Jock McLaren
Encyclopedia
Robert Kerr "Jock" McLaren MC
& Bar
(27 April 1902 – 3 March 1956) was a decorated Australian Army
officer
, who rose from enlisted rank and was noted for his involvement in guerrilla operations against the Japan
ese during the World War II
.
, Scotland
. His father was James Bryce McLaren, a chemist, while his mother was Annie Maxwell (née Kerr).
, McLaren served in the British Army
with the 51st Highland Division. After the war he moved to Queensland
, Australia
where he served as a veterinary officer in Bundaberg. In 1938 he married Catherine Ahern in Childers
.
Following the outbreak of World War II
, he continued to serve as a veterinary officer, although he joined the Citizens Military Force in March 1941. Shortly after, he volunteered for overseas service and opted to transfer to the Australian Imperial Force
. He was assigned to the 2/10th Australian Field Workshops with the 8th Australian Division in British Malaya
when Singapore
fell to the Japanese army. At this time, he was thirty-nine years old.
He could not endure imprisonment and immediately organized an escape party. Escaping from the POW camp with two comrades, they successfully made it almost to Kuala Lumpur
, often with the aid of Malayan Chinese and Chinese communist guerrillas, before they were betrayed to the Japanese by Malays. It was during this escape that McLaren began to hate the Japanese as he passed the bodies of hundreds of Chinese men, women and children, who had been tortured, raped, and then killed by Japanese occupation forces.
Imprisoned once again, McLaren sought to escape from the Singapore prison camps. He managed to add himself to a contingent of prisoners being sent to Borneo
to a labour camp. Once he arrived at Berhala Island
, in Sandakan
Harbour on northeastern Borneo, he began, with several other prisoners, to plan an escape. Hearing that they were to be sent to a more permanent camp at Sandakan
with less opportunity for escape, they moved up their escape and, stealing a boat from a nearby leper colony, they set off to the Tawi Tawi islands were they were told other Australians were fighting as guerrillas. On their arrival, they soon made contact with Filipino guerrillas, who assisted McLaren and six others to make contact, in June 1943, with the guerrilla organization on Mindanao. Their escape from Berhala Island saved their lives as they then missed the early 1945 Sandakan Death Marches
.
Eventually, McLaren and his comrades arrived on Mindanao
where they made contact with American and Filipino guerrillas under the overall command of Lt. Col. Wendell Fertig
. Their hopes of returning to Australia to join formal army units were curtailed due to the need for experienced leaders for the guerrilla forces and lack of transportation. Eventually, some of the party were sent to Australia by submarine.
Surprisingly, McLaren wished to remain behind, as transfer to a formal unit would not only inhibit his actions and desire for revenge, but his age would preclude participation in combat. Except for a short leave in Australia toward the end of the war, he spent most of the war years serving as a coastwatcher
and guerrilla leader. He participated in numerous raids on the Japanese, sometimes in command of small, heavily armed, coastal vessels. At one time, he radioed information on a ship carrying 3,000 Japanese troops to another island. Most of the troops were killed or drowned when American submarines sank the ship. The rest were killed by Filipinos as the Japanese survivors reached shore exhausted and in no condition to fight. McLaren's numerous land and sea guerrilla actions so disrupted Japanese operations that eventually the Japanese placed a reward of 70,000 pesos on McLaren's head.
During one period of his service in the Philippines, McLaren commanded a 26-foot whaleboat called The Bastard. McLaren would sail his boat into Japanese controlled ports in broad daylight, shoot up the supply vessels and piers with machine guns and a mortar, then turn tail and run.
As senior officers at both the guerrilla unit and army levels began to appreciate his initiative and dependability, he was often assigned to make small unit and solo forays into Japanese held areas for intelligence. Toward the end of the war, high-level U.S. and Australian commands relied on him to penetrate Japanese areas in the Philippines and former Dutch colonies ahead of planned invasions for the latest intelligence and to scout possible enemy routes of retreat which could then be interdicted. As a member of the American forces in the Philippines, McLaren was under U.S. command. However, on 20 April 1945, upon the request of the Australians who had a need for his talents, General Eichelberger
personally signed an order releasing McLaren back to Australian command.
