by Peter Brune
Lieutenant-General Tomoyuki Yamashita,
GOC 25th Japanese Army. (AWM 127911)
Colonel Masanobu Tsuji, Chief of Operations and Planning, 25th Japanese Army.
Colonel (later Brigadier) I. Simson, Chief Engineer, Malaya Command, in 1938. (AWM 145317)
Lieutenant-Colonel Frederick ‘Black Jack’ Galleghan, CO 2/30th Battalion, with Sergeant Heckendorf (left). (AWM 011304/04)
Lieutenant-Colonel J. Robertson, CO 2/29th Battalion. (Courtesy Andrew Warland)
Lieutenant-Colonel Robertson and his senior officers: (left to right back) Captain Sumner, Major Olliff; (left to right front) Captain Bowring, Robertson, Captain Morgan, unknown, Captain Maher. (Courtesy Andrew Warland)
Sergeant Charlie Parson’s gun in action at Bakri. (AWM 068592)
Bakri—the devastation in the cutting. (AWM 011301)
WO Bert Mettam, 2/29th Battalion. (Courtesy Ric Mettam)
Corporal Bob Christie, 2/29th Battalion. (Courtesy 2/29th Battalion Association)
Corporal Jim Kennedy (back) and Corporal John Roxburgh, 2/29th Battalion. (Courtesy 2/29th Battalion Association)
Private Jim Kerr, 4th Anti-tank Regiment. (Courtesy Jim Kerr)
Lieutenant-Colonel C. Anderson VC, CO 2/19th Battalion. (AWM 012562)
Lieutenant Jim Howard, 2/19th Battalion. (Courtesy Jim Howard)
Private Gus Halloran, 2/19th Battalion. (Courtesy Mrs J. Halloran)
Private Jim Stewart, 2/19th Battalion. (Courtesy Leanne Kerschler)
Lieutenant-Colonel A. Boyes, 2/26th Battalion. (Courtesy Mrs V. Linton-Smith)
Lieutenant-Colonel A. Varley, CO 2/18th Battalion. (AWM 005515)
9
BAD NEWS FOR THE HOUSE
On 28 November 1941, after his arrival at Colombo aboard the Prince of Wales, Admiral Phillips had been ordered by the Admiralty to fly to Singapore—where he had welcomed his flagship and the Repulse—and subsequently to Manila on 4 December, for conferences with the American, Dominion and Dutch admirals regarding the coordination of naval forces in the Far East. But when news reached him on 6 December that reconnaissance flights that day had revealed a Japanese presence off Siam, Phillips departed by plane that night for Singapore. He arrived there on the 7th.
The events during the roughly 30-hour period from Phillips’s arrival back in Singapore to his departure aboard the Prince of Wales during the late afternoon of 8 December are clouded in some controversy. In the British Official History, Kirby stated that:
Admiral Phillips called a meeting on board the Prince of Wales at 12.30 p.m. on the 8th which was attended by his Chief of Staff (Rear-Admiral A.F.E. Palliser), the Captain of the Fleet (Captain L.H. Bell), the Captains of the Prince of Wales (Captain J.C. Leach) and Repulse (Captain W.G. Tennant) and staff officers.1
But Brian Montgomery, in his biography of Sir Shenton Thomas, relates a claim by Lieutenant Commander J. McClelland, who was the Singapore Navy Base signals officer at the time, of a prior meeting called by Admiral Phillips. McClelland has stated that Phillips called this meeting in the War Room at the base at 2.30 am on 8 December. According to McClelland, those present were: the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Robert Brooke-Popham, and his Naval liaison officer; Phillips and two of his staff officers; Air Vice-Marshal Pulford; a brigadier and colonel from Percival’s HQ; Sir Shenton Thomas and two civil servants; Commanders Goodenough and Beardsworth Royal Navy; and Commander Greening, Royal Navy, staff officer to Admiral Layton.2
McClelland stated that he was asked by Admiral Layton to sit in his ‘signal officer’s cubby-hole’ at the far end of the War Room, and hopefully undetected by the participants, take notes of the meeting. Further, McClelland recorded that after the war Layton had told him that he was afraid at the time of Phillips’s intention to organise a Force Z operation against the Japanese, when, in fact, Layton believed that the only sensible course of action was to have the fleet put to sea and avoid a quite likely air or naval—or both—confrontation with the Japanese. Such an operation was, he considered, doomed at the outset by the vulnerable composition of the Eastern Fleet. It had no aircraft carrier protection or strike capability and could hardly rely on the RAF in Malaya and Singapore to protect it. It is significant that Layton’s tenure as the senior naval commander in Singapore had ceased at midnight, thereby now making Phillips the senior Royal Navy commander at this gathering. He had therefore called this meeting two- and-a-half hours after taking over. McClelland also stated that no minutes of the meeting were kept.
