But how had they done it?
The answer was to be found in Japanese tactics.
First, they detected a weak spot in the defensive line then, under the cover of darkness, launched their attack. After penetrating the Indian line, they started firing at them from behind. As a result the Allies panicked and the front crumbled.
In this case the Japanese troops involved in the Jitra attack were all veterans of the war in China, where so many civilians were killed. They were already experienced in combat and were not deterred by the clatter of machine guns or the whine of rifle bullets against a background of thunder from mortar bombs and artillery.
Because of the enemy’s intense training in night operations they had become experts in nocturnal aggression. These men were familiar with the roar of war and were not frightened by it. The same could not be said for the men of 11th Division, for whom this was their first taste of battle.
But noise itself did not cause casualties, as Bennett knew well from his own experience. ‘It is natural for troops being attacked for the first time in their lives to be susceptible to shock and panic,’ he would later concede. ‘Battle experienced soldiers have learned this lesson and, using their knowledge, are able to develop a battle cunning that quickly tricks the inexperienced and shocks defenders into surrender.’3
This was certainly the case with the Japanese but the same lesson had not been learned by the British, whose tactics had more in common with withdrawal than attack, according to the 8th Division’s commander.
Bennett was obviously not impressed with the way the war had started. His views on poor leadership and training were a running theme in the subsequent weeks. However, he did not direct his criticism at his own men, although he continued to have rows with fellow officers.
Brigadier Cecil Callaghan, who was acting commander of the division while Bennett had been in the Middle East, felt the full force of his superior’s tongue on Bennett’s return to Malaya.
During Bennett’s absence Callaghan, who had served in World War I and participated in the Gallipoli landing, had taken it upon himself to change the disposition of Australian troops around Endau, fearing an imminent Japanese attack in the area. Bennett was furious that his own plans had been over-ridden by his deputy and immediately ordered a return to the original positions. It did not bode well for the relationship between the two men as they prepared for one of the most intense periods of military activity either had experienced.
Meanwhile, two divisions of Japanese troops, the 5th and the 18th, were now free to make their way into northern Malaya. Others were already coming ashore at Kota Bharu at the northeastern end of the peninsula. The RAAF’s No. 1 Squadron based there was a sitting target and soon all British and Indian forces in the area succumbed to the enemy’s attack from the sea and in the air. Lieutenant-General Tomoyuki Yamashita, Commander of the 25th Japanese Army, which included the fearsome Imperial Guards Division, was on the warpath and heading south.
The AIF’s 8th Division was still nearly 300 miles (500 km) away from the onslaught, which Churchill had described as ‘unprovoked aggression’ and a ‘flagrant violation of international law’. Addressing the House of Commons that same day he told MPs, ‘We can only feel that Hitler’s madness has infected the Japanese mind.’ 4
The bad news from Malaya did not get any better. Back in Singapore the British fleet, which was supposed to protect the ‘impregnable fortress’ in the event of war, had already steamed out of the naval base overlooking the Johore Strait and was on its way north.
The Prince of Wales and Repulse were intending to attack Japanese troopships carrying more men to Kota Bharu, but without proper aerial support they were hopelessly vulnerable.
It did not take long for Japanese spotter planes to relay the exact position of the vessels back to base. Senior officers led by Admiral Tom Phillips, who was in overall command of the British fleet, realised they were an easy target and decided to return to Singapore.
Pint-sized Phillips, who was nicknamed Tom Thumb by his crew, was friends with Churchill, who called him the Cocksparrow, a cockney term for small men with a cocky demeanour. The admiral was 53 and had a high opinion of himself. At first he dismissed the advice of others who believed aircraft always posed a major threat to a well-equipped battleship.5 Tragically, he was to learn the hard way. Admiral Phillips went down with his ship.
Gunnery rating John Gaynor, who was a member of the Prince of Wales’ crew, said the power went first, after the ship was hit by two torpedoes, one in the bows and the other in the stern. Being a modern, all-electric vessel nothing worked once the power failed, not even the guns. Soon the battleship was listing to port, which exposed part of the starboard side’s underbelly.
