by Boris Hembry
Not long ago I re-read the following from Winston Churchill’s The Second World War – ‘The defence of Singapore must be based on a strong local garrison and the general potentialities of sea power. The idea of trying to defend the Malay Peninsula, a large country four hundred by two hundred miles at its widest, cannot be entertained.’
Ignorance was bliss, so far as we were concerned.
We enjoyed peace for about three months.
On 1 December, having been around the estate as normal, I returned to the bungalow for breakfast and Jean told me that the Perak Volunteers adjutant had telephoned and that I must ring him back as soon as I got in. I told Jean that it could wait until after breakfast. In due course, having walked over to the office, I returned the call to the adjutant and received a somewhat peremptory instruction to mobilise at Taiping Racecourse forthwith. I argued that this was impossible at such short notice as I had an important job to do. The adjutant left me in no doubt that it was an order. I discussed the matter with Bob, who also took a pretty dim view of it, but we concluded that it was most probably only a mobilisation exercise so I had better go, but only after I had sorted out a few things with the other assistants and the office kranis. I then went back to the bungalow for tiffin and a lie off.
Jean drove me over to Taiping where I learned that the battalion had been formally embodied. This was somewhat worrying, but I kissed Jean and John goodbye and said that I would require collecting again in a couple of days.
I did not realise that we were not to meet again, and then only briefly, until April 1944, over two years later, and that I had seen the last of very nearly all our possessions.
Retreat (December 1941)
I reported to B Company headquarters, where most people were still of the opinion that the embodiment was all only a ‘dummy run’, and that we would soon be home again. Some of the Europeans continued with their businesses from the Taiping Club, much to the annoyance of the colonel and adjutant. The company arrived in dribs and drabs and by noon on 2 December we were nearly at full strength. I was having tiffin in the Taiping Rest House, which we used as the officers’ mess, when I was ordered to draw all my platoon stores and to proceed at once to Nibong Tebal to take over the guard on the bridges. Nibong Tebal, known locally as ‘No Balls to Bang’, is a small town on the Krian River, important because the main north-south road and railway line crossed the river at that point, only a few yards apart. We took over from a platoon of Gurkhas.
On being commissioned I had taken charge of a rifle platoon in B Company, under the command of a Captain Percival, a planter from the Taiping district, a Great War veteran, and a fine man. In addition to our old rifles, the platoon was also armed with four Lewis guns of 1918 vintage, for use against low-flying aircraft.
We spent five uneventful days guarding the bridge before being relieved by a platoon from E Company commanded by an old friend, H. J. Cockman. In civil life in the MCS in Ipoh, H.J. had won an MC in 1917, and was to be killed, as was Percival, in the final days of fighting for Singapore.
We got back to Taiping early on Sunday the 7th, and after a meal and only a couple of hours rest were ordered to move to Sitiawan, together with a mixed company of riflemen and Vickers machine gunners, with orders to guard the airfield there. At 0230 hours on 8 December we stood to and were told that the Japanese had landed on the coast near Kota Bahru, a small port on the North East coast, up near the Siam border, and that they had bombed Singapore. It was with a sense of relief that we also learned, shortly afterwards, that they had bombed Pearl Harbor as well, thus bringing the Americans into the war. So this was it. The balloon had well and truly gone up.
My first thought was to contact Jean. I managed to telephone her from the Sitiawan Rest House and told her to get to Singapore and out of the country as quickly as possible. If Jean and John were safely out of the country a great load would be lifted from my mind. Jean said that she would leave immediately, although doubted whether she would have the courage to shoot Gay, our lovely labrador, and would have to get Bob to do it. In the event, only some few minutes after having spoken to me, Ayah came to her with the news that Gay had been run over and killed by an army lorry at the entrance to our compound.
Jean’s journey by car to Singapore, by ship to Java, another evacuation to Australia, and then across the Pacific and Atlantic oceans to England, is a saga in itself.