During his opening appreciation, McClelland recorded that he (Phillips) believed that the Japanese would not deploy carriers or capital ships in Malayan waters against him so long as the US Fleet remained in the region and operational. At this juncture, the news of the Japanese attack upon Pearl Harbor had not reached Singapore. Further, Phillips stated that his main concern centred upon enemy submarine attacks and aircraft assaults. Concerning the latter, he believed that high-level bombing was no great risk, given the quality and volume of his ships’ anti-aircraft fire and the anticipated difficulties in enemy accuracy. Japanese dive-bombing missions did, he felt, offer a greater concern, but not debilitating enough to cripple either the Prince of Wales or Repulse. The torpedo bomber, claimed Phillips, was the principal air threat to any capital ship, and as such, his chief defence against it would have two components. The first consisted of a fighter escort that might attack torpedo aircraft at their most exposed time—during the descent to torpedo dropping height. The second was the north-east monsoon, whereby the often unpredictable and intermittent low cloud, heavy rain, storms and poor visibility—particularly over the sea—might not only make the coordination of simultaneous attacks by formations of torpedo bombers difficult, but also shield his presence, and therefore make his detection by enemy reconnaissance harder.3
Phillips finished by stating that if the Royal Navy’s present obligation was the preservation of the fleet, then the logical course of action was to retire to the west and await reinforcements. Montgomery then quotes McClelland’s record of the reactions by those present to Phillips’s appreciation.
Shenton Thomas displayed his ignorance as to the original shortcomings of the composition of Force Z by stating that he did not realise that the battleships constituted nothing more than a British ‘bluff ’, and, given the difficulties outlined by Admiral Phillips, suggested that London be contacted immediately to find out what the Admiralty thought should be done. Brooke-Popham, according to McClelland, rejected this outright and pointed out that he still believed that the Japanese had Thailand as their objective. Pulford then spoke, pointing out the deficiencies in his aircraft and the poor training of his pilots in a fighter protection role for Phillips’s ships, but nonetheless pledged his support for the Admiral’s plan—‘whatever that might be’.4 Pulford then left the gathering. At this point, Shenton Thomas again expressed doubt concerning any operation using the capital ships against submarines without additional destroyer support, and suggested that if air support could not be guaranteed, that the ships should not be used in any offensive capacity. With Pulford now absent, Thomas looked to Brooke-Popham for a reaction. None was forthcoming. Then, according to McClelland, the Commander-in-Chief made an extraordinary remark: ‘Do you know, Admiral, that I am beginning to believe that if the Japanese intend to attack, your intervention is the only thing that can prevent the invasion succeeding.’5 This was an extraordinary statement from a Commander-in-Chief before the outbreak of hostilities. Brooke-Popham’s verbose and false assessments over a considerable period of time regarding the RAF’s ability to contest a Japanese invasion, and his equally flawed rating of his enemy, now appeared to evaporate behind the plans of a risky naval operation, where critical land-based fighter support for Force Z might not, therefore, be guaranteed. The meeting was soon broken up by the already discussed first Japanese air raid on Singapore.
McClelland also claimed that Phillips then cipher-telegrammed his intentions to the Admiralty at around 6.00 am on 8
December. He further asserted that London acknowledged that signal at 9.30 am. McClelland’s account concludes with another interesting observation:
Phillips must have been aware that he was taking a risk, which was impossible to calculate, with two valuable ships. He may have hoped to receive the comments of the Admiralty on his intentions, as expressed in the signal which I sent for him. But he would most certainly have wished to give the First Sea Lord time to instruct him (Phillips) NOT [sic] to take the risk, if, for reasons not known to him, Admiral Pound did not wish him to take it. But Phillips received no reaction to his signal [sic].6
Admiral Tom Phillips decided to put Force Z to sea late on 8 December. By then his available intelligence pointed to Singora as the main Japanese landing site. Accordingly, Phillips decided that Force Z would contest those landings, and, further believed that his enemy’s fleet opposition might consist of one battleship—probably the Kongo—and around seven cruisers and twenty destroyers.7 Weighing up the dangers from Japanese land-based torpedo and bombing sorties, and the ever-present possibility of submarine attacks, against the chance of Force Z being able to inflict great destruction upon the Japanese transports and their escorts, Phillips chose to take the risk. In this decision, he was supported by all the Royal Navy officers at his later naval conference. Perhaps Phillips and those officers considered that the navy should act and act decisively, and not be charged with leaving the fight to the air force and army. Such a potential charge to a man like ‘the Cocksparrow’, or the ‘Pocket Napoleon’ would most certainly have rankled.