‘So the Japanese pilots went around again and now they came in on the exposed portion of the ship and in came the torpedoes, because she could no longer fire back at them,’ he recalled. ‘One minute she was going to port then she rocked back to starboard. I looked over and saw the torpedoes, the wreckage and people hanging all over the place, lots of bodies floating around. It was carnage. This was the time for the survivors of which I was going to be one.’ 6
Although Gaynor lived to tell the tale, 840 crew members from Repulse and Prince of Wales perished. Incredibly hundreds survived, many of them forced to cling to wreckage in the oily water. A British pilot who flew over the area where the two ships sank was astonished at the spirit of those men trying to stay afloat.
‘As I flew around every man waved and put up his thumb as I flew over him. After an hour lack of petrol forced me to leave but during that hour I had seen many men in dire danger waving, cheering and joking, as if they were holiday-makers at Brighton waving at a low-flying aircraft,’ he told the London Gazette.
News of the calamitous sinking of the British vessels sent shock waves around the world. In London Churchill pondered the loss in his pyjamas.
‘As I turned over and twisted in bed the full horror of the news sank in upon me,’ he admitted. ‘There were no British or American ships in the Indian Ocean or the Pacific except the American survivors of Pearl Harbor … Over all this vast expanse of water Japan was supreme and we everywhere were weak and naked.’7
While Bennett and the men of the 8th Division must have been equally as shocked by the naval loss, they could not dwell on it. Their brief was to protect the rest of the Malay Peninsula from the Japanese advance by land. And they were not ruling out a seaborne landing along their own strip of coast from Mersing to Endau.
General Bennett, who by now had established his headquarters at Johore Bahru overlooking Singapore Island, had deployed his 22nd Brigade along the coast from Mersing to Endau, which he believed was the most likely area for a seaborne assault by the Japanese. The 27th Brigade, which had spent most of the time in Singapore since its arrival, was to be sent to the northwestern Johore region, where it could be made available to support the 22nd Brigade if necessary.
General Percival agreed to the move on the basis that the Australians deserved more responsibility. Bennett was happy because he did not want his force split up. Far better, he reasoned, that they remain together as one formation rather than risk individual units being sent off willy-nilly to relieve the Indians.
As the enemy continued to advance it looked increasingly likely that their progress would depend on securing control of Jemaluang, a road junction just south of Mersing on the east coast, which would allow them access across country to Kluang in the west and Kota Tinggi to the south. With this in mind Bennett proposed to hold the beaches at Mersing and Endau to the north by placing the 2/18th and 2/20th Battalions along this stretch of the eastern coastline. The 2/19th would be positioned at Jemaluang and part of the 2/30th a few miles to its west. The 2/29th would defend Kahang and Kluang along a road which linked the east coast to the western side of the peninsula. As well as being an important transport corridor, the route had two airfields which had to be defended. Further south part of the 2/26th Battal
ion would guard the road from Sedili Besar northwards.
The 22nd Brigade had already spent many weeks strengthening defences in the area, while the 2/30th used the time to cut tracks through the dense jungle in case the main road became impassable.
Brigadier Harold Taylor, who was in command of the 22nd Brigade, saw its mission as the destruction of any enemy landing on the beaches between Jemaluang and Mersing and to harass them as much as possible. He was under no illusion about the threat they posed. ‘We can expect them to be bold,’ he wrote at the time. ‘They greatly admire German methods and will develop maximum strength in the minimum time. Japanese infantry can maintain themselves for several days without transport in difficult terrain.’8
Taylor, who came from Sydney, was one of Bennett’s key officers but it was no secret that the two men did not get along. They openly disagreed at a professional and personal level from the time they arrived in Malaya. Like Bennett’s rift with Blamey, the gulf between them would outlast the war and have significant repercussions for Taylor’s military career.
