FROM SINGAPORE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 49, 27 February 1942, Page 5

FROM SINGAPORE

ESCAPE OF GENERAL BENNETT

(Rec. 11.30 a.m.) RUGBY, Feb. 26,

An account of the escape from Singapore of Major-General Gordon Bennett, commander of the Australians in Malaya, and his party has been given to a news agency correspondent in Batavia by members af the general's staff. • J

A staff officer said it was on Thursday morning that a group of air officers first felt that the fall of Singapore was inevitable. They decided that if escape was possible' they would "have a crack" at it and take Bennett with them.

On the Sunday night they rowed out to a large ocean-going junk. The Chinese owner of the junk agreed to sail. At dawn the junk was only half a .mile from the fortified island of Blakang Mati, which was already in the hands of the Japanese. The junk slowly made its way through the many tiny islands south of Singapore. Food

became scarce and water was rationed. After four days the junk reached Sumatra, where the Chinese owner refused to go further.

During this time their only means of navigation had been a page from an atlas showing the South-west Pacific on a scale of 240 miles to one inch.

A Royal Air Force launch appeared and took' them on board, and after two and a half days' travel, during which they twice ran aground, the party reached Jambi, where the Dutch gave them a motor-car to take them to Pedang. Here they were picked up by a flying-boat and taken to Batavia, where they arrived on Wednesday.— 8.0. W.