After being transferred to Z Special Unit
, under the command of the Services Reconnaissance Department
, attached to the Allied Intelligence Bureau, McLaren subsequently took part in an airborne operation near Balikpapan in late June 1945. Dropping in advance of the main Allied landing in early July 1945
, McLaren led a section of four men on a reconnaissance mission. Despite losing two men, one from injury following the landing and another in an ambush, McLaren and the other two men were able to return to Australian lines on 6 July and report the Japanese dispositions to the Australian 7th Division's headquarters. Following this, in late July, McLaren took part in an operation on British North Borneo
, leading an eight man section. It was his last operation of the war, and after hostilities he remained in Borneo to help re-establish administration before being returned to Australia in November 1945.
Having been promoted to sergeant
soon after joining the guerrilla forces, Jock McLaren later received a field commission from Australia and ended the war with the substantive rank of captain. During the course of his service, McLaren was decorated with the Military Cross
twice for his heroic actions, as well as being Mentioned in Despatches.
. He remained in this role until 1956 when he began growing coffee, buying a plantation at Wau. On 3 March 1956, McLaren was accidentally killed when rotted timber fell on him near his home after he backed a vehicle against a dead tree.
Military Cross
The Military Cross is the third-level military decoration awarded to officers and other ranks of the British Armed Forces; and formerly also to officers of other Commonwealth countries....
& Bar
Medal bar
A medal bar or medal clasp is a thin metal bar attached to the ribbon of a military decoration, civil decoration, or other medal. It is most commonly used to indicate the campaign or operation the recipient received the award for, and multiple bars on the same medal are used to indicate that the...
(27 April 1902 – 3 March 1956) was a decorated Australian Army
Australian Army
The Australian Army is Australia's military land force. It is part of the Australian Defence Force along with the Royal Australian Navy and the Royal Australian Air Force. While the Chief of Defence commands the Australian Defence Force , the Army is commanded by the Chief of Army...
officer
Officer (armed forces)
An officer is a member of an armed force or uniformed service who holds a position of authority. Commissioned officers derive authority directly from a sovereign power and, as such, hold a commission charging them with the duties and responsibilities of a specific office or position...
, who rose from enlisted rank and was noted for his involvement in guerrilla operations against the Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese during the World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
Early life
McLaren was born on 27 April 1902 in KirkcaldyKirkcaldy
Kirkcaldy is a town and former royal burgh in Fife, on the east coast of Scotland. The town lies on a shallow bay on the northern shore of the Firth of Forth; SSE of Glenrothes, ENE of Dunfermline, WSW of Dundee and NNE of Edinburgh...
, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
. His father was James Bryce McLaren, a chemist, while his mother was Annie Maxwell (née Kerr).
Military career
During World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, McLaren served in the British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
with the 51st Highland Division. After the war he moved to Queensland
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
where he served as a veterinary officer in Bundaberg. In 1938 he married Catherine Ahern in Childers
Childers, Queensland
Childers is a town in southern Queensland, Australia, situated at the junction of the Bruce and Isis Highways. The township lies north of the state capital Brisbane and south-west of Bundaberg. Childers is located within Bundaberg Region Local Government Area. At the 2006 census, Childers had a...
.
Following the outbreak of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, he continued to serve as a veterinary officer, although he joined the Citizens Military Force in March 1941. Shortly after, he volunteered for overseas service and opted to transfer to the Australian Imperial Force
Second Australian Imperial Force
The Second Australian Imperial Force was the name given to the volunteer personnel of the Australian Army in World War II. Under the Defence Act , neither the part-time Militia nor the full-time Permanent Military Force could serve outside Australia or its territories unless they volunteered to...
. He was assigned to the 2/10th Australian Field Workshops with the 8th Australian Division in British Malaya
British Malaya
British Malaya loosely described a set of states on the Malay Peninsula and the Island of Singapore that were brought under British control between the 18th and the 20th centuries...
when Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
fell to the Japanese army. At this time, he was thirty-nine years old.
He could not endure imprisonment and immediately organized an escape party. Escaping from the POW camp with two comrades, they successfully made it almost to Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur is the capital and the second largest city in Malaysia by population. The city proper, making up an area of , has a population of 1.4 million as of 2010. Greater Kuala Lumpur, also known as the Klang Valley, is an urban agglomeration of 7.2 million...