By mid-December the situation facing the Allies gave little cause for comfort. The news from the north became gloomier by the day, as British and Indian forces were attacked, forcing them into a series of humiliating retreats. General Bennett’s men, keen to prove their mettle on the battlefield, had their fingers on the trigger ready for any emergency. ‘They are afraid of nothing and nobody,’ Bennett wrote in his diary. ‘The men earnestly hope that the enemy will attack as they have confidence in themselves and in their position.’9
But one question continued to disturb him. How could they resist the Japanese war machine when they were apparently so outnumbered? This worried Bennett more than anything. So much so that he sent a letter to Army Headquarters pleading for reinforcements.
‘This is imperative. I also need as much assistance as I can get from Australia at a very early date in the form of additional units,’ he added.10
He followed that up with a letter to the Minister for the Army, Frank Forde, who was assured that the 8th Division were as ‘happy as sandboys at the thought of being able to get our new enemy, the yellow Huns of the East. In my whole experience, including that of my last war, I have never met men with a higher morale.’
But there was a major problem that had to be addressed, he continued. He wanted more troops and he needed them now.
‘Our line is thin. The 3rd Brigade of my division would have been a godsend to us now. As you know, it has been repeatedly asked for, and my requests have been repeatedly refused.’11
And then there was the air force, or rather the lack of it.
‘The air position, of course, gives me great concern,’ he stated, ‘there being insufficient to do the job adequately.’12
The Allies’ inadequacy in the air had already been demonstrated over Singapore, as well as off the east coast, where the British fleet was resting at the bottom of the South China Sea. Without the planes Bennett and his men were dreadfully exposed.
A message from Malaya Command on the afternoon of 13 December did not improve the outlook. A convoy of more than 100 Japanese vessels had been reported off the southern point of French Indochina moving in a south-southwesterly direction towards the Malayan Peninsula. Though it was still uncertain where precisely the reinforcements would come ashore it seemed only a matter of time before the full might of the Japanese offensive would be unleashed.
On the west coast of the peninsula the enemy advance had reached Penang, which had given in without a struggle. As enemy planes blitzed the island, Allied forces withdrew in haste, leaving behind their food and supplies. To Bennett the swift withdrawal symbolised all that was wrong with the Allies’ strategy – retreat, retreat, retreat.
If only he could be sent ‘quality’ reinforcements, he wrote to Army HQ in Melbourne. Then at least they would have a chance of stopping the Japanese in their tracks.
‘I have seen a total absence of the offensive spirit, which after all is the one great remedy for the methods adopted by the Japanese. Counterattacks would put a stop to this penetration.’13
Bennett wanted one division from the AIF in the Middle East to be sent to Malaya. And he urged that HQ consider it as a matter of ‘paramount importance’.
While the commander’s demands might have irritated the top brass at home, his men were on his side. And he used every opportunity to share his thoughts about what should be their tactical response to the enemy. In an open letter to all ranks he emphasised it was imperative that the offensive spirit be maintained.
‘If it is possible for the enemy to create havoc and panic amongst troops by outflanking them, then it is just as possible for us to do that to him.
‘Should the enemy endeavour to infiltrate through jungle, it will be our policy to move forward to meet him and attack him at every opportunity.’ And in a final rallying call he alluded to the strategy employed by one of his World War I heroes, Field Marshal William Birdwood, who demanded that each of his men should kill ten Germans. ‘We might well take a leaf out of his book and urge every individual Australian in the forward zone to accept the risk of killing at least ten Japanese.’14
It was stirring stuff and a necessary call to arms given that the Japanese were getting closer. On 18 December, Bennett received word that the garrison at Kuantan further up the east coast road was hard pressed to contain the enemy, which was threatening the Allies’ rear position by adopting the now familiar tactic of infiltration.
