Descent into Hell

by Peter Brune

  Ramsay, concerned at leaving a position which he considered his battalion capable of holding, [and which the 2/30th did indeed hold] subsequently discussed the plan with Oakes. The two agreed that having regard to the tactical position generally, and their lack of adequate knowledge of what was happening on the 22nd Brigade front, they would not be justified in asking their brigade headquarters to reconsider the order.62

  Two points should be made. First, ‘their [Ramsay and Oakes’s] lack of adequate knowledge of what was happening on the 22nd Brigade front’ was quite simply not their—or Maxwell’s—concern. That issue was one for Bennett to consider. Battalion commanders and a brigadier on one brigade front are not responsible for events and decisions on another. Second, although conjecture, both the historian and the reader could be forgiven for pondering how Boyes and most certainly Galleghan might have reacted to Maxwell’s orders, which would seem precisely why they were no longer with their battalions. We have noted Galleghan’s pertinent question to the Official Historian after the war. Ramsay and Oakes had been in command of their battalions for only hours. Their acquiescence is understandable.

  Oakes then proceeded to lead the two battalions further back than Maxwell had planned. The 2/26th War Diary provides us with a damning indictment of Brigadier Maxwell’s decision:

  The fault of handing over control to a C.O. who had not been in the area for a day and lacked local knowledge became apparent when at 4.30 hrs . . . A & B Coys broke contact and moving through C Coy made for their respective positions without knowing the location of Bn H.Q. or the other coys. The Composite Coy had been ordered to pass on the withdrawal order to D Coy before it withdrew but failed to do so with the result that at 1000 hrs the battalion was occupying its new area with D Coy still in position on the Kranji.

  The Bn was disposed on a frontage of 4000 yds in impossible country. Each Coy occupied a steep hill feature in gaps of 1000 yds of heavily scrub-covered country between and in most cases failed to establish contact with Bn and one another until late in the afternoon.63

  During the morning of 10 February therefore—and with the 11th Indian Division completely unaware of the 27th Brigade withdrawal—the 2/30th Battalion occupied a perimeter behind Mandai Road and nearly five kilometres inland from the causeway shore, while the 2/26th was deployed south of it along the Woodlands Road. There was now a sizable gap between the 27th Brigade perimeter and General Key’s 11th Indian Division’s eastward dispositions.

  From a Japanese perspective the attack on the Causeway Sector was a near-run thing. When Yamashita had planned the landings on Taylor’s 22nd Brigade front General Nishimura had protested concerning the preference given to the 5th and 18th Divisions. He had ‘emphatically demanded’ that his Imperial Guards Division fight ‘shoulder to shoulder’ with those divisions.64 It would therefore appear that the landings on the 27th Brigade Causeway Sector were in part a concession to Nishimura’s demands.

  General Yamashita had crossed the Johore Strait at sunset on the 9th and set up a command post at Tengah airfield. The bulk of the 25th Army staff remained on the mainland to organise the logistical requirements for operations on Singapore. Early the following morning, Yamashita was breakfasting on dry bread in his tent when a officer arrived with the news that a staff officer of the Imperial Guards had angrily protested that the leading battalion had been all but annihilated in a sea of fire while trying to land.65 According to Lieutenant-Colonel Tsuji, he, and then Yamashita, admonished Nishimura’s failure to send a staff officer along with the leading troops to gauge the success of the landings. There had been no love lost between Nishimura and Yamashita over the years and, after the latter ordered that further reports be made concerning the progress on the causeway, it transpired that the initial report had been a mistake. Tusji would later write:

  During the afternoon of that day [10 February] there came a telephone call from Headquarters . . . ‘The Konoe Division’s report this morning was a mistake. At the time we verified the situation, the division’s front line, after trifling losses, was in the midst of an attack on the enemy’s position on the southern side of the Causeway. The division commander reports to the Army Commander that he will this evening carry out a further advance on the Causeway Sector.’66

  Tsuji maintained that this episode constituted the ‘only mistake throughout the Malayan Campaign’.67 If the Japanese had made one mistake—and not a great one at that—during the first critical hours of the Battle for Singapore Island, then Malaya Command and the Australians in their Western Area had committed a multitude of sins.

