Songkhla/Singora Bombed, 1945

[GWR]

From the Australian War Memorial Archives:-
http://cas.awm.gov.au/pls/PRD/ump.retrieve_uma?surl=1222674100ZZIIYRSMUKMT&parm1=UMO_ID&parm2=499612&parm1=DISPLAY_TYPE&parm2=RAW&parm1=DISPLAY_WHAT&parm2=MASTER&parm1=LOGIN_TYPE&parm2=PROFILEG&parm1=AID&parm2=2000
ID Number: P02491.114
Physical description: Black & white
Summary: Singora, Southern Thailand. 17 July 1945. The waterfront, which suffered extensive bomb damage in an air attack by aircraft of No. 159 (Liberator) Squadron RAF of the Strategic Air Force, Eastern Air Command.
By one recent report there is a bombed-out area right in the middle of Songkhla's Chinatown that has been deliberately left vacant to commemorate bombing raids. The report seemed to suggest that it might have been a result of a British bombing raid at the time of the Japanese invasion of Songkhla. But it's all very confused, as another report suggested that the Japanese continued to bomb parts of the town even after they has basically taken control of the airfield & the rest of the area. Could it be that the bomb site was actually the result of this attack in 1945?

[GWR]

For some reason the link in the previous post NO LONGER works. Probably a piece of cunning programing to make sure you always work only through their search engine. Neither their simple or advanced search engines work all that well from what I've seen, but the simple search engine works well if you put the Quoted ID No. P02491.114 into the 'Search Terms' box:-
http://cas.awm.gov.au/pls/prd/cst.acct_master?surl=271598269ZZZHDRKOLPVSS07122&stype=2&simplesearch=&v_umo=&v_product_id=&screen_name=&screen_parms=&screen_type=RIGHT&bvers=5&bplatform=Netscape&bos=Win32
ID Number: P02491.114
Physical description: Black & white
Summary: Singora, Southern Thailand. 17 July 1945. The waterfront, which suffered extensive bomb damage in an air attack by aircraft of No. 159 (Liberator) Squadron RAF of the Strategic Air Force, Eastern Air Command.

[GWR]

One wonders what the RAF gained by this attack. Admittedly, Japanese Forces may have had an office or facility in this area; but one would have thought that Songkhla's very obvious naval and transport installations would have made better targets. Attacks like these must have killed quite a few innocent civilians; and alienated many others. A lot of Chinese diaspora would have lived in this area; most of whom would probably had very little good to say about Japan after the Nanjing massacres & rapes

It has to be said that the USA appears to have pursued a much more pragmatic wartime policy on Thailand's occupation. The Brits continued to prefer a more punitive approach until some time after the war.

[GWR]

160 SQUADRON R.A.F

http://www.burmastar.org.uk/160sdrn.htm

On April 28th,1945, in aircraft BZ 867 on a mining operation, we climbed over the Isthmus to Singora on the East side, found many ships in the harbour and placed our mines.