Descent into Hell: The fall of Singapore - Pudu and Changi - the Thai Burma railway

by Peter Brune

  The two years prior to the Great Depression were marked by further indecision and delay. When in 1927 the War Office sent a committee under Lieutenant-General Gillman to Singapore to determine the size of a garrison for that island, the location of its fixed defences, and the number of batteries, the committee immediately came into conflict with the government of the Straits Settlements. The civil administration demanded an assurance that the cost of developing the base would be in no measure dependent upon a contribution from them. Delay now ensued.

  On receipt of the Gillman Report in March 1928, the War Office reaffirmed its belief that Singapore would not be attacked via the Malay Peninsula, and that resources should therefore be concentrated upon the defence of a seaborne assault. Four months later the Committee of Imperial Defence recommended that the ‘Ten Year Rule’, which had been implemented in 1919, should be extended with an annual assessment. But worse was to follow. A second Labour Government came into power in 1929, again under the premiership of Ramsay MacDonald. That Prime Minister’s idealism and pacifist tendencies had not deserted him since his brief period in office in 1924.

  The Kellogg–Briand Pact of 1928, named after its architects, American Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg and French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand, was an international treaty which asserted that the renunciation of war should be an instrument of national policy. Fifteen nations, including Germany, Japan and Italy, were the original signatories, with numerous other nations joining months after. But with the idealism of the Kellogg–Briand Pact as a perceived guide to the prevention of war for the foreseeable future, the MacDonald Government ‘decided that further efforts should be made to obtain international agreement to “general” disarmament, despite the failure of the League of Nations to do so hitherto’.7 As a result, that government offered to decrease the number of Royal Navy cruisers agreed to in the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, and also suspended construction of the Singapore Base while waiting for the outcome of the Naval Disarmament Conference, which was to be held in London in 1930. More delay.

  The London Naval Treaty, signed in April 1930, provided for the British Empire, the United States, Japan, France and Italy not to replace capital ships during the period 1931–36, under the agreed ratio prescribed in the Washington Naval Treaty signed eight years previously. It further set the cruiser ratio between Britain and her empire, the United States and Japan at 10: 10: 6—and, in addition, allowed for equal numbers of submarines and destroyers. The signatories to the treaty agreed to meet again in 1935.

  From the end of the First World War to the onset of the Great Depression, Britain was the second strongest economic power on earth, still deriving enormous wealth from its far-flung empire. In terms of its financial position, therefore, it could still maintain a navy capable of both a domination of European waters and the protection of a considerable source of its revenue: its Far Eastern possessions. But the Washington Naval Conference amounted to a signing off on Britain’s ability to protect its assets. To this end it was decided to build a naval base at Singapore capable of servicing a portion of the fleet released from European waters in time of need. The reality was that the ratio in capital ships between Britain and Japan dictated that 60 per cent of that home fleet would have to be sent to the Far East to merely match an enemy fleet in time of war. Such a promise would amount to an empty gesture should Britain become immersed in a war in two hemispheres.

  However, the most disturbing aspect of British foreign policy during the decade after the war was the idealistic and misplaced notion that the League of Nations, disarmament and gestures of goodwill through treaties would bring about world peace. Such treaties were merely pieces of paper, and sincere speeches at the League of Nations and disarmament conferences simply became empty rhetoric, unless there was to be a keen vigilance and an unshakable fortitude to back them up with action. Subsequent events would prove there was not.

  When Australia’s Prime Minister William Morris (Billy) Hughes attended the negotiations for the structure of the Treaty of Versailles and the subsequent birth of the League of Nations, he had one ambition: the physical and social integrity of his nation. To this end, and using Australia’s great sacrifice during the war and its military prowess during that conflict as his bargaining strength, Hughes set about gaining control of the former German New Guinea and the maintenance of the White Australia Policy.

  Hughes wanted the outright ownership of the German New Guinea possessions, but in the end, the League granted German New Guinea to Australia as a mandated territory.

  Despite Japanese efforts to gain international recognition for the principle of racial equality, and the fact that the majority of delegates favoured the motion, Hughes, with the help of President Wilson, was able to see the Japanese proposal defeated. For the first time Australia had, through Hughes’s ability to operate both within the British Empire delegation and independently of it, a voice on the international stage.

  Although Hughes was an advocate of the League of Nations, he saw Japan’s growing power in the Pacific with apprehension. At the Imperial Conference of 1921 he argued that:

  . . . the Pacific problem is for all and practical purposes the problem of Japan. Here is a nation of nearly 70 millions of people, crowded together in narrow islands; its population is increasing rapidly, and is already pressing on the margin of subsistence. She wants both room for her increasing millions of population, and markets for her manufactured goods. And she wants these very badly indeed. America and Australia say to her millions ‘Ye cannot enter in.’ Japan, then, is faced with the great problem which has bred wars since time began . . .

  But where are the overflowing millions of Japanese to find room? Not in Australia; not in America. Well, where, then? . . .

