ARmy Rumour SErvice

Originally Posted by baboon6

Yes. The Heroes (Jaywick)

The Heroes (TV 198 - IMDb

and Heroes II: The Return (Rimau)

Heroes II: The Return (TV 1991) - IMDb

Watched them both a few years ago, pretty good.

Trip down memory lane, do remember watching The Heroes and in a scene where the team is captured and in jail (awaiting their fate) one of the team recites Henry V - We band of Brothers. Err.....someone close the door, a bit dusty in here.

Originally Posted by Cuddles

A quick search on the CWGC Debt of Honour web-site reveals:

HEENAN, PATRICK STANLEY VAUGHAN

Rank:
Captain
Service No:
547/AI
Date of Death:
15/02/1942
Age:
33
Regiment/Service:
16th Punjab Regiment
Panel Reference
Column 263.
Memorial
SINGAPORE MEMORIAL
Additional Information:
Son of George Charles Heenan and of Anne Heenan, of Cheam, Surrey.

I wonder how families of the other 24000 service personnel commemorated on the memorial feel about Heenan's name being on there?

Some aren't too happy according to an article in The Telegraph a while back.

But CWGC have a well defined remit and he falls within it.
(As we have seen recently with postings about the Brookwood Memorial about soldiers executed for civilian crimes)

Even if there were excusions to that remit, CWGC couldn't act upon accusations published in a book from which all other sources in the public domain come from, or something enshrined in folk-lore.

I read 'Odd Man Out' when it was first published. I felt it was long on conclusions and short on authenticated sources.
Obviously things were absolutely caotic in Singapore prior to the Fall but there were too many 'probably's, 'informed' and 'likely's in the book.

Although they claim it did, I don't recall that the co-authors even established whether a court-martial actually took place or not.

I don't doubt that accusations were levelled at a Capt Heenhan, but rumour abounds and the stories certainly grew in the telling. Some even claiming that he controlled all the espionage AND sabotage operations in northern Malaya. The claim that he was seen 'using a typewriter when there was no paper in it' [a cypher machine] does seem something that has more of an afterthought about it.

Paranoia also abounds in a retreating army-as does the need for scapegoats in order to explain away defeats. There is at least one case recorded of a Malay villager being summarilly shot because his hanging out of washing on his clothes-line prior to an attack by Japanese aircraft was taken as a form of signalling. (Oddly enough a situation that was nearly repeated in Borneo twenty years later when a Private in the Argylls was found guilty of attempted murder, having decided that the village headman was signalling to the Indonesians)

Heenan's long leave to Japan probably didn't endear him to his colleagues but there has been no evidence from either side of him being suborned by the Japanese secret service though the book quotes it a fact.

I'm not trying to exonerate the guy, I'm simply not convinced of the book's accuracy and therefore giving him the benefit of my doubt.

I interviewed some years ago a senior Federated Malay States Special Branch Officer, who took his long-leave in Japan in 1939. He found the country fascinating but expressed concern on his return to the DSO about the levels of military preparedness - given that they were mixing in it China at the time.

In other words, don't read too much into Colonial personnel taking long leave in out-of-the way, possible belligerant states.

In Bugles & a Tiger, John Masters tells how he spent part of his Long Leave in Japan while traveling from Indian to the States.
The jap secret Police where on to him before he arrived.

john

Isn't the point that everyone knew it was building, My dad was in china in the 1930's when we were resupplying Beijing from God knows where- shanghai I think. The Americans had a far greater interest in the pacific rim and the competitor was Japan. The Russians were having a pop at the Manchucko and fought the battle of Khalkin Gol which had considerable effect on Japanese policy and Britian was in need of arms sales. Spying was an open secret.