13.1 Rahne Mari

An image of Moyler cast on the screen. Educated at Rugby School and Queen’s College, Arthur Moyler was appointed to the India Office in 1930. Then he served in the Burma Office before being seconded to the Ministry of Aircraft Production in 1940.

A call came in the morning on the 24^th of March from Whitehall War Office. A place hit by four bombs and fairly damaged from the exterior. An office directly connected to the prime minister.

Secretary of State Gary Pierce wanted, “Go to Addu Atoll in the Maldive Islands and get that Port T base for hundred years, no less. Do whatever it takes.”

“Yes sir,” returned Arthur Moyler who was at the moment in Burma.

He called the High Commission to find the situation. He was told that they were going to sign the lease for thirty years. He learnt that a Sunderland was sent to pick the sultan from the capital to Gan.

“Call it off!” demanded Moyler.

“I can’t call it off!” cried the operator.

Then things changed when a call came from the Navy Office in Singapore, the Acting Commander-in-Chief of the East Indies Station, Vice Admiral John Poore advised, “Fly to Trincomalee. I can arrange a submarine.” And the Sunderland was called off immediately that Friday afternoon in the capital of Malé.

The Maldive delegation in Gan was told that the sultan was unsuccessful to attend due to a technical fault with the aircraft and the signing had to be delayed until Saturday since a British official was expected. The delegation asked to connect them to the capital and the First Secretary replied that there should be no need for anxiety.

Trincomalee harbour was bombed in April ’42. The airfield was getting an upgrade during this time in early ’44. In Burma, there was war on two fronts at the borders of China and India. It was the toughest battle ground of the Second World War in East Asia.

Arthur Moyler flew from Burma and arrived in China Bay. Here he met Lieutenant Ford Pell who would join him to Gan to take over command of the submarine. Moyler and Pell climbed a Handley Page Harrow and flew three and half hours to Gan to touchdown at 11:15 am on 25^th March 1944.

The Maldive and the British delegations met at lunch. Particularly with Arthur Moyler who was a deputy of the Ministry of Aircraft Production. It left the Maldive delegation in awe however, the newcomer was not there to change any clauses agreed upon. Only typing done was to enter his name.

The lease was drawn on a payment of £100000 per annum and for thirty years. And that was what the Malé Government expected. That afternoon they signed the agreement as it was and set ready to go to the capital of Malé early next morning.

That evening Moyler and Lt Ford Pell met with the ship’s captain, Lieutenant Carl Perks, and disclosed a secret plan directing him to head course to Ceylon. Captain Perks insisted that he’d share with the crew before they set sail and unpack the ship during the night.

In the morning of 26^th March, Prince Mal Vatta, D’Migili Don Kaléfan and H’Lai Kalo embarked HMS Mellow after shaking hands with Moyler and First Secretary Castor who insisted that he would fly directly to Ceylon without going to Malé. This delegation never saw and never met Lieutenant Ford Pell.

HMS Mellow was a very old trawler converted to a minesweeper and axed that got to be scrapped. Shortly after she left Port T, Moyler and Pell climbed a powerboat that took them to the centre of the Addu inlet sea where lay a British submarine surfaced in water.

They were greeted by the sub’s captain; Lieutenant Louis Willis.

“Now the fate of Yaahunbaraas,” Saeed clicked on a slide of an odi, “Take a look at one of the incidents out of too many! We were all having fears of bombs, talks of sea monsters but the war was beyond the horizon. Ships lay idle in the calm waters of the archipelago not allowed to sail due to war. One of the vessels was Fathul Mubarak that the folks famously called Yaahunbaraas. Thirty-nine merchants set sail on a beautiful Sunday, out through the Villingili Channel into the dangerous waters of the high seas. It appeared like a sleeping barge with a roof hidden below the hull of a ship that looked like Noah’s Ark.

“First few days passed without event, the destination of Ceylon was getting near,” continued Sayye Saeed, “Suddenly, they heard a crackling noise from deep below. Next thing they saw was an enormous sea monster emerging beside the belly of the ship.

“Fear is real in the eyes when you know it isn’t Rahne Mari but a mari…a submarine.

“It came closer than you can imagine. Its beastly body under water. It came ramming on the odi and a Div fell down flat on the deck of the submarine. A Jafan grabbed him and dropped into the bottom through a hole in the middle of the ocean. Machine gun came alive. Three got shot.

“Kaiten-kaiten-kaiten-kaiten-BOOM!” he gathered his mundo in the middle and jumped in front of the three seated audience.

“Now the ship didn’t sink as fast as you think. It was a wooden craft. The torpedo went through it and the ship caught fire. The Divas hiding in the bottom hold and the mariners climbed aboard. They fastened every soul on the ship to slow death to sink to the bottom.

“When war started in late 1941, in East Asia, they attacked Singapore, Burma, Malaya, Thailand…but vague to their knowledge these islands lie beyond the horizon. They attacked Trincomalee in April 1942 and their hunt was getting closer to our doorstep.

“A submarine, with growing suspicion, began to circle around the archipelago like a shark and a shark eye can only see one side but they see in the dark. She looms in the night ten yards from the shores and wait. When she sees a prey, they go deep under to lurk behind.

“What kind of brains? Those are dead brains and they don’t even have a question to ask,” continued Sayye Saeed, “still they took two Divas for interrogation. Confusing when black collaborate with white…Japanese could be eyeballing on Africa. Two Divas saw that kind of torture in Singapore, pulling nails and pumping water into the belly from the rear in the prisons.

“They ran from two drunken soldiers to hide in the countryside. Japan was defeated but it took four months to identify themselves among fifty thousand liberated civilians and prisoners of war and in the language barrier. Nobody knew the islands.

“After two years, when they survived from a horrifying journey and upon arrival in Colombo, a lord in the tyranny wanted them to go and salvage a ship in Trincomalee. And they attended.

“At home, on that December morning in 1945, crowd gathered stricken and unsure as to who would step ashore after 746 days. I was standing there jaw-dropped.

“Thirty-seven perished in this incident just because we were helping the allies in war effort to defeat the enemy. As long as you do not see the bottom, you have no fear. There you heard the terrible story. Now let us roll the film…”