Malaya 60 years later

[Skyros]

THis is an interesting web site with papers on the fall of Singapore. Topics include high desertion of Australian troops, a traitor in their midst and British neglect. Enjoy!

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/specials ... efault.htm

[Ian R]

The 4 corners program used to be a good one about 25 years ago, unfortunately it has degenerated into sensationalism.

The "Australians all deserted" allegation was recently re-perpetrated by a retired English merchant seaman turned amateur historian whose name I don't recall. His assertion that there was some sort of mass desertion is based on anecdotal reminiscences about the type of headwear worn by troops in Singapore city. His gross lack of wider military history knowledge apparently includes: 

a) the fact that the UK 18th division, landed in Singapore just in time to be captured, were equipped with Australian style "bush hats".

b) the fact that infantry divisions had large base and support units who were supposed to be back behind the lines in the city, and were not deserters (although some of them may well have been drunk).

c) the fact that Wavell, who hated Australians, and wanted a scapegoat for British planning shortcomings, tried to blame the two brigades (out of about a dozen in total) for the defeat in his official report on the campaign, but the attempt was so pathetic and embarrassing the UK govermnent buried it for 50 years (yes, longer than the Ultra secret). He doesn't mention the 8th Australian division until the bottom of 16 of 24 pages. If he did he would have to acknowledge that the two brigades, unlike the British trrops, did get off the roads and actually train for jungle warfare, did manage to stop the IJA advance a number of times, and had to withdraw each time because the British troops on their right flank kept collapsing. The Appendix A commentary criticises the Australians, the Malays, the Chinese, the civilian authorities, anyone but the British. Wavell, with pre-war connections to the Indian Army, also tries not to blame it.

No doubt the reporter will trawl through a superficial recounting of anecdotes with no intelligent assessment or analysis of what really happened.

[Johnny Sheff]

I didn't realise the British were so derelict of duty. It makes me wonder how they managed to end up on the winning side. I suppose that whole Battle of Britain thing was blown up out of all proportion...

[Ian R]

ORIGINAL: Johnny Sheff

I didn't realise the British were so derelict of duty. It makes me wonder how they managed to end up on the winning side. I suppose that whole Battle of Britain thing was blown up out of all proportion...

get yourself a copy of "The Desert Generals" by Corelli Barnett and all will be revealed.

[JeffroK]

Malaya & Singapore were lost well before Percival, Wavell or the Australians arrived, in the chambers of British Parliament.
 
If a decent sized, well trained & equipped force was available, the Japanese would have struck trouble.
 
But then they might have bypassed it and headed to Burma & Java first.

[lyceum]

ORIGINAL: Johnny Sheff

I didn't realise the British were so derelict of duty. It makes me wonder how they managed to end up on the winning side. I suppose that whole Battle of Britain thing was blown up out of all proportion...

Not sure what you mean about the BoB being blown out of proportion....

Malaya was a place third line units were put and it was an exotic party town in Singapore. Things only started to get serious far too late. The air force was third rate, not even second rate. The ground forces were totally inadequate owing to the total inexperience of the vast majority. Whilst the reinforcement of POW and Repulse was seen as a potential saviour they were yet to learn the true potential of the aerial torpedo.

Im sure that if Spit MkVs and a couple of the best Commonwealth and British divisions were there (i.e first line forces) it would have been a whole lot different.

The best account by far of the whole debacle is Singapore Burning by Colin Smith. Get it straight away, fascinating stuff.

[AmiralLaurent]

ORIGINAL: JeffK

Malaya & Singapore were lost well before Percival, Wavell or the Australians arrived, in the chambers of British Parliament.

If a decent sized, well trained & equipped force was available, the Japanese would have struck trouble.

As for "decent sized" there were more Allied troops in Malaya than Japanese. The problem was the training and equipment.

If modern weapons and more trained troops had been sent there, what may have happened is that the war in Northern Africa will be lost... By the way even this theater received second-hand equipement in 1941 (for example no Spitfire until 1942).

Then the British Army might have been far more powerful, yes, but that cost a lot of money that wasn't available in peacetime. And then the British Army was obliged to rebuild itself after Dunkirk, and defend UK and the Middle East, wage the Atlantic Battle and so on... No wonder Malaya ended on the end of the list.

[Skyros]

Ian you should read the articles, they seem well researched and go beyond mere anecdotal evidence.

ORIGINAL: Ian R

The 4 corners program used to be a good one about 25 years ago, unfortunately it has degenerated into sensationalism.

The "Australians all deserted" allegation was recently re-perpetrated by a retired English merchant seaman turned amateur historian whose name I don't recall. His assertion that there was some sort of mass desertion is based on anecdotal reminiscences about the type of headwear worn by troops in Singapore city. His gross lack of wider military history knowledge apparently includes: 

a) the fact that the UK 18th division, landed in Singapore just in time to be captured, were equipped with Australian style "bush hats".

b) the fact that infantry divisions had large base and support units who were supposed to be back behind the lines in the city, and were not deserters (although some of them may well have been drunk).

c) the fact that Wavell, who hated Australians, and wanted a scapegoat for British planning shortcomings, tried to blame the two brigades (out of about a dozen in total) for the defeat in his official report on the campaign, but the attempt was so pathetic and embarrassing the UK govermnent buried it for 50 years (yes, longer than the Ultra secret). He doesn't mention the 8th Australian division until the bottom of 16 of 24 pages. If he did he would have to acknowledge that the two brigades, unlike the British trrops, did get off the roads and actually train for jungle warfare, did manage to stop the IJA advance a number of times, and had to withdraw each time because the British troops on their right flank kept collapsing. The Appendix A commentary criticises the Australians, the Malays, the Chinese, the civilian authorities, anyone but the British. Wavell, with pre-war connections to the Indian Army, also tries not to blame it.