While Singora lies 720 kilometres by direct sea route from Singapore, Admiral Phillips’s plan entailed a total sailing distance of 1120 kilometres to that destination. Leaving Singapore on the night of 8 December the Prince of Wales, Repulse and the destroyers—Electra, Express, Tenedos and Vampire—sailed eastwards and around the Anambas Islands, with the purpose of minimising contact with enemy submarines and minefields. It was also hoped that such a course might avoid aircraft reconnaissance patrols during daylight the following day. In this, Phillips hoped that the predicted northeast monsoon weather might also conceal his passage. If all went according to plan, he anticipated that his final approach to Singora would occur under the cover of darkness during the night 9–10 December, which would see him arrive at dawn with the advantage of surprise. Phillips anticipated that should all of this come to pass, his real problem would then be his escape from his area of operations under long-range bomber attacks. G. Hermon Gill has outlined Admiral Phillips’s requested air support from Air Vice-Marshal Pulford for the above plan: ‘. . . air reconnaissance 100 miles [160 kilometres] ahead of the fleet throughout daylight on the 9th; air reconnaissance along the coast from Kota Bharu to beyond Singora from dawn on the 10th; and fighter cover over the fleet off Singora from daylight on the 10th.’8
The RAF replied that its reconnaissance request for 9 December would be met, but ‘there was doubt as to the ability to supply it on the 10th, and greater doubt that fighter cover could be made available off Singora’.9 But this air support was so critical to any chance that Phillips had of success that he had personally written to Pulford before sailing, strongly emphasising the importance of his Singora fighter cover. As Force Z passed the Changi signal station, the Admiral received the RAF reply: ‘regret fighter protection impossible.’10 He is reputed to have said, ‘Well, we must get on without it.’
Force Z had initial good fortune on 9 December. After having successfully rounded the Anambas Islands under low cloud cover and rain, the ships turned northwards in the early afternoon, with the weather still shielding them. Later that afternoon a Japanese submarine discovered them. But Admiral Tom Phillips’s luck had not deserted him yet. Either by a wrong transmission of the fleet’s position or by a navigation fault, the Japanese—on this occasion also slow to receive the signal in Saigon—acted on a reported position that was some 224 kilometres off the mark. The resulting enemy strike planes in Saigon, which had hurriedly been rearmed from bombs to torpedoes, left there just before sunset, but failed to find Force Z. A further attempt by the ships Haruna and Kongo and two heavy cruisers which rendezvoused with the 7th Cruiser Squadron at around 2.30 am also failed to locate Phillips because of the faulty intelligence.
At around 7.00 pm on 9 December Force Z reached a position about 480 kilometres east of Singora. Phillips now changed course to the west, and increased his speed from around 18 knots to 20 knots with the intention of an attack upon Japanese shipping just after dawn with the Prince of Wales and Repulse. The destroyers ‘would be detached to a rendezvous off the Anambas Islands at 10 pm’.11 With no fighter cover, Admiral Phillips knew that he had but one potential operational ally: surprise. It was jeopardised just after he had steamed for Singora, when HMAS Vampire signalled a possible sighting of one enemy aircraft, and then that critical element of surprise was shattered by three enemy aircraft, which began to shadow his ships in clearing skies. Phillips knew immediately that his Singora attack was now an unwise venture, and turned away south-east at 20 knots for the Anambas Islands. He also ordered the destroyer Tenedos to break from the convoy and head straight for Singapore, and at 8.00 am the next morning to signal that Force Z would arrive off those islands at around 6.00 am on 11 December. During this critical time, Phillips received two signals from Singapore. The first stated that air reconnaissance had found one enemy battleship, eleven destroyers and transports off Kota Bharu, while the second signal—and a far more disturbing one—intimated that the enemy had occupied the airstrip at Kota Bharu; were bombing and strafing all northern Malayan dromes rendering them unsustainable, and that Brooke-Popham was ‘hinting’ that all of his air resources would henceforth be required to protect ‘the Singapore area’. Further, Phillips was informed that the enemy now had the ‘undisturbed’ ability to attack him with land-based bombers from Saigon within five hours after any reconnaissance sighting of his ships. Within a matter of a few hours, Admiral Phillips’s mission had changed from a thus far undetected potential surprise attack, to a desperate escape from an area where the enemy was all-powerful, searching for him, and unhampered by a receding RAF ability to offer him support. As usual, Brooke-Popham was engaged in dithering and ‘hints’ rather than bold, plain dialogue and action.