Shortly after hearing of the formal Declaration of War, Terry Dale, the detachment commander, addressed us saying, ‘We shall defend this airfield to the last man and the last round. If we cannot defend it alive, we shall defend it dead.’ Far from finding this inspiring I felt it most depressing. I could see no earthly reason why I should be expected to lay down my life for an outsize football pitch which was quite incapable of taking anything larger than a Tiger Moth, and which was obviously of no strategic importance whatsoever.
It was at Sitiawan that we heard of the sinking of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse by Japanese aircraft on 9 December, having been sent out with no air cover to destroy the invasion forces. Unfortunately, they were within range of the enemy air forces based in Indo-China, so stood no chance, and went to the bottom with much loss of life. The arrival of these two fine ships in Singapore, only a matter of days before, had convinced us all the Royal Navy meant business and that we would at least be protected from a sea-borne invasion. Looking back, our confidence was based on our long-held belief that Britannia ruled the waves and that the Royal Navy was invincible. The sinkings cast us all into the depths of despair, and we realised, for the first time, that the Japs would be a formidable opponent and that we would have the gravest difficulty in holding on to Malaya.
One afternoon we had a report from the local police that enemy parachutists had been spotted a few miles away and that they had sent an armed detachment to investigate. I was ordered to stand by with my platoon to act as reinforcement if necessary, but was stood down half an hour later when the police telephoned to say that the parachutes were Chinese womens’ voluminous trousers hanging on a washing line.
On 12 December the battalion received orders to move to Ipoh to take up a defensive position around the aerodrome. I was in the leading lorry when, half way over the Blanja pontoon bridge across the Perak River, about 20 Jap planes swooped down on us. I felt a sitting duck and feared the worst, but the planes flew on, obviously with more important targets to attend to. We arrived in Ipoh during an air raid. It was most disheartening to see the enemy planes doing exactly as they pleased, with only spasmodic ack-ack fire in retaliation. There was no sign of our air force. We were not to know then, of course, that of the very few aircraft that we possessed most had been destroyed on the ground during the first few air raids on the airfields in Singapore and KL. We deployed around Ipoh airfield and dug in.
The news from the front was depressing in the extreme. The enemy had gained everywhere. On 12 December the Japanese attacked across the Siam border into Kedah. They used the tactics that they were to use in all their campaigns in South East Asia. They attacked our positions frontally in some strength, usually with armoured vehicles, whilst sending an equally large force in a flanking movement, often through the jungle where we had been told it was impossible for armies to operate, and attacked us in the rear, cutting off our line of retreat.
News came through that all European women and children and other non-combatants had been evacuated from Penang and Kedah, and were being so from Perak and the Northern states in the east of the country. But the Government’s declared scorched-earth policy was only feebly carried out. Many Europeans failed to destroy the stores, equipment and factories in their charge because they were convinced that it would only be a matter of days, or weeks at the most, before British and Allied troops would recapture all the ground lost.
Ipoh airfield was comprehensively bombed on 20 December. Ipoh had been evacuated and the Japs were reported to be about 40 miles north, in the region of Kuala Kangsar, and not far from Kamuning. I had bee
n allotted a defensive position around a Bofors gun which was manned by regular army gunners. We were digging trenches and gun pits for our Lewis guns when we heard the sound of approaching aircraft. By that stage we realised that they could only be the enemy. I spotted them quite high, I suppose at about 15,000 feet and well out of range. I was counting them and had reached 38 when I saw the bombs begin to fall. I shoved my platoon sergeant into a half-completed trench and fell in on top of him just as the first stick landed. I felt so helpless and exposed and thought that the end was nigh. But the noise of the explosions receded and when the raid was over I cleared the dust and gravel from my eyes and was horrified to find a crater about 20 yards from my trench and that the Bofors gun position had taken a direct hit and gun and gun crew had completely disappeared. We were bombed again a couple of hours later, by which time we had finished digging our trenches, and suffered no more casualties.
