HY2242/SSA2208
Ports, Forts and Bases: The Military History of Singapore
Name: Joanne Choy Hui Wen
The defence of Singapore island was a humiliating fiasco. In its quick capitulation to the Japanese, the way fighting was conducted chaotically and right up to the mass surrender of one of the biggest British armies in World War Two, it befitted the description of a “humiliating fiasco”. In essence, the battle of Singapore and the defence of it, brought out the fact that not only were they outgeneraled and outfought, Malaya Command crumbled from within to produce an uncoordinated, humiliating fiasco of a fight, if ever so oxymoronic.
Both Lieutenant-General Yamashita, Commander of the 25th Army and Lieutenant-General Percival, General Officer Commanding Malaya; faced the immense test of leadership. Percival however, was outgeneraled by Yamashita not only because he kept a tight hand on strategic decisions of the field, which hindered an effective fighting battle, he was an uninspiring leader to his men. Warren gives a damning verdict on Percival, recounting the conference Percival gave in January 1942, where he showed no conviction and force in his reassurance of ultimate victory to the Malayan Army, which was embarrassing as well as totally uninspiring. In the first crucial wave of the Japanese attack on the night of 8th February, Yamashita sent a message to his men ‘Am watching you all from the Sultan’s Tower’. As gleaned from the field trip, with the tower looking across from Johore at the narrow straits, Yamashita’s men, especially his sacrificial first wave, were able to take heart and give it their all. Yamashita exerted a psychological effect on his troops that Percival did not, outgeneraled in the simplest yet most crucial aspect of military leadership.
In more ways than one, the troops fighting to defend Singapore were not outfought by their enemy as much as they gave their own battle away in a fiasco- hopelessly chaotic with a lack of a fighting spirit that wrapped up in headlong retreat. The Japanese were indeed battle-hardened, but they were often able to confuse and break-up a loosely-defined and positioned enemy, who were more apt to retreat than to put up a defensive fight. Right from the very start, the Australian 8th Division were to stop the Japanese “dead in their tracks” to buy time. Unfortunately, Brigadier Taylor’s troops were already dispersed by dawn of the 9th February, “the whole of 22nd Australian Brigade had lost cohesion” and Malaya Command was slow to pick things up because the lines of communication were in chaos. Almost everything started off and continued in a state of perpetual confusion. For the most part, the troops fighting to defend Singapore often lacked the cohesion to withstand the Japanese Kirimomi Sakusen. At the causeway battle, Maxwell’s troops retreated prematurely, exposing a gap in the defense line and ultimately compromising the important Bukit Timah area even before putting up a real fight. Similarly, the ‘charge’ to retake the Jurong Line under Wavell’s instruction was conducted under “such general chaos that no coordinated counter-attack could be launched”. The Japanese did not win over Singapore island as much as “Malaya Command lost it”.
Ever since Ochi and his machine gunners landed at the mangrove in North Western Singapore, the challenge was now to prevent humiliation, but “the defenders instead brought it on themselves”. In retreat after retreat, first to Ama Keng in the Northwest, then Bukit Timah and the final Kranji-Jurong Line, the defenders allowed themselves to be manipulated by the enemy, being pushed inward relentlessly without much forestalling. By splitting up the 5th and 18th Divisions down the main thrust into central Singapore, the Japanese potentially compromised their battle in the central area. But the British were unable to exploit that to its fullest. They continued to fall into a headlong retreat into the perimeters of the city itself.
Percival finally signed the surrender document on the 15th February 1942, one week after the Japanese first landed in the night of the 8th. The battle of Singapore was described by Churchill infamously as “the worst disaster in British history”. It marked not only the loss of the island, but spelled the loss of empire. It was also one of the largest surrender, the shame of such a humiliating defeat of “Fortress Singapore” haunted Churchill till months after, when he remarked “I cannot get over it”.