, often with the aid of Malayan Chinese and Chinese communist guerrillas, before they were betrayed to the Japanese by Malays. It was during this escape that McLaren began to hate the Japanese as he passed the bodies of hundreds of Chinese men, women and children, who had been tortured, raped, and then killed by Japanese occupation forces.
Imprisoned once again, McLaren sought to escape from the Singapore prison camps. He managed to add himself to a contingent of prisoners being sent to Borneo
Borneo
Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....
to a labour camp. Once he arrived at Berhala Island
Berhala Island, Sabah
Berhala Island is a small forested island situated in Sandakan Bay in Sandakan, Sabah, East Malaysia.The island is approximately 5 hectares in size and has prominent cliffs at its northern end...
, in Sandakan
Sandakan
Sandakan is the second-largest city in Sabah, East Malaysia, on the north-eastern coast of Borneo. It is located on the east coast of the island and it is the administrative centre of Sandakan Division and was the former capital of British North Borneo...
Harbour on northeastern Borneo, he began, with several other prisoners, to plan an escape. Hearing that they were to be sent to a more permanent camp at Sandakan
Sandakan
Sandakan is the second-largest city in Sabah, East Malaysia, on the north-eastern coast of Borneo. It is located on the east coast of the island and it is the administrative centre of Sandakan Division and was the former capital of British North Borneo...
with less opportunity for escape, they moved up their escape and, stealing a boat from a nearby leper colony, they set off to the Tawi Tawi islands were they were told other Australians were fighting as guerrillas. On their arrival, they soon made contact with Filipino guerrillas, who assisted McLaren and six others to make contact, in June 1943, with the guerrilla organization on Mindanao. Their escape from Berhala Island saved their lives as they then missed the early 1945 Sandakan Death Marches
Sandakan Death Marches
The Sandakan Death Marches were a series of forced marches in Borneo from Sandakan to Ranau which resulted in the deaths of more than 3,600 Indonesian civilian slave labourers and 2,400 Allied prisoners of war held captive by the Empire of Japan during the Pacific campaign of World War II at prison...
.
Eventually, McLaren and his comrades arrived on Mindanao
Mindanao
Mindanao is the second largest and easternmost island in the Philippines. It is also the name of one of the three island groups in the country, which consists of the island of Mindanao and smaller surrounding islands. The other two are Luzon and the Visayas. The island of Mindanao is called The...
where they made contact with American and Filipino guerrillas under the overall command of Lt. Col. Wendell Fertig
Wendell Fertig
Wendell Fertig was an American civil engineer, in the American-administered Commonwealth of the Philippines, who organized and commanded an American-Filipino guerrilla force on the Japanese-occupied, southern Philippine island of Mindanao during World War II.Fertig held a U.S...
. Their hopes of returning to Australia to join formal army units were curtailed due to the need for experienced leaders for the guerrilla forces and lack of transportation. Eventually, some of the party were sent to Australia by submarine.
Surprisingly, McLaren wished to remain behind, as transfer to a formal unit would not only inhibit his actions and desire for revenge, but his age would preclude participation in combat. Except for a short leave in Australia toward the end of the war, he spent most of the war years serving as a coastwatcher
Coastwatchers
The Coastwatchers, also known as the Coast Watch Organisation, Combined Field Intelligence Service or Section C, Allied Intelligence Bureau, were Allied military intelligence operatives stationed on remote Pacific islands during World War II to observe enemy movements and rescue stranded Allied...
and guerrilla leader. He participated in numerous raids on the Japanese, sometimes in command of small, heavily armed, coastal vessels. At one time, he radioed information on a ship carrying 3,000 Japanese troops to another island. Most of the troops were killed or drowned when American submarines sank the ship. The rest were killed by Filipinos as the Japanese survivors reached shore exhausted and in no condition to fight. McLaren's numerous land and sea guerrilla actions so disrupted Japanese operations that eventually the Japanese placed a reward of 70,000 pesos on McLaren's head.
