Arthur John Waller Martin (1914 - 1942)

Born 1914 in New Zealand

Ancestors

Died 16 Feb 1942 at about age 28 in Banka Straits, Indonesia

Peter Martin is an Anzac who served in World War Two.

Biography

Arthur John Martin- Lieutenant RNZNVR : died 16th February 1942

from The Taranakian December 1950 The Magazine of the New Plymouth Boys High School

ARTHUR JOHN WALLER MARTIN

Lieutenant Arthur John Waller (Peter) Martin came to school from Moturoa in 1928 and remained until 1930. At school he showed interest in any things and was particularly good at games, taking a great interest in athletics.

In April 1940 he was granted a commission in the NZRNVR (New Zealand Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve) with the rank of Temporary Lieutenant and left for Singapore in the same month to take up duties there. After extensive training around Malaya, he was promoted to Lieutenant in 1941. In January of 1942 he was given command of a small, reconditioned naval ship "Paula Soezi" with a crew of three officers and thirty Malayans. His ship left Singapore on the night of February 13th and as far as details can be ascertained, the ship was blown up by a Japanese warship on the 16th of February 1942.

Coinciding with the bombing of Pearl Harbour, the Japanese invaded the Malay Peninsula on the 8th December 1941, quickly overrunning the Malaya and bombing Singapore itself. By the 31st of January, the last Allied forces had left Malaya, the engineers blowing up a section of the causeway linking the mainland with the island of Singapore. as they left.

An evacuation of Singapore was organised two weeks later, over the 13th-14th February 1942, with the convoy of 44 ships ordered to Batavia (now Djkarta, Java). Some ships were able to slip through the Malacca Straits, but the Japanese soon had the Malacca Straits sealed off, forcing the convoy to make a detour through the Sunda Strait between Sumatra and Java; after which they then had to negotiate the Banka Straits between the south-east coast of Sumatra and Banka Island.

By an unlucky coincidence, a Japanese invasion force including an aircraft carrier, heading toward an invasion of Sumatra and Java had been ordered to rendezvous in the Banka Straits. The Banka Straits are very narrow, the ships were forced to go through line astern and in this vulnerable position, with little room to manoeuvre, those that escaped the Japanese bombers were caught by shell fire as they were forced toward the Japanese fleet sealing the straits.

HMS Pulo Soegi was sunk by Japanese gunfire in the Banka Straits on the 16th February 1942. Ty/Lieutenant Arthur John Martin was killed - of that ship, there were 25 survivors with another 55 missing.

Sources

• N.Z. BIRTHS - 1914/15644 - Martin Arthur John Waller - parents : Bernice Lansley & Elias
• N.Z. DEATHS - 1946/32485 - Martin Arthur John Waller aged 27 years
• World War 2 At Sea - ROYAL NEW ZEALAND NAVY Ship Histories, Convoy Escort Movements, Casualty Lists 1939-1947 [1]
• National Archives Kew - ADM - Records of the Admiralty, Naval Forces, Royal Marines, Coastguard, and related bodies / Records of Service / ADM 358 - Admiralty: Casualty Branch: Enquiries into Missing Personnel, 1939-1945 War / ADM 358/617 - Temporary Lieutenant A J Martin, RNVR: missing presumed dead; Pulo Soegi sunk by the Japanese, off Muntok [2]

See Also

• wikipedia : Battle of Singapore [3]
• Singapore's Dunkirk by Geoffrey Brooke
• Spotlight on Singapore by Denis Russell-Roberts page 185 [4]