But what was the point? When Bluey Kennedy heard rumours about a possible surrender and an officer ordered him to take as many gunners as possible under cover, he sensed the end was near.
As Lionel Wigmore wrote in his official history of the Malaya campaign: ‘On Friday, February 13, whatever hope remained that Singapore might be saved was on its death bed.’13
A line of troops was spread along an arc between the enemy and Singapore town, but it was not tightly held or appropriately fortified. Most of the civilians who were sheltering behind the line were aware of their vulnerability. This was an area thick with shops and offices, schools and churches, houses and gardens. More importantly there were about a million refugees, many of them from the mainland.
As Wigmore noted: ‘Most of the civilians, especially the Asians, were pitifully exposed to the effects of bombardment and without prospect of evacuation. In this densely congested area where there was now little room for discrimination by the enemy between what was or was not a legitimate military target, bombs and shells were blasting away the last essentials of resistance.’14
The 2/30th remained north of the defensive arc, though without its commanding officer, Black Jack Galleghan, who was in hospital receiving treatment for loss of hearing.
Slowly the men made their way along Thomson Road, which was like a parking lot. Those cars and transport vehicles which had the petrol headed towards Singapore town. The rest were simply abandoned. Occasionally there were cheers and bursts of laughter as the men recognised their mates in supporting units or passed through the long columns of British and Indian troops who were heading in the same direction.
It was roughly about this point they came across a sight to gladden the heart of any Australian who had been missing the creature comforts of home. On their way to the perimeter zone, the troops discovered the barracks store. And it was full!
‘Without delay the troops began to help themselves to much needed stocks of clothing and, ignoring plain army rations, selected some choice lines of luxury foods which they had not seen for many a long day. There was also a fine collection of wines and spirits, together with a good supply of beer, which under the circumstances was not enjoyed to the full … It is unusual for Australian soldiers to deliberately pass up the opportunity of enjoying a glass of beer, particularly Australian beer. But there it was, in a very large barrel, by one of the barrack roads, and a stray soldier was imploring passers-by to come and drink with him. They passed him by, pre-occupied and only vaguely interested.’15
Why the sobriety? Perhaps the enormity of what was happening was only just beginning to sink in. Capitulation could not be far away. It is tempting to speculate that the men recognised their plight and made provision for the unknown.
Major-General Gordon Bennett was already considering his options and they did not include incarceration. However, he was keen to play the game and was concerned to ensure the immediate safety of his men inside the Australian perimeter, which was fully manned on all fronts in case the Japanese should penetrate it and attempt to attack the Australians on either flank or from the rear.
As a practical measure the Tanglin swimming pool had been filled with water, and fresh supplies of food had also been put in storage so the men of 8th Division would not go thirsty or hungry. It was sufficient to keep them going for some days at least.16
Jack Boardman was holed up in the Portuguese consul’s residence, which had been providing a temporary headquarters for the 22nd Infantry Brigade.
‘The Japs had control of the skies and they used to come over and drop a few bombs but they didn’t worry us too much.’17
From his suburban outpost he never gave up hope that the Allies would prevail. ‘We felt that even though everything was against us the thing was to fight to the finish. That’s what Churchill told us to do.’18
It was not a message that everybody was prepared to heed.
Even those in charge could see the writing on the wall as they gathered at Fort Canning for a further briefing on the latest situation. Governor Shenton and most of the military leaders were there, the likes of ‘Piggy’ Heath, Major-General ‘Billy’ Key, who was in charge of the 11th Indian Division, Bennett and of course Percival himself. Each spent a few minutes offering his considered opinion on the likelihood of defeat and they all concurred that the position was hopeless.
The decision was made to send a message to Wavell, who was nursing a badly injured back after falling down some steps while trying to board his Sunderland flying boat on the way out of Singapore. Their despatch was short and to the point, urging him to agree to surrender. Wavell was having none of it. Even at this, the eleventh hour, his response was clear and unequivocal: ‘Continue to inflict the maximum damage on the enemy for as long as possible.’19
At least Wavell was taking Churchill’s instructions seriously, but then he was safely out of the way.
Others were also attempting to beat a hasty retreat, some officially, but many were mere opportunists who were anxious to save their own skin.
Word got out that Rear-Admiral Ernest Spooner had decided to sail all the remaining vessels and seagoing craft left in Singapore to Java. With estimated space for up to 3000 people, this would be the last chance to leave the island for civilians and those members of the military not deemed essential for defence. A hundred spaces were allotted to the Australian military, and Bennett decided that ‘only those whose capabilities would help the ultimate war effort should be evacuated and that the proportion of officers should be one officer to fifteen other ranks’.20
Among those hoping to get away was Australia’s official government representative to Singapore, Vivian Bowden, who cabled the Department of External Affairs to ask whether he and his commercial secretaries might also take the opportunity to leave.21
The reply he received from the War Cabinet expressed its deep appreciation for his services, but told him to stay: ‘Otherwise we shall be deprived of independent information and effect on morale would be bad.’
Oh, and by the way, ‘very best wishes’ read the closing message.
