RETURN OF THE TIGER

Ivan Lyon was a career soldier in the British Army who was bored by routine military life. Once he proved it by having a massive, ferocious tiger tattoed on his chest. Later, after he had escaped from Singapore in 1942, a purpose in life came to him. It was to repay the Japanese for their cruelty in the Malayan Campaign. He did it well. Organizing an irregular force he returned to Singapore in 1943 in small boats, placing mines on anchored shipping. Seven vessels went down. A year later he tried again with small ""canoe"" submarines, but was discovered and killed. The men with him were executed, but not before two of them had managed to cover 2000 miles in a small open boat in an escape attempt. The story is told sparely, in good taste, and yet with not too much attempt to understand Lyon the ""tiger"". Details of both raids, and of the painful trial of the captured men just before the close of the War, add colorful history to the writing done about the Pacific conflict.