The following day we were very pleased with ourselves for having shot down with one of our platoon Lewis guns a strange-looking aeroplane which had flown low over the airfield. The pilot, who managed to crash-land nearby, was unhurt but not best pleased. He was Dutch, and had gallantly flown up on his own to provide us with air cover. My platoon had managed to shoot down the one friendly aircraft we were ever to see over Ipoh.
About two days before Christmas, with the Japs reported at Tanjung Rambutan, only a few miles from Ipoh, we were ordered to demolish nearby kampongs in order to clear fields of fire. Obviously we were to make a stand. At least Ipoh airfield, far larger than Sitiawan, might just be worth fighting for. But the battalion was suddenly ordered to withdraw to Kampar, some 15 miles further south. We were bombed continuously on the way down but suffered no casualties. When we arrived there we were immediately put to work again clearing fields of fire, and wiring. As we were near both the railway and the main road we were continually machine gunned and bombed. It was all very wearing.
We spent Christmas Day preparing our defensive positions. Stand to was at 0400 hours and, except for the interruptions because of the air raids, we worked solidly throughout the day until darkness, when the quartermaster produced a couple of turkeys and a quantity of whisky, no doubt looted, for the officers’ mess. We finished up with a singsong.
The regular army fell back to the positions that we had prepared, and we withdrew to Bidor, some 20 miles further south, again being bombed and machine gunned every hour or so. For days we could hear the sound of battle at Kampar. Then, inevitably, the regular army’s positions were outflanked and so had to withdraw, having to fight their way through an enemy road block behind them as usual, whilst attacked continually from the air. By this time, too, the Japanese had taken Penang and, having captured many small ships and, of course, the car ferries, ferried their troops down the coast to land behind us. These tactics caused much despondency and led invariably to precipitate withdrawal as soon as it was rumoured that the enemy had landed behind our lines. It was not until the savage battles in Arakan and the Imphal Plain later on that General Bill Slim persuaded the Army that when the enemy penetrated behind our defensive positions it was they who were cut off from their supplies and lines of communication.
It was disheartening to see the skies black with smoke from burning rubber stocks. We learned later that the Jap advance had been so rapid that they had overrun many estates before the scorched-earth policy could be put into effect. And it was very sad to see the European bungalows looted and wrecked, very often, obviously, by British troops, with torn photographs of children and family groups, some most likely never to be together again, scattered on the floor. The madness of looting in war-torn countries is something to which I can never become reconciled. No forces are immune to the chance to plunder, and the British Army is no exception – as I was to see again in Singapore soon after the Jap surrender. Only there it was even less excusable, as the looters were British generals and their senior staff officers. I could name names.
It was at Bidor that we finally lost the last of our Malay troops. Except one. There had been a steady wastage every day as we moved southwards. The majority of other ranks were Malays whose families lived in the kampongs around Ipoh and Kuala Kangsar and it was totally natural that their first thoughts should be for the welfare and safety of their wives and children, and for their smallholdings. There was some criticism at first from several Europeans, but not from me. I was sure that, in similar circumstances, I would have done the same. My stalwart platoon sergeant Eussuf stayed on until we reached Port Dickson on New Year’s Day 1942. After arranging for him to draw his full entitlement of pay I formally discharged him and told him to return to his kampong. I have always regretted that I did not press for him to receive an award for his loyalty and soldierly qualities. An outstanding man, who never once doubted that the British would return. I was to rely on him again in equally trying circumstances six years later.
The battalion had commandeered civilian lorries, and most were in very poor condition. That allocated to my platoon was the ropiest of all. It had no brakes and was all over the road, in spite of my efforts to keep it on an even course. I drove this lorry from Ipoh to Kampar, then to Bidor, and finally the 200 miles to Port Dickson, this last leg in one day. I insisted on leading the convoy so that I did not endanger the lorry in front and its stores in case the convoy had to halt suddenly. I was a nervous wreck when eventually we arrived at PD, having had to steer into the roadside bank in order to stop whenever we were strafed or bombed. We were not the only troops on the move, which only added to the difficulty. Luckily most, but not all, were going in the same direction as us. We still could not understand why there was not a single RAF aircraft to be seen.