No doubt the reporter will trawl through a superficial recounting of anecdotes with no intelligent assessment or analysis of what really happened.

[BrucePowers]

The British priorities were actually fairly logical. Malaya was the place they could most afford to lose. Once the US was in the war Churchill knew the allies had won. He knew it would take years but it was won.

[Ian R]

Skyros, I have read the articles - 5 years ago - they were all out in the late 1990s or 2002. [;)]
 
One of them demolishes the hearsay relied on by Wavell/Thomas and by the recent English writer.  But they were far too heavy going for a TV report.

 

[wild_Willie2]

Hi there.
 
Some years ago, I picked up this book. "Singapore: The Pregnable Fortress".
 
It was a really nice read about the Malaya campain.
 
What I really noticed is that the British dit not have HE ammo for their coastal batteries defending Singapore, just AP stuff.
So when these guns where turned inland (yes,they COULD and DID fire inland) they where firing rather ineffective AP shells against infantry formations....    

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: wild_Willie2

Hi there.

Some years ago, I picked up this book. "Singapore: The Pregnable Fortress".

It was a really nice read about the Malaya campain.

What I really noticed is that the British dit not have HE ammo for their coastal batteries defending Singapore, just AP stuff.
So when these guns where turned inland (yes,they COULD and DID fire inland) they where firing rather ineffective AP shells against infantry formations....    

This is a fairly standard ammunition allocation for large calibre CD guns. They were supposed to be shooting at ships. One exception was around Manilla Bay, where the WPO plan called for the troops to retire to Bataan and some HE was provided to support that defense.

[BrucePowers]

Considering what the British were facing in 40 and 41 they made choices they felt they could live with. Could they have done better, yes. Mistakes were made all the way around.

[JSBoomer]

British commanders in Hong Kong also tried to shift blame on the Canadians, there seems to be a trend here...

[Skyros]

Im glad you read them, I did not imply anything at all it just seemed you dismissed them out of hand. Some people would rather slam first rather than read something and find it says something different. I beleieve these were published in 2002 as part of the 60th Anniversery. WHat caught my eye was the article on the British traitor that I had not heard of before. I must admit that I am not as well read on Singapore as I am on other areas.

Well enjoy the articles everyone.

ORIGINAL: Ian R

Skyros, I have read the articles - 5 years ago - they were all out in the late 1990s or 2002. [;)]

One of them demolishes the hearsay relied on by Wavell/Thomas and by the recent English writer.  But they were far too heavy going for a TV report.

[Reg]

ORIGINAL: wild_Willie2

Hi there.

Some years ago, I picked up this book. "Singapore: The Pregnable Fortress".

It was a really nice read about the Malaya campain.

What I really noticed is that the British did not have HE ammo for their coastal batteries defending Singapore, just AP stuff.
So when these guns where turned inland (yes, they COULD and DID fire inland) they where firing rather ineffective AP shells against infantry formations....    

Do you really think a few HE shells would have made any difference?? With infantry crossing the causeway, you are already in deep $%^& and a few more casualties amongst the attackers would not have affected the evenual outcome. I am amazed how authors latch on to a single factor (often justified) but in isolation and declare this is the whole reason for the complete failure. This smacks of the contempory assumption that just the arrival of two ships was all that was required to save the whole country. Real life is far more complicated than that.

I have read theories that do not contradict the known facts but interpret them in a new light.
It is well known that one of the corner stones of the Singapore defence plan was based around the assumption that Singapore could never be attacked by land (hence the unwarranted criticism on the CD defences when it failed to perform a task it was never designed to do).
Far more relevant is the fact that this assumption was probably valid when the defence plans were drawn up in the late twenties or early thirties. However by the forties, the expansion of the rubber industry in Malaya had built minor access roads right across the country and the previously impenetrable jungle had become all too pervious to light forces. This can be seen when one Malayan defensive postion after another had to be abandoned when outflanked. But even this in itself is only a contributory factor which had to rely on other factors (such as the Japanese ability to recognise and exploit this weakness, allied command/communication problems etc) to become an issue in this campaign.

I would suggest that a failure of one (or more) the fundamental assumptions of the defence plan would be more relevant to the fall of Singapore the than what sort of ammunition a CD gun had been issued.

As you may have guessed, I am also not impressed by ill informed authors that continue to perpertrate popular mythology without referring anything more that the most obvious facts.

[Skyros]

I don't think he is saying that the lack of He was the cause. You do raise the correct reason as a domino of related issues from lack of training, proper defenses etc as the real cause.