by Peter Brune
This is an extraordinary revelation. Military orders require clear, firm statements, and should not be couched in vagueness, apparent in Kinvig’s comment above. Further, the reader might be entitled to wonder why a GOC was appearing before a Legislative Council giving a necessarily incomplete summation of the general picture, while matters of critical importance were occurring within his command. Kinvig then mentions that while Percival was away Brooke-Popham’s response came in, ‘formally releasing the 11th Division from MATADOR [sic] and authorising Percival to send forces to occupy the Ledge position’.3 He then states that those orders were passed on to Heath at around 11.00 am with a suggestion that a covering force be despatched over the border to delay the enemy, thus giving the 11th Division more time to prepare its positions at Jitra. An extraordinary aspect of this episode was that when Heath had rung Percival’s HQ, he had been ‘fobbed off ’ by Brigadier Torrance, Percival’s BGS or Chief Staff Officer, with the news that Percival was at the Legislative Council.4 The reader will recall that Torrance was the learned gentleman who had referred to Lieutenant-Colonel Stewart of the Argylls as being a ‘crank’ for embarking on a realistic and, as history shows, competent program of training for his troops. Kinvig quotes Heath as later reacting to the news of Percival’s appearance before the Council with the term ‘Ye Gods’. He then records that: ‘In fact, for some reason which has never been made fully clear, the vital message ‘MATADOR off, man Jitra’ was not received by 11th Division until 1.30 pm on 8 December, despite Percival’s telephone call to Heath over two hours earlier.’5 The Japanese had been given a ten-hour start in the race—and they used it with great enterprise.
We have recorded Brooke-Popham’s pathetic dithering over Matador, but Heath’s criticism of Percival’s role in these proceedings would seem justified. Kinvig rightly claims that the decision was Brooke-Popham’s, and goes on to imply that Admiral Phillips may also have had an influence. The fact is that there is no evidence that Percival insisted on a definitive reply within a reasonable time frame.
The alternative plan to Matador was undertaken on 8 December. It will be remembered that two mobile columns were to cross the border: one codenamed Krohcol was to occupy the Ledge on the Patani–Kroh Road and thus delay the enemy advance from its landing at Patani, and the other was codenamed Laycol, which was to perform the same task against Yamashita’s force moving from its landing at Singora, along the Singora–Alor Star Road. Lionel Wigmore:
The main defensive line to be held, running from east of Jitra to the west coast, was in the state of Kedah, astride the main road and railway from Malaya into Thailand. Its right flank rested on jungle-clad hills which had been considered by the planners of Malaya’s defence system to be militarily impenetrable. Selected for the protection of the airfield at Alor Star and others south of it, the line was the only so-called prepared position of such extent on the Malayan mainland.6
Major-General Murray-Lyon’s 11th Indian Division, with the 28th Brigade as its reserve, were to implement these plans.
When Operation Krohcol began, nearly everything that could go wrong, did. As stated, the mission’s objective was a defile known as the Ledge—about halfway between Patani and the Siam–Malayan border. The Ledge was so named because at this point the Patani–Kroh road was cut into the side of a hill. It was anticipated that demolitions at the Ledge and a set-piece defence of the area might forestall the Japanese—mainly their armour, artillery and supply—for a number of days or at best weeks. This operation was critical for the long-term defence of the Jitra Line. Should the enemy move down the Patani–Kroh road and reach the coastal Trunk Road kilometres to the south of Jitra, that position might quickly become outflanked and possibly cut off.
But poor staff work saw the Penang based 5/14th Punjabis and a mountain battery fail to arrive at Kroh on time. And time was at a premium. The lorries of the Australian 2/3rd Reserve Motor Transport Company, carrying Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Moorhead’s 3/16th Punjabis, crossed the Siamese border at about 3.00 pm on 8 December. Josiah Crosby’s suggestion that the Siamese would side with the British if the Japanese committed the first act of aggression on Siamese soil, was shattered when an Indian soldier was almost immediately killed passing through the customs barrier at the border. Three hundred Siamese police were able to contest the advance until their enthusiasm for the fight ran out during the late afternoon of 9 December. The problem was that mere police officers had cost Moorhead’s soldiers just over 24 hours of time for a paltry advance of eight kilometres to the town of Betong—hardly an inspiring effort given the circumstances.
Now, a catastrophic combination of Brooke-Popham’s indecisiveness, appalling communication between Malaya Command and its III Corps HQ, abominable staff work in ordering and then moving a half of Krohcol and a pedestrian ‘battle’ with the Siamese constabulary—all conspired to produce the Ledge calamity. About nine kilometres short of his objective, Moorhead was confronted by fire from a Japanese regiment with light tank and artillery support, which had landed at Patani at around 3.00 am on 8 December, and with great haste had travelled some 120 kilometres in just on 60 hours. And as disciplined, highly trained infantry are apt to do—however tired they might be—they then proceeded to rapidly overrun and cut off the leading two Punjabi companies. On 11 December, one of the two missing companies regained their lines, but the majority of the second remained lost. During the evening of the 11th, Moorhead requested permission to withdraw his now badly battered formation to Kroh. This was granted. But the persistent Japanese had pressed their advantage, outflanked the Punjabis during the night, and then proceeded to maul them again in the morning.
By late on