  These 70,000,000 Japanese cannot possibly live, except as a manufacturing nation. Their position is analogous to that of Great Britain. To a manufacturing nation, overseas markets are essential to its very existence. Japan sees across a narrow strip of water 400,000,000 Chinese gradually awakening to an appreciation of Western methods, and she sees in China the natural market for her goods. She feels that her geographical circumstances give her a special right to the exploitation of the Chinese markets. But other countries want the market too, and so comes the demand for the ‘Open Door’ . . .

  This is the problem of the Pacific . . . for which we must find an answer . . . Talk about disarmament is idle unless the causes of naval armaments are removed.8

  If the Washington Naval Conference had brought reassurance to the British, it also engendered a feeling of great security in Australia. On 26 July 1922, Hughes proclaimed that ‘this treaty establishes an equilibrium in the Pacific. As far as any action of man can do so, it ensures peace for the next ten years for Australia.’9 And as had happened to British funding, the Hughes Government took a similar financial axe to its armed services. In short, this would amount to a reduction of the navy and army, and a postponement of the expansion of the infant air force.

  The Royal Australian Navy was ordered to submit alternatives for a £500 000 cut in spending for the financial year 1922–23. The government opted for the Naval Board’s second of four alternatives: the scrapping of the RAN submarines. The RAN establishment in commissioned ships was now three light cruisers (unchanged), three destroyers (reduced by one), one sloop (reduced by one) and various ancillaries.

  The blade also fell heavily upon the Australian Army. Seventy-two regular army officers out of a modest total of 300 were retired; the staff of the permanent army was cut to 1600; the strength of the Australian Militia—five infantry divisions and two cavalry—numbered only 31 000, which was a mere 25 per cent of their war strength; and funding for training of that undersized organisation amounted to a paltry six days in camp and four days at local drill halls per soldier per year.10

  On 9 February 1923, the Bruce–Page Coalition Government came into power with Stanley Bruce as prime minister. Bruce saw three challenges for his government: the
need for a rapid growth in Australian economic development, improved federal–state relations and national security.

  During the period 1923–29 the government adopted the theory that increased capital works programs would facilitate a modern and efficient transport network and therefore lower production costs, which would make exports more competitively priced. By developing the nation’s resources, enlarging its industries, providing the necessary labour force through a migration policy, and aggressively seeking larger markets through lower costs, the economy, protected by tariffs, would expand. The migration policy and the funding for these programs were essentially imperial by nature, and mainly financed by English loans. In the economic sense the 1920s were fundamentally the years of borrow, build, protect and prosper. But the reality of a growing public debt and its attendant interest payments was ignored in the euphoria.

  Bruce believed that an improvement in the federal system through healthier working relationships between the seven Australian governments, and the creation of mechanisms for improved guidelines for public borrowing, would enhance Australia’s appeal to British investors.

  In agreement with the former Hughes Government and similar prevailing views in Britain, the Bruce–Page Government saw Australia’s defence strategy in its traditional imperial form, with an emphasis on naval rather than on military defence. Before leaving for the Imperial Conference of 1923, Bruce addressed the parliament:

  Then we have to face the question of defence. Do we propose to insure our own safety, and not look to the Empire for help? Or are we going to provide our own defence within the Empire, believing that the best way to defend our own country is by entering into close relations with the Motherland and the other Dominions.11

  The resulting resolutions of the Imperial Conference of 1923 became the essential foundation of Australian defence policy for the period between the world wars. They identified the need or desire to protect both the empire’s dominions and territories, and their trade routes. Significantly, the conference resolved that it was the right of any or all of these countries to determine the extent of foreign policy or military action that should be undertaken by them. Further, each country was to be essentially responsible for its own local defence, and was to assist in ‘the provision of Naval Bases and facilities for repair and fuel, so as to ensure the mobility of the fleets’.12 They were also required to maintain the naval integrity of the Washington Treaty and the development of air forces, as far as possible, using ‘a common system of organisation and training . . . patterns of arms, equipment and stores . . .’.13

  There were two other points of interest concerning these resolutions. The first was Australia, New Zealand and India’s strong desire to build the Singapore Base, and the second was the desire to maintain the impetus for not merely the existing limitation of armaments, but for further reductions.

  When in January 1924 the newly elected MacDonald Labour Government took office in Britain and immediately proceeded to cancel plans for the building of the Singapore Base, the reactions of the empire’s dominions clearly reflected their geographic locations, and therefore their vested interests. The South African Government agreed with the MacDonald Government, while the Canadians stated that ‘it was not in any position to offer any advice’.14 The protests came from Australia, New Zealand and Newfoundland. Lord Jellicoe, the Governor-General of New Zealand, made the pertinent point that without the Singapore Base, the closest base from which a relieving fleet could operate would be Malta, some 6000 miles away. He also informed the British Government that the New Zealand Parliament had pledged £100 000 towards the building of the Singapore Base, ‘and would not stop at that’.15

  The Bruce–Page Government protested strongly concerning the suspension of the Singapore Base. Prime Minister Bruce told the British Government that:

  We think . . . that if the proposal . . . is abandoned by your Government, incalculable harm will be done to the Empire’s prestige, the confidence of smaller nations will be shattered, the ambitions of lesser powers will be increased, and deep distrust will be caused throughout the whole Empire. Not by these actions having such results as these can we hope to bring about further reductions in armaments . . . Therefore, on behalf of our Commonwealth, which has on every possible occasion proved its loyalty to the Empire, we urge you even at this late hour to reconsider your decision.16

  The British determination to forgo the building of the Singapore Base, and therefore place the defence of the empire in some jeopardy, forced the Australian Government to look to another part of the 1923 Imperial Defence resolutions: the need of each member of the British Empire to provide for its own defence.

