Roland Henry Traviss Squire

Roland Squire is commemorated on the Singapore Memorial Panel 448.

Dakota IV 117 Sqn 20 miles south of Binhli 26 fatalities The aircraft was carrying 21 soldiers from 1st Battalion The Queen's Royal Regiment (West Surrey) for garrison duty at Saigon. The aircraft entered a cu-nim cloud and broke up in the air; either due to overstressing in heavy turbulence or because the pilot lost control.

Fatalities:

RAF:

Fg Off R H T Squire
Flt Sgt E W Trail
Fg Off J M Ross
Fg Off E M Sissons
Believed to be: AC2 J Brown

Army:

Pvt D J Auburn
Pvt L Bass
Pvt H W Crankshaw
Pvt L Finch
WO II (CSM) V J Goodchild
Pvt J Hillier
Pvt B E Jones
Lance Sgt R H B Kemp
Pvt R L Munt
Pvt W W Oliver
2nd Lt B P Pattie Royal Fusiliers attached
Lance Cpl C E Pritchard
Lance Cpl G A Rackett
Pvt S J Reed
Pvt W S Reed
Pvt E C Smith
Pvt W J Stokes
Pvt F J Stone
Pvt E J Sullivan
Pvt A C Swinchatt
Pvt S G T Vickery.

NB. On August 1st 1945, a crew member aboard this aircraft noted ‘Forced landing-engine failure on take off. 6000lbs freight & 1 Indian Other Rank. No casualties or damage: cause:- 30 gallons of water in starboard main tank, airborne 30 secs. Seems like this aircraft had something of a jinx on it.’

There are records of numerous issues such as large quantities of water in the fuel at about this time. Some will have been because of poor standards of supervision and quality control checks on the fuel but there are suspicions that some problems were deliberate tampering.

The war against Japan ended in August 1945. This was followed by the Recovery of Allied Prisoners of War and Internees, known as RAPWI. In Bangkok, the arrival of two hospital units by air gave an immediate fall in death rates, according to the official New Zealand war history. This led to an urgent operation to fly PoWs to ports for hospital convalescence, and homeward travel by sea.

Five Dakota transport squadrons in Burma (now Myanmar) were therefore tasked to fly 100 sorties per day to recover PoWs, according to Nigel Warwick's book Constant Vigilance. Their principal task was to fly from east to west with PoWs for medical care and ships at Rangoon. Flying west to east, they mostly carried garrison troops to Bangkok in Siam (now Thailand), and to Saigon in French Indochina (now Viet-Nam). This shuttle began on Monday 3rd September 1945.

As this was the monsoon season, it was dangerous flying weather. Two RAF Dakotas flying RAPWI missions in Burma crashed with the loss of life on 6th (KK118) and 8th (KN593) September 1945. It is probable that pilots were then instructed to take no risks in bad weather but to return to base. Brigadier Eric Goodman reported that his RAPWI Dakota on 8th October returned to base, due to monsoon weather.

Before the arrival of British troops, SOE agents Hector (Brigadier Victor Jacques) and Priam (Major Tom Hobbs) had hidden in the house of a Siamese prince to represent British interests. This may have led General Bill Slim to expect a prompt September agreement between the Siamese government and his forces, to be marked by a ceremonial parade.

However, historian Nicholas Tarling has stated that no agreement was signed until 1 January 1946, since a slow four-sided tussle took place between the British government, the friendly Siamese government, the suspicious Siamese opposition, and the US State Department (which suspected British colonial ambitions). At stake were 1.5m tons of surplus Siamese rice, needed for famine relief in neighbouring countries.