We now come to ‘the fog of war’ in its most sinister form. At around midnight Force Z received another signal from Singapore—‘enemy reported landing at Kuantan . . .’. The enemy had not landed at Kuantan. In what was later to become known in some circles as ‘Blitzkrieg night’, panic and resulting indiscriminate firing at a non-existent enemy had ensued. The source of such chaos would seem to have come from a Hudson’s sighting of a merchant ship steaming south around 120 kilometres north of Kuantan, and a separate sighting of a group of ten barges at a similar distance to the south. After III Corps HQ had been notified of these discoveries, Brigadier Painter’s 22nd Brigade’s 2/18th Royal Garhwal Rifles, who were manning the beaches at Kuantan, were put on full alert. Just after dark the battalion reported barges approaching and requested artillery support, which was given. Brigadier Painter then signalled 9th Division HQ reporting that an attack was anticipated at dawn. Malaya Command responded to this news with the despatch of three Hudsons and six Vildebeestes to attack supporting Japanese ships and contest the ‘landing’. The torpedo bombers arrived on the scene at around 4.00 am to find three small boats which were bombed, while the Hudsons arrived to find no targets.
But Admiral Tom Phillips assessed Kuantan in a different light. Engaged in a return passage back from a fruitless mission, he now saw a last chance to influence events. At 12.45 am he steered for Kuantan at 20 knots. In the process, Phillips made two critical errors of judgement: he ordered Force Z to observe strict radio silence and also believed that, as he was now around 720 kilometres from Japanese air bases in Indo-China, he was probably out of range of enemy land-based torpedo bombers. In his first decision, Phillips effectively cut Singapore’s ability to know of, an
d then support, his decision to head for Kuantan, and his second mistake amounted to nothing less than total ignorance of the Japanese aircraft range from Indo-China. Alan Warren, in his Singapore 1942, has rightly concluded that: ‘. . . this calculation was based on the relatively short range of antiquated British torpedo bombers.’12 The game was now well and truly up.
Unbeknown to Phillips, Force Z had been discovered by a Japanese submarine not long after he had altered his course for Kuantan. Lieutenant Commander Sohichi Kitamura’s I–58, despite experiencing trouble with a torpedo tube, managed to get away a spread of five torpedoes which, because of the time lost while repairing the tube, caused the range to be far too great.13 The torpedoes missed. After receipt of Force Z’s new and far-distant position, Admiral Kondo realised that a fleet confrontation with Phillips was not possible, and decided to use the 22nd Air Flotilla’s aircraft to stage an air attack.
At 5.00 am on 10 December in an effort to locate Force Z, nine seven-man crew Mitsubishi medium bombers (‘Nells’), acting as recce planes, left Saigon, followed by two Mitsubishi reconnaissance planes (‘Babs’)—each with a two-man crew—which took off from Soc Trang (south of Saigon). These eleven aircraft—with ample range for their task—were ordered to fan out over the area of ocean in which the British ships were known to be sailing. The 22nd Flotilla’s strike force set off between 6.30 am and 8.00 am: 25 ‘Nells’ armed with torpedoes; 26 Mitsubishi Bombers (Bettys) also armed with torpedoes; and 34 ‘Nells’ armed with either two 250-kg bombs or one 500-kg armour-piecing bomb.14 The Japanese strike force flew towards their minefield which had been laid between the Tioman and Anambas Islands, and which Phillips had successfully avoided during Force Z’s early passage north. The Japanese pilots hoped at best for their own contact, but failing this, a reconnaissance radio contact from the eleven recce aircraft.