemen from Scotland, who joined the Gordan Highlanders and was stationed in Malaya in 1937. He eventually joined a secret organisation known as Force 136 which built up a network of spies and saboteurs. This worked to disrupt Japanese forces invading Singapore, Sumatra, and Malaya.

I have just gotten started on this and it already piques my interest abundantly. This will be hard to put down.

I am sure this is going to be an interesting account of a little known action during WW II.
"In autumn of 1943 and 1944, canoe teams, armed with limpet mines, were carried in rickety native motorboat and junk thousands of miles across enemy waters from Australia to attack Japanese convoys in Singapore Roads. Some 40,000 tons of merchant shipping were sunk. Both expeditions were conceived and led by the same man..."

Starting another "old" book from my library. This is a non-fiction. The hardback I have is a first edition in good condition, for what that's worth. Better condition than my copy of Miss Jill was. (This is all irrelevant and extraneous information.)