During one period of his service in the Philippines, McLaren commanded a 26-foot whaleboat called The Bastard. McLaren would sail his boat into Japanese controlled ports in broad daylight, shoot up the supply vessels and piers with machine guns and a mortar, then turn tail and run.
As senior officers at both the guerrilla unit and army levels began to appreciate his initiative and dependability, he was often assigned to make small unit and solo forays into Japanese held areas for intelligence. Toward the end of the war, high-level U.S. and Australian commands relied on him to penetrate Japanese areas in the Philippines and former Dutch colonies ahead of planned invasions for the latest intelligence and to scout possible enemy routes of retreat which could then be interdicted. As a member of the American forces in the Philippines, McLaren was under U.S. command. However, on 20 April 1945, upon the request of the Australians who had a need for his talents, General Eichelberger
Robert L. Eichelberger
Robert Lawrence Eichelberger was a general in the United States Army, who commanded the US Eighth Army in the South West Pacific Area during World War II. His Army was among the very first to engage the Japanese in the Pacific Theater of Operations.-Pre-World War II service:Eichelberger was born...
personally signed an order releasing McLaren back to Australian command.
After being transferred to Z Special Unit
Z Special Unit
Z Special Unit was a joint Allied special forces unit formed during the Second World War to operate behind Japanese lines in South East Asia...
, under the command of the Services Reconnaissance Department
Services Reconnaissance Department
The Services Reconnaissance Department , also known as Inter-Allied Services Department , Special Operations Australia and Section A, Allied Intelligence Bureau was an Australian military intelligence and special reconnaissance unit, during World War II.Authorised by General Thomas Blamey in March...
, attached to the Allied Intelligence Bureau, McLaren subsequently took part in an airborne operation near Balikpapan in late June 1945. Dropping in advance of the main Allied landing in early July 1945
Battle of Balikpapan (1945)
The Battle of Balikpapan was the concluding stage of the Borneo campaign . The landings took place on 1 July 1945. The Australian 7th Division, composed of the 18th, 21st and 25th Infantry Brigades, with support troops, made an amphibious landing, codenamed Operation Oboe Two a few miles north of...
, McLaren led a section of four men on a reconnaissance mission. Despite losing two men, one from injury following the landing and another in an ambush, McLaren and the other two men were able to return to Australian lines on 6 July and report the Japanese dispositions to the Australian 7th Division's headquarters. Following this, in late July, McLaren took part in an operation on British North Borneo
Battle of North Borneo
The Battle of North Borneo took place during the Second World War between Allied and Japanese forces. Part of the wider Borneo campaign of the Pacific War, it was fought between 10 June and 15 August 1945 in North Borneo...
, leading an eight man section. It was his last operation of the war, and after hostilities he remained in Borneo to help re-establish administration before being returned to Australia in November 1945.
Having been promoted to sergeant
Sergeant
Sergeant is a rank used in some form by most militaries, police forces, and other uniformed organizations around the world. Its origins are the Latin serviens, "one who serves", through the French term Sergent....
soon after joining the guerrilla forces, Jock McLaren later received a field commission from Australia and ended the war with the substantive rank of captain. During the course of his service, McLaren was decorated with the Military Cross
Military Cross
The Military Cross is the third-level military decoration awarded to officers and other ranks of the British Armed Forces; and formerly also to officers of other Commonwealth countries....
twice for his heroic actions, as well as being Mentioned in Despatches.
Later life
Following the end of the war, McLaren was discharged from the AIF and transferred to the Reserve of Officers List in early 1946. Following this he became a government veterinarian in New GuineaNew Guinea
New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
. He remained in this role until 1956 when he began growing coffee, buying a plantation at Wau. On 3 March 1956, McLaren was accidentally killed when rotted timber fell on him near his home after he backed a vehicle against a dead tree.
External links
- Australian Honours Web site – Robert Kerr McLaren – First award
- Australian Honours Web site – Robert Kerr McLaren – Second award
- Surgical Drama of Mindanao Jungle Report in The Argus (Melbourne newspaper) of Robert K. McLaren removing his own appendix; receiving the U.S. Silver Star from General MacArthur.
- Episode 2: Capt. Robert McLaren M.C. Citation - Australian radio show with dramatized stories of Australian military heroes