It was a great relief to arrive at Port Dickson. Here we were able to bathe in the sea, to get our filthy uniforms dobhied, and to relax after more than three weeks of constant strain, hard work and occasional danger. The battalion had been reduced in size to little more than about company strength, so there was much re-organising to do. Unaccountably we were not bombed, even though PD was the headquarters and training depot of the Malay Regiment as well as, now, the various state Volunteer battalions. I suppose the Japs considered that they could cause more mayhem by concentrating on KL, Singapore and the retreating regular army on the main road.
It was on 2 January that a notice appeared calling for volunteers for the following special duties:
1. ‘Tiger’ patrols behind enemy lines.
2. Front-line transport drivers.
3. Vickers machine gunners, to be attached to the regular army.
After some deliberation I opted for the first job. I was too much of a loner to be a good infantry officer, and the thought of a small independent party roaming behind the enemy lines seemed more in my line than driving a lorry.
After volunteering I heard nothing for a few days, during which we were busy preparing beach defences. I saw quite a lot of Paddy Jackson as he was on the same detail. He did his best to dissuade me from pursuing the matter of the ‘tiger’ patrols, pointing out that I was a married man with a child and that I was unnecessarily putting myself at risk. I must say, his arguments nearly persuaded me to withdraw. In the event it was Paddy who did not survive; he died on the Burma Railway. He and several others had escaped to Sumatra where they had found a junk and managed to sail it to within a hundred miles of Ceylon before being picked up by a Jap destroyer and taken back to Singapore to join the other POWs. Then he was sent up to work on the Railway.
Of all our friends who died in the war years I think Jean and I miss Paddy as much as it is possible to miss anyone. He did not marry, so left no wife and family to mourn him. But there is a middle-aged woman, who, unless her mother discloses the secret to her, will never know that her true father died in Siam in 1944.
On about 4 January I was ordered to report to the Orderly Room where I found the colonel talking to Ronald Graham, a great friend who was a planter on a neighbouring estate in Sungei Siput. I had heard through the grapevine that
Ronald, together with Frank Vanrenen, had been on a very successful tiger patrol behind enemy lines and had ambushed and killed a Japanese brigadier and two lorry loads of soldiers. As soon as I saw Ronald I knew something was in the wind and my heart sank when I remembered Paddy’s exhortation.
It appeared that I had been selected to make up a party comprising three ex-Volunteers, three regulars and a wireless operator, to infiltrate behind Japanese lines, in order to interfere with their communications, and to gather intelligence. It was estimated that we would remain behind the lines for about three months, when it was expected that the Allies would advance north and recapture all the territory that had been lost. The CO made it clear that it was a voluntary assignment and that it was not too late to back out. I must admit that I did hesitate for a moment, but the idea of joining up with Frank and Ronald, whose wives were also close friends of Jean, quickly dispelled my doubts. Within five minutes I had packed what few belongings I had, bade farewell to Paddy and my company, and set off by road with Ronald to KL.
I cannot remember how I was able to establish contact with Mary Rawson in Singapore at her friends the Del Tufoes (after the War Tony Del Tufoe was to become the deputy high commissoner; Mary was at school with his wife), but I knew that she would know of Jean’s and John’s whereabouts if anyone did. Mary had left KL with several senior MCS staff and had reached Singapore where she had attached herself to the Colonial Secretariat. I was overjoyed to learn from her that Jean and John had got away from Singapore on 31 December, ostensibly bound for Australia. Mary was to be severely wounded when the ship she was on was bombed and machine gunned on its way out of Singapore only days before the surrender, and was to be in pain from the shrapnel she carried in her back for the rest of her life.