  The Australian 1924–25 budget initiated a five-year defence plan costed at £36 250 000. By 1929 the Australian Navy had added two cruisers, two submarines and a seaplane tender, giving it a total of some 28 ships and serving personnel in excess of 5000. During the five-year program, the RAN received £20 000 000 or roughly 55 per cent of the allotted defence funding.

  Given that one of the resolutions of the 1923 Imperial Conference had been to develop each dominion’s air force, the Bruce–Page Government’s response during its five-year plan was pedestrian to say the least. Towards the conclusion of its five-year program, the government invited Sir John Salmond, who had been commander in the Field of the RAF during 1918–19, to assess the fledgling RAAF in terms of its training, equipment and administration. Paul Hasluck, in The Government and The People, 1939–1941:

  While kind enough to say that the existing force had been built on firm foundations and developed on sound lines, and giving credit to those responsible, he also said bluntly that, due to the obsolete type of service machines in use, the entire absence of any reserve equipment, and the low standard of training in the operational units, he considered the R.A.A.F. would be totally unfit to undertake war operations in cooperation with the navy or army even after the permissible period of training for the latter had elapsed.17

  In response to the shortfalls identified, Salmond recommended a virtual doubling of the government’s funding to around £2 000 000 a year for nine years. But before the Bruce–Page Government could instigate a portion of Salmond’s recommendations, a change of government occurred.

  Nor were the small increases in defence force funding during the period 1924–28 to the benefit of the army. Lieutenant-General Sir Harry Chauvel was the Inspector-General of the Australian Military Forces from 1922 to 1930. His reports during the period 1923–28 are a damning indictment upon the plight of permanent and militia soldiers alike, and portray a lamentable neglect of even basic resources.

  A professional soldier in the Australian Army during the 1920s pursued his career because of a number of reasons: his love of soldiering; a high sense of patriotic duty; and, critically, with the perception that the First World War had most certainly not been the war to end all wars, that another war would quite possibly come to Europe and most likely to the Far East also. There was little else to entice him to remain, as the rapid promotion gained in the 1914–18 War had degenerated into stagnant promotional opportunities for a ten-year period, and a reduction in rank and pay. Warrant officers were now denied access to the Officer Corps, ‘entry to which was reserved to pre-war regular officers and graduates of Duntroon, and became, at the best, quartermasters, wearing without the corresponding pay and without hope of promotion the rank that they had won in the war’.18 The only real mechanism for the Staff Corps to engage in further professional study came in the form of service with the British Army in Britain or India for junior officers, and exchange duty or specialised study in British schools, or perhaps at places such as Quetta in India. In 1927, roughly one in every six of the permanent army had spent time overseas studying for at least a portion of the year.19

  Nor was the ailing army well equipped. Gavin Long, in To Benghazi:

  Gains in equipment were microscopic: in 1926 the army obtained its first motor vehicles—five 30-cwt lorries, one for each milita
ry district except the Sixth (Tasmania), and eight tractors for the artillery; in 1927 four light tanks arrived. Nor could the army comfort itself with the reflection that, when the need arose, it could commandeer enough horses . . .20

  There was also often a certain social stigma attached to military service. To the idealist of the 1920s, and there were no shortage of them, the soldier and his political supporters were ‘brass hats’, ‘war mongers’ or ‘militarists’. They merely perpetuated the capitalist struggles between peoples, and whose inevitable victims were the working class, who were denied social progress in terms of working conditions and pay, and who inevitably provided the cannon fodder for war. It was a common Australian perception of the times that the great issues facing the young federation were immigration, increased land settlement, the discovery and utilisation of the nation’s resources, a transport infrastructure, and, importantly, in conjunction with those economic issues, came the social question of industrial relations. Issues of foreign policy and defence were the realm of the League of Nations, of international disarmament and arbitration. These were the intellectual initiatives, the intelligent mechanisms of a pursuit of peace—a new social order and a brave new world.

  If there had been dissenting voices in Britain over the location of a naval base in the Far East and the nature of its defences, Australian military strategists were also debating the issues.

  In a remarkable and far-sighted lecture entitled, The Strategical Inter-Relationship of the Navy, the Army and the Air Force: An Australian View, delivered to the Royal United Service Institute in Melbourne on 1 September 1926 and published in the Army Quarterly in April 1927, Lieutenant-Colonel H. D. Wynter, Staff Corps, Australian Military Forces, outlined his perspective concerning imperial naval defence and the Singapore Strategy.