  General Percival made two key decisions during the early hours of 10 February. We have noted his two obvious choices in defending Singapore Island: cover the north coast adequately, or provide a powerful reserve capable of holding the Jurong Line and capable also of conducting a potent counterattack. And now, on the early morning of 10 February 1942 when Yamashita had shown his hand, Percival refused to create that reserve by denuding other areas of their strength. He considered that the deployment of his 12th and 15th Indian Brigades to the Jurong Line would stabilise his front. Given Taylor’s massive losses and the fact that Yamashita would be busily building up his beachhead both in terms of men and material, now was the time to take a calculated risk and both man that Jurong Line with the best available formations on the Island and counterattack in strength. The identity of those units was obvious: elements of the 18th Division from his North-Eastern Sector and English battalions from his Southern Area.

  Major-General Keith Simmons had been the ‘Fortress Commander’ in title only. He still, at this late hour, possessed fresh troops who might have been committed to the battle. For months beforehand, and now during the critical first days of the Battle for Singapore Island, the reader is entitled to ponder what it was that the Fortress Commander and his troops ever did to defend the Island. In blunt terms, many of Simmons’s troops had been slack for years, and now when the long-awaited war had erupted, those soldiers were still not making a significant contribution. What price now for Simmons’s edict that ‘fortifications are bad for morale’, and for his hopelessly dispersed dispositions on the north-west shore? Malaya Command was, yet again, attempting to cover every contingency, and in the end, adequately covering none.

  After having visited Bennett’s Western Area during the afternoon of 9 February, Percival devised a plan to cover a possible Japanese breakthrough along the Bukit Timah Road, which would necessitate a final defensive perimeter on the Island. The only effective option for such a plan was to safeguard his supply dumps, depots and hospital facilities leading into, and at, Singapore Town. Further, such a defence hinged upon his ability to hold the reservoirs and pipeline water supply to the Town. During that afternoon Percival verbally outlined a new defensive perimeter to Heath and Simmons—Bennett was not present.

  At around 12.50 am on 10 February, Percival issued his order for the final perimeter in writing as a ‘secret and personal instruction for the information of his three senior commanders and senior members of his own staff ’.68 According to Wigmore, Percival issued this order ‘so that responsible senior officers might know his intentions in case the situation developed too rapidly for further orders to be issued’.69 The plan, marked ‘secret and personal’, was to be shown to area commanders only. The train of events that were destined to unfold within hours of Percival’s order would be catastrophic.

  While Percival and Simmons were excessively cautious, the Australians must also be criticised for their poor performance during those first critical hours. General Gordon Bennett, as ever obsessed with offensive action, failed to go forward and take a grip of his operation. Instead, he admonished Taylor for conducting a withdrawal during terribly difficult circumstances, where the ‘fog of war’ was as much an enemy as the Japanese. Lacking a reserve worthy of the name, Taylor was, and would be forced, to stem an enemy advance that had developed into a gaping military wound with significant numbers of untrained and untried reinforcements
who were incapable of holding their extensive ground. And as that problem was to magnify, the Australians were forced to deploy dubious formations such as X Battalion to fill the gaps.

  However, transcending all of these difficulties was a brigadier who did have a potent, well-trained, motivated and well-led force. Galleghan’s Greyhounds:

  . . . the withdrawal from the Causeway . . . was disliked strongly, by both Command and troops [of the 2/30th]. The men, in particular, felt that for the first time they were facing the enemy in positions nearer to approximate equality than ever before and they looked forward to a clash with confidence and almost professional interest. The 2/4th Machine-gunners, recent arrivals, had yet to meet the Japanese in open combat and had no hesitation in expressing their reluctance to withdraw before coming to closer grips.70

  To Brigadier Maxwell’s shame, he declined to allow his well-trained and experienced Brigade to fight the Japanese when there was a reasonable prospect of their holding their ground and inflicting serious losses on the enemy.

  By the early morning of 10 February 1942, the defence of Singapore lay in tatters. Ahead lay nothing but more tragedy and controversy.