The next day, realising its Singapore rep was in mortal peril, the Cabinet cabled to say if the worst came to the worst he should ‘insist on receiving full diplomatic immunities, privileges and courtesies’.22
Were the bureaucrats at home out of their minds? As if the Japanese would take any notice of diplomatic niceties offered by ‘our man in Singapore’. In the end it was thanks to Percival that Bowden and his secretary got away. The pair joined a party of senior officers and civil servants on a small launch called the Osprey, which had a total seating capacity of ten.
Before his departure Bowden drafted his final message to Australia. ‘Our work completed,’ it read. Ever hopeful, Bowden added: ‘We will telegraph from another place at present unknown.’
Such was the state of telecommunications at this stage that the message was transmitted via a small handset operated at a point where the cable entered the water. Amazingly it worked and was duly delivered to the War Cabinet.
Bowden and his colleagues were due to set sail on the Osprey at 6.30 pm on 14 February but by the time they reached the vessel it was apparent that others had the same idea. A large group, including Australian soldiers, some armed with Tommy guns and hand grenades, threatened to open fire on the launch unless they were taken aboard.
As the evening progressed the mood became increasingly tense. By 11.30 pm there were 38 on board the Osprey as it moved away from the quayside. Among them was Lieutenant-Colonel John Dalley of Dalforce and some of his men.
Suddenly the sound of rifle fire echoed through the tropical night. In a last-ditch attempt to secure their escape some of those left behind had taken pot shots at the launch. Thankfully no one was hit and the vessel slowly made its way out to sea, where the passengers were transferred to a larger vessel named the Mary Rose.23 But misfortune struck when the bigger ship was soon captured by the Japanese in the notorious Banka Strait, where many oth
er Allied craft would be attacked.
Wrongly believing that his diplomatic status would offer him protection, Bowden demanded an interview with a senior officer, only to be executed on the spot.24
A good proportion of those on Bennett’s list of one hundred failed to make it in time to board Rear-Admiral Spooner’s escape flotilla. Given Bowden’s fate, their failed departure may have been fortuitous.
Not that conditions on dry land were any better. Enemy gunshots were reported well behind British lines in the Botanic Gardens and Bennett ordered everyone who could be found to fill gaps in the AIF perimeter.
A lot of troops were still roaming the island, fearful of the future and dejected by their plight. Lee Kuan Yew, who was to become Singapore’s first prime minister, was then a lowly medical auxillary. Cycling through the chaos one morning, he pedalled past a line of Australian soldiers who stood disconsolately by their vehicles. Lee paused for a moment to ask where the front was.
‘It’s over – here, take this,’ one of the men replied before offering his rifle.25
Bennett suspected that many of the so-called battle stragglers were Indians, though he later amended this view, suggesting that because the British units had been given digger-style, slouch hats to wear, the Poms might have been mistaken for Australians, only adding to the confusion over who was where.
Whatever the true number of stragglers – or deserters as some were later described – there was no doubt they represented a significant problem. Bennett himself acknowledged that the situation had got out of hand. He maintained, however, that so far as the AIF was concerned the percentage of stragglers was small, consisting mainly of untrained reinforcements from the General Base Depot. This group included the ‘bad hats’, as he called them, ‘the black sheep of the family’.26 All units carried a small proportion of men who were constantly in trouble, drunk or absent without leave. Some were even drawn from the criminal class in civilian life, men who joined the military to avoid the police or a prison sentence.
Bennett viewed them as soldiers of moral weakness who invariably avoided the danger zone when fighting broke out. These ‘problem cases’ always caused trouble for unit commanders, he said.27
For the head of the 8th Division there were more pressing matters to deal with, including meetings with senior officers, as well as humanitarian concerns. Following an afternoon conference at Fort Canning, Bennett returned to his own headquarters in a sombre mood.
For a man who was used to the stench of battle and the death and bloodshed that accompanied it, Bennett could be surprisingly emotional at the sight of human suffering. On the way to the meeting he had realised how deserted the streets were. Everywhere was devastated. Churned up rubble was lying in great clods all around. Phone wires and power cables were strewn across the street in a tangled mess. The smell of cordite hung in the air and bombs continued to fall. On investigating the damage from a shell which had penetrated an air-raid shelter, he found a group of Australian soldiers and other nationalities shovelling away debris in the search for survivors. A Chinese man whose family was buried beneath the fallen masonry was desperately clawing away with the others when the top of the shelter was uncovered.
‘Beneath lay a crushed mass of old men, women – young and old – and young children, some still living, others dead,’ Bennett recalled.
‘The little oriental never stopped his work and his sallow face showed signs of deepest anguish. His wife and four children were there. One by one he unearthed them all – all dead, but for one daughter. I last saw him holding his only surviving child, aged about ten, by the hand, watching others move away his family with the rest of the unfortunates who perished there. This was going on hour after hour, day after day; and the same stolidity and steadfastness was evident among the civilians in every quarter of the town.’28
Bennett’s diary entry for 13 February suggested more considered prose, penned at a later date, than the notes he made at the time, but it also offered a rare insight into the softer side of a man who was often regarded as a martinet.
