Last Stand in Singapore tells Clem Randall’s little-known war story
Clem Randall who assisted with Last Stand in Singapore, which was released last September. Photo: Gerard Hindmarsh.
A book released last September, Last Stand in Singapore, tells the previously little-known WWII story of 488 Squadron, New Zealand’s first complete RNZAF Squadron sent away to fight, which was posted to Singapore just three months before it fell.
Amongst the dynamic bunch of Kiwi fighters that helped delay the Japanese advance was Clem Randall of Parapara, who served in the squadron as a corporal engine fitter. Later in the war he was a flight engineer and flew a total of 1363 hours, including 82 operational missions. His three front-line tours took him to Singapore, Java, the Solomons and right through the Pacific. Today, he is one of only seven surviving of the original 200-strong squadron.
Like many who came out of the experience, he didn’t make a point of talking about it. This changed five years ago when he received a request for any logbooks, diaries, letters, photos and remembrances by the intending author, Graham Clayton, son of Albert (Bert) Clayton, one of 488’s first class aircraftman.
Recalls Clem: “This led me into helping assemble the story, since I was there, with Mona [Clem’s wife] editing it as the author progressed. When the Historical Branch of the Air Force saw what was developing, they took over the final production and helped launch it.”
At the launch of the Random House-published book in Auckland at the Whenuapai Air force Base, Clem explained that, as ground crew, they would do anything to keep those planes flying.
“We had a war to fight. If we didn’t have every available plane up defending us, we’d have bombs raining down on us. If there were any delays with parts or whatever, we’d do anything to get them, even go and steal them if we had to.”
Working in conjunction with RAF Squadron 243 stationed nearby, the Kiwi fighters helped delay the enemy’s advance as best they could with limited resources, but they were no match for the Japanese superiority in the air. Clem recalls, “Sometimes it would be 19 or 21 planes in formation, pattern bombing our aerodrome. Another time we faced 100 bombers. The explosions would progressively grow so loud you felt your eardrums couldn’t stand any more. If you hadn’t found a foxhole, you were dead.”
The Japanese advance was too much for them, and they fell back to Sumatra, then Java, before Clem and the rest of 488 Squadron’s ground crew were all ordered to evacuate in February 1942. They boarded a wreck of a boat called the MV Deucalion, which had been pulled off a reef only two days earlier, and set course for the Sunda Straits, knowing full well that the previous seven ships had all been sunk by Japanese submarines.
It was a close call. Just 160 kilometres from Freemantle, right on dusk, they heard a terrific explosion and saw a flash just under the port quarter. It was a torpedo which had exploded on breaching the surface in the deep swells. The captain made a sudden and savage lurch to starboard which, with over two metres of water sloshing around in the hold, nearly caused the damaged ship to roll over. So again, Lady Luck was smiling on them.
Back in New Zealand, returning squadron members formed the nucleus of newer squadrons, Clem being made the NCO in charge of B Flight of No. 15 Squadron, which was assigned to support the American assault on Guadalcanal, an action which turned the war around.
Clem’s last nine months of the war were spent in transport, flying Dakotas. “We were just about to leave the States with a new Dakota when word came through that the Japanese had surrendered. It was one big party on the street for days afterwards,” he recalls.
Clem was born in March 1920, right in the middle of London. Just before he turned one, his parents emigrated and settled in Christchurch, where his father became an electrician. Clem also remembers his father, who had also worked as a linguist for a shipping company, as an immensely strong man, a real survivor.
“As a territorial during WWI he got seriously gassed and had bullets through him twice, but he never let those injuries stop him getting on with life.”
After leaving school, Clem went into the engineering side of the motor trade, then joined the Air Force in October 1939, which took over his life for the following six years. After being discharged, he rejoined the motor trade in Christchurch, eventually owning his own garage, which also hired out vehicles. The last eight years of his working life were spent as a structural engineer, mainly involved in pumping and irrigation projects.
He was only 58 when he “retired” in 1978, the year he and Mona came to live and build a house on their 10.5ha of bush-clad hillside at Milnthorpe. The prized possessions Clem brought up by truck from Christchurch included 15 antique and vintage engines. Most of these now reside in the Rockville Museum, of which he was one of the early instigators. A hot tube kerosene injection engine is his pride and joy, though, and that remains secure in his well-equipped workshop.
When Mona became heavily involved in the Takaka Drama Society, he jumped in and devoted endless hours applying his engineering and construction skills to the Playhouse building. Today, the two octogenarians (35 years happily married) are active members of community organisations that include Probus, Forest and Bird, Friends of the Mangarakau Swamp, SeniorNet and U3A.
Last Stand in Singapore is available from Take Note.
Gerard Hindmarsh
