| 26 January 1942.
To supply their advancing Army, the Japanese occupied the port of Endau on the east coast of Malaya on this day, the landings being supported by an aircraft-carrier, a heavy cruiser, five light cruisers and five destroyers. Costly daylight air attacks by the RAF failed to inflict more than insignificant damage and on the night of 26/27 January the Royal Navy could muster only two aged destroyers to attack the harbour, one, HMS Thanet, in the pre-dawn of the 27th was sunk by gunfire of the Japanese destroyers Amagiri, Hatsuyuki and Shirayuki. There were 57 survivors, the other, HMAS Vampire, escaped undamaged behind her own smokescreen.
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On weald of Kent I watched once more
Again I heard that grumbling roar
Of fighter planes; yet none were near
And all around the sky was clear
Borne on the wind a whisper came
'Though men grow old, they stay the same'
And then I knew, unseen to eye
The ageless Few were sweeping by
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