As dawn broke on 14 February the Allies’ more immediate concern was for the living than the dead. While the AIF appeared to have enough food and water for a few more days, the civilian population faced a severe shortage of both. The water situation was particularly grave, with limited supplies only guaranteed for the next 24 hours. General Percival alerted Wavell, supreme commander for the region, to the deteriorating situation, and Wavell replied: ‘In all places where sufficiency of water exists for troops they must go on fighting.’29
There were now roughly 4500 men within Bennett’s newly established AIF perimeter, many of them untrained reinforcements. More pertinently some 3000 sick and wounded were in hospital.
Once again the 8th Division commander cabled Australia to advise the prime minister of the worsening crisis, advising him of the need to surrender to avoid unnecessary loss of life. In the absence of any sign from overseas that capitulation might be preferable, the fighting continued. The Japanese kept up their assault on the right and left flanks of the Australians, leaving many dead and injured.
Bennett was worried that the Japanese might have already infiltrated the area between the Australians and the troops on his right flank.30 There appeared a very real possibility that the enemy might bomb, shoot and bayonet their way into the centre of town, risking carnage among the civilian population.
Only capitulation could stem the flow of further casualties, a point that General Tomoyuki Yamashita, Commander of Japanese forces in Malaya, had already spoken of in a message addressed to the British Army’s high command. In a series of notes dropped in boxes from Japanese aircraft he wrote:
My sincere respect is due to your army which, true to the traditional spirit of Great Britain, is bravely defending Singapore, which now stands isolated and unaided..
Many fierce and gallant fights have been fought by your gallant men and officers, to the honour of British warrior-ship. But the developments of the general war situation has already sealed the fate of Singapore, and the continuation of futile resistance would only serve to inflict direct harm and injuries to thousands of non-combatants living in the city, throwing them into further miseries and horrors of war, but also would not add anything to the honour of your army … Give up this meaningless and desperate resistance and promptly order the entire front to cease hostilities.31
A group of Australian officers were now actively discussing the possibility of escape, among them Major Charles Moses, who was at this stage a liaison officer with Bennett’s staff, and Lieutenant Gordon Walker, Bennett’s aide-de-camp.
Moses spelled out his position in a diary note in which he spoke of the inevitability of capitulation. He recalled telling Walker that he, for one, was not prepared to be taken prisoner and intended to make a break for it when the time came.
Walker replied, ‘Wouldn’t it be marvellous if we could arrange to get the general away?’
The two men talked about arranging a boat and Walker said he would approach Bennett about the idea.
‘A little later he said that the general was in favour of making an attempt if he found himself free to do so.’32
Although Bennett appeared to be keeping his cards close to his chest, he had effectively given a nod and a wink to the escape plan proposed by Walker and Moses. However, events were changing so rapidly that shortly afterwards Moses was promoted to brigade major of the 22nd Australian Brigade, effectively excluding him from the escape party. On hearing the news Walker realised he would need further volunteers and approached three more officers about the plan.
To add to the confusion Moses discovered that Lieutenant-Colonel Albert Varley had already been appointed the new brigade major. When Moses returned to the AIF HQ he found that the escape party had increased to six, including Brisbane-born Captain Harry Jessup, who was fluent in Dutch and Malay; Captain Adrian Curlewis, who as president of Surf Lifesaving Australia was a strong swimmer; and Lieutenant Vernon Baynes of
the 2/30th, who was an experienced yachtsman. Everyone had the right credentials, but the larger the party the higher the chance of being spotted. Undeterred, the group set about acquiring a boat and obtaining equipment from Tanglin Barracks for the voyage.
Events were moving at a pace when they decided to divide into two parties: Moses, Walker and the general on one boat; and the rest on another.
Despite uncertainty about Bennett’s plans, Moses reckoned the old man would not want to be left behind and decided to pack a large box of cigars for the commander. Then came confirmation of the 8th Division commander’s intentions – he was determined to ‘chance his luck’, Walker reported. Although in anticipation of a last-minute conference at Fort Canning, Bennett realised it would not be easy to break out, especially if the Japanese were in Singapore town behind enemy lines.
There was also doubt about the other party and whether Captain Curlewis was committed to the escape attempt, even though they had apparently found a boat. Amid the growing pandemonium there was one piece of good news. Major Moses had managed to find a Chinese guide to help them infiltrate Japanese lines and make their way through the swamp to open water, where they might find means to sail away.
On the night of 14 February Moses wrote, optimistically: ‘Feeling sure tomorrow will see the end of it and hoping that the end will give us a chance to make our getaway.’33
At this late stage Percival’s military options were few. He could either launch a counterattack in a bid to regain control of the reservoirs and military food depots or surrender. He sought advice from area commanders, who agreed that any kind of counterassault was doomed to failure. Percival was undecided about the next step, but then came another message from Wavell that strengthened his resolve.
‘So long as you are in a position to inflict heavy losses to enemy and your troops are physically capable of doing so, you must fight on,’ he made clear. ‘Time gained and damage to enemy of vital importance at this crisis.’
Hero or Deserter? Page 16