Yet perhaps it was the independent actions of senior officers of Malaya Command that made the entire battle to defend Singapore all the more humiliating. It is bad enough that one is already facing a capable enemy, without having to deal with internal sabotage of pre-planned retreats that went against orders or which took place blatantly and illogically. The actions of Brigadiers Taylor, Maxwell, and even Major-General Bennett ensured that Singapore was not going fall in grace. It represented an internal loss of confidence and a disintegrating chain of command that gave “humiliating fiasco” its final stamp.
Brigadier Taylor, charged with the defense of North Western Singapore, instructed his battalion commanders to fall back to Ama Keng and ultimately, prematurely retreat because he believed that it was a needless sacrificial battle he was fighting. It was a swerve from his new mission to advance, and while Percival was left imagining that North Western Singapore was being held by the 22nd Australian Brigade to the best of its ability.Like Taylor, Maxwell perpetuated a spectacular break in the chain of command by ordering his troops to pull back to Mandai road when they deem fit, which turned out to be sooner than meeting the Japanese headlong. The fight at the Causeway was effectively given up when all was not yet lost. From the field trip, it is evident that Maxwell had a clear advantage in an elevated position overlooking the Causeway. Nishimura was also sending his infantry one battalion at a time, on a piecemeal basis, which was easy target on an open stretch of road. By this time into the battle, the Japanese had already lost a significant number of landing craft and like the British, were having their own difficulties. It was a terrible mistake to not seize battleground opportunities and to exploit the enemy’s weakness. Malaya Command was a broken chain of command-the independent decisions of senior commanders, their feeble, half-hearted attempts at defence, and the deception it forged made it all a humiliating fiasco. It turned out to be pathetic that “The only thing Malaya Command successfully accomplished as an army on Singapore island was to surrender.”
It was expressed that “Chinese and Tamils were friendly and could be relied upon. All Malays should be avoided or shot”, a testimony to the attitude behind the forces defending Singapore who fed on the idea that the local civilian population was not backing them up. Yet it was both the Dalforce and the bloody fight the Malay Regiment put up at Pasir Panjang that mitigated the humiliation of the entire battle. In these two instances, it could be well argued that a tough fight was put up to the point of near annihilation. Dalforce stood no chance against the professional, battle-hardened military men of the Japanese Army driving at them. The Malay regiment itself had to grapple with positional gaps and the neutralization of coastal guns and yet still fought on despite overwhelming circumstances. Pasir Panjang was the one stop that stood out in the field trip because one understood that these were men who were fighting for their homeland, and who carried that cause to its tragic end. It was not a question of necessity, such as Taylor had deliberated over the sacrifice of his men, it was a logical conclusion to that belief.
As the last battle of the Malayan Campaign, the battle of Singapore was a chaotic fiasco that ended in humiliation for the army and the entire British Empire. Malayan Command itself was helmed by an uninspiring figure, with senior commanders who in the end broke their own chain of command. The fight to preserve the island from the advancing Japanese was conducted in a haphazard and chaotic manner, troops were disparate and tended towards dispersal and communication was poor. The liability of Malaya Command and the kind of defensive fight put up on the ground prevented the army from being cohesive, and from fighting a cohesive battle. All of which dictated a defence that ended up in headlong retreat. Yet, it was also shown that the defence of the island was not devoid of any element of a tough fight at all times and by all parties involved. Humiliation though, is compounded by the fact that consideration for this battle will always take place alongside a comparison with the much more formidable Japanese army. It was a humiliating defeat framed by the rapidity of capitulation and the great number of prisoners taken before and on the 15th February 1942. But it was not so much a defeat as a disaster.
(1391 words)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bridge, Carl. “Crisis of Command: Major-General Gordon Bennett and British Military Effectiveness in the Malayan Campaign 1941-1942”, pp. 64-74. In British and Japanese Military Leadership in the Far Eastern War 1941-1942. Edited by Brian Bond and Kyoichi Tachikawa. London and New York: Frank Cass, 2004.
Callahan, Raymond. The Worst Disaster: The Fall of Singapore London: Associated University Presses Inc, 1977.
Farrell, Brian. The Defence and Fall of Singapore 1941-1942. Gloucestershire: Tempus Publishing, 2002)
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