Over the next few days the situation in Malaya’s northwest deteriorated further, with General Percival allowing his commanding officer of Indian 111 Brigade, Lieutenant-General Sir Lewis ‘Piggy’ Heath, to withdraw further south to the Perak River, the country’s second-longest river. How long before Kuala Lumpur, Port Dickson and Malacca would be similarly swallowed?
If the British, Indian and Australian troops were beginning to recognise the perilous nature of their position, the same could not be said for the civilian community in Singapore, where the upper classes continued to turn a blind eye to the chaos unfolding to their north.
Although an Allied conference was held in Singapore on 18 December by the newly appointed British ministerial supremo Duff Cooper to assess the current situation, the champagne continued to bubble on the cocktail circuit. Cooper’s actress wife, the glamorous Diana, who had appeared in a couple of prewar movies, was staying in Government House, which she described as ‘cool as a fishnet’.
Outside the town was ‘enchanting’ and the lawns were ‘mown by the fingers and thumbs of natives advancing on all fours in a serried row and plucking the growing grass blades’.
Later the couple moved in to some sumptuous digs further out of town, where the servants and their concubines seemed to be employed for the sole purpose of ‘our comfort’, she enthused.15
If Lady Diana was in the grip of Singapore’s unreal world, her husband was not. Realising the seriousness of the crisis that was about to befall the island, he fired off a letter to Churchill warning him of the likelihood of Malaya’s imminent defeat. In it Duff Cooper was highly critical of the civilian authorities in Singapore, especially those who were responsible for civil defence.
Perhaps surprisingly he did not share his misgivings with the American, British, Dutch, Australian and New Zealanders who had gathered at the Allied conference earlier in the day. For whatever reason he had decided to keep his thoughts to himself and Churchill. Was it all part of the Singapore delusion, in which the obvious went largely unspoken? Why trouble yourself with the unthinkable when life was such a ball?
In truth, life for many of those expats was beginning to unravel. While some put on a brave face, others were already seeking refuge in Raffles Hotel, where families from the rubber plantations up north were beginning to assemble. Separated from their husbands, hundreds of wives and children who were hoping to secure a passage overseas were clogging up the luxury hotel with their luggage and personal belongings. The hotel, which was synonymou
s with luxury and privilege and where civil servants and the officer class would gather in the Long Bar for a peg of Scotch, was beginning to resemble a refugee camp.
Back on the mainland Bennett and Brigadier Callaghan, who was now acting as his artillery commander, decided to have a look at conditions for themselves and headed for Gemas and Muar, in the southwest of the peninsula, which were the most likely locations for the 8th Division’s first real clash with the enemy.
Holding the Gemus–Muar front with one Australian brigade would become Bennett’s toughest challenge. Once again he decided to write to Army HQ to alert them to the impending crisis. ‘We are living from hand to mouth in the matter of troops and our task will be extremely difficult,’ he warned.
With some luck they might be able to hold the enemy, he reasoned, but with insufficient troops to launch counter-blows, the enemy would accumulate and might overwhelm them by dint of numbers. To make their position secure he required at least one more AIF division.
General Percival backed him up and urged Bennett to increase the pressure on Australia to send further reinforcements. Air Vice-Marshal Brooke-Popham, who was about to hand over his position of Commander-in-Chief, British Far East, to Lieutenant-General Henry Pownall, was also inveigled into using his influence on the Australians.
By now British and Indian forces who had been battling the Japanese for nearly a fortnight were exhausted. Christmas was only a few days away and in a welcome nod to the season of goodwill, 23 December coincided with a lull in the fighting.
In the relatively quiet days leading up to Christmas Bennett took the opportunity to see Brigadier Ivan Simson, who was worried about Singapore’s defences. Simson wanted permission to install anti-tank obstacles to hinder the enemy’s advance.
The divisional commander agreed to let the chief engineer do the necessary, but Simson got the impression that Bennett was not that interested, a view reinforced in Why Singapore Fell, in which Bennett revealed his preference for anti-tank weapons rather than physical obstacles.16
Hero or Deserter? Page 6