  21

  FURTHER RETREATS

  For war correspondents such as Ian Morrison of The Times newspaper, there were no shortage of stories to gather in Singapore during the morning of 10 February 1942. Against a seemingly all-encompassing, depressing background of black smoke from the still-burning oil tanks, he rode a bike out into Singapore’s western suburbs and noted the intermittent sounds of artillery, machine gun and small arms fire from the not-too-distant battle. Morrison also observed the troops in the town: ‘Some, with full battle-kit and an air of purpose, were moving to take up new battle stations. Others were wandering, grimy, lost, leaderless, without orders.’1

  In times of terror and uncertainty rumours flourish. Singapore, according to Morrison, was ‘buzzing’ with both the positive and negative variety: the Japanese had ‘been pushed back into the sea’, and the Americans had ‘landed in Penang’, while others had heard that the enemy were only five kilometres outside of the Town and that ‘parachutists had tried to seize the broadcasting station . . .’2.

  At midday, the Governor delivered the most inane statement yet promulgated by officialdom. ‘We are all in the hands of God,’ Sir Shenton [Thomas] declared, ‘from Whom we can get comfort in our anxieties and strength to play the man and help one another in all the ordeals which are to come.’3 God was destined to provide little comfort, and had the citizens of Singapore known of the military blunders that had been committed during the first 36 hours of the defence of the Island—and those that were to occur that very day—the true hopelessness of their plight might have been apparent. On the basis of what he saw that morning Morrison gave the British fortress 36 hours before a capitulation.

  At around 3.10 am on 10 February Bennett’s HQ signalled Malaya Command that all was quiet on the Causeway Sector. Two hours later news reached it that the Japanese had landed at Kranji, and just ten minutes later still came the news that Maxwell had withdrawn his 27th Brigade. At around 5.30 am Bennett’s HQ informed Malaya Command of these events.

  Brigadier Maxwell’s withdrawal from his vital Causeway Sector during the early hours of 10 February was not well received by General Key, the GOC of troops in the Northern Area. He learnt of the move at around 6.30 am and immediately contacted Bennett’s HQ asking that the 27th Brigade immediately reoccupy its former perimeter. The Australians replied that they possessed ‘insufficient troops to do this’.4 In response to this refusal, and in an attempt to secure his now vacant left flank, Key immediately committed his 8th Indian Brigade reserve (Brigadier Trott) to recapture three key high-ground positions just south of the Australians’ former perimeter.

  Although two of Trott’s objectives were secured without great loss, the Garhwal Rifles Composite Battalion took heavy casualties attacking the third and failed in their attempt. In the process they lost their CO and six of their British officers. When Key reached Trott’s forward position on the afternoon of the 10th, he ordered him to secure the gap between the 27th Brigade and the Garhwalis at dawn on the 11th by deploying the 2/10th Bulach at Point 130.

  In view of Maxwell’s withdrawal during the early morning of 10 February, Percival decided to place the 27th Brigade under Key’s command. At 11.00 am Key requested—understandably—that Ramsay despatch a 2/30th Battalion detachment to occupy the road junction at Mandai village. The 2/30th Unit Diary would later record that the Battalion: ‘. . . was still under orders 27 Aus Inf Bde and it was not until 1700 hrs that evening that the position was fully clarified and the attachment to 11 Ind Div confirmed.’5 Maxwell was advised of the order at 3.00 pm and must have journeyed to Key’s HQ at 6.30 pm with great apprehension. It is not known what transpired at the meeting, but in a feeble attempt to whitewash his withdrawal Maxwell was to later supervise the writing of ‘Appendix C’ to the 27th Brigade Diary, claiming that after he and Key had later met in Changi to discuss a number of ‘misunderstandings or doubts as to the relative qualities of formations which may have existed before the discussion’, they had ‘been settled’.6 In a letter to Kirby on 19 November 1952, Key’s GSO1, Colonel Harrison, held a different view:

  As regards Brigadier Maxwell’s observations that ‘General Key expressed regret at having misjudged the Bde.’ and that ‘both Comds. expressed their satisfaction at having clarified the situation’ I can say that, to my knowledge, General Key has never changed his original opinion, which he expressed to me on 11 Feb., that Brigadier Maxwell was guilty of grave dereliction of duty. On 11 Feb. he said to me: ‘If Maxwell was a British officer, I would place him under arrest.’7

  General Gordon Bennett should have at the very least relieved Maxwell of his command.

  It will be remembered that on the evening of 9 February Bennett had ordered Brigadier Taylor to hold Bulim until 6.00 am on the 10th and then move back—over a short distance—to occupy the central portion of the Jurong Line between the 12th and 44th Brigades. At around 9.00 am Bennett made a further adjustment to the line by deploying his reserve (Brigadier Coates’s 15th Brigade) to the left of Taylor’s 22nd Brigade between the Jurong Road and Point 117. Further, he altered the 44th Brigade’s perimeter to stretch from the Jurong Road southwards to link up with the 1st Malaya Brigade on the southern coast. In occupying his sector of the line, Brigadier Taylor deployed the 2/29th Battalion to the right in contact with the 12th Brigade, his Special Reserve Battalion (Major Saggers) on the left in touch with 15th Brigade and, finally, the remnant of his 22nd Brigade in reserve near the village of Keat Hong. When, at daybreak, the 2/18th Battalion’s carriers observed a Japanese force at about two-company strength advancing eastwards along the main road, they took such a heavy toll of them that Taylor’s withdrawal was accomplished with little hindrance from the enemy.

  We now come to a train of events where the recurring problems of poor communication and inept command decisions spread like a malignancy through the final defence of Singapore.

  General Percival had issued Malaya Command Operation Instruction No. 40 during the evening of 9 February for a final perimeter defence of Singapore should the Jurong Line be lost. Paragraphs 3 and 7 deserve scrutiny:

  3. Should it be impossible to hold the enemy on the line mentioned in para 2 above [the line Kranji River–Bulim Village–Jurong River], the G.O.C. Malaya intends to withdraw to an inner posn on which the final battle for Singapore will be fought.

  7. Recces of areas will be carried out at once and the plans for the movement of formations into the areas allotted to them will be prepared. Formations will arrange to move back and locate in their new areas units located in their present areas which are under comd of H.Q. Malaya Comd.8

  Paragraph 7 clearly implies that the said recces would need to be undertaken by the units themselves, and that, in addition, such units would also be responsible for the movement of additional units in their areas ‘which are un
der the command of HQ Malaya Command’. Such plans would therefore require some reasonable notice and time to plan and implement. Upon receipt of this order, Bennett—quite understandably—passed it on to his commanders at 7.30 am on 10 February as an initial warning. Lionel Wigmore:

  When Brigadier Taylor read the order its limited nature escaped him, and he interpreted it as requiring the new positions to be manned forthwith. He accordingly ordered the units under his command—other than the 2/29th Battalion and the Special Reserve Battalion, which were committed to the Kranji–Jurong line—to positions along the line of Reformatory road, in the sector provisionally allotted to his brigade.9

  Kappe and Thyer, writing in their Operations of 8 Division in Malaya 1941–1942, which was produced in Changi during imprisonment, were under no illusions as to where the blame lay:

  The portions [of Bennett’s relayed order] stating that no action except reconnaissance was to be taken, were repeated. Copies typed at Div HQ were delivered by DR [motor cycle rider] to recipients, so that mutilation in transmission cannot be pleaded . . .

  This order was clearly understood by all commanders except Brigadier Taylor who obviously misread it, for immediately on its receipt he promulgated orders for the occupation of the position on Reformatory Road.10

  Brigadier Taylor’s behaviour during the morning of 10 February 1942 portrays a commander who was near to breaking point both physically and mentally. Two of his actions that morning would seem to support this view. His ‘misreading’ of Bennett’s orders was the first. Kappe and Thyer’s evidence cited above would seem to indicate that Taylor’s interpretation of Bennett’s relayed message from Percival was the by-product of a muddled, exhausted commander. His second supports the thrust of the first. After ordering the withdrawal of the bulk of his Brigade, Taylor undertook the reconnaissance of his new positions near Reformatory Road. Warren (2002) rightly claims that: ‘Taylor’s units still holding the front line were thus deprived of the presence of their brigadier and supporting troops during a vital period.’11 Taylor should never have undertaken such a recce during critical operations on his front. That exercise should most definitely have been assigned to a battalion commander or staff officer. Within 48 hours Brigadier Harold Taylor’s mental and physical reserves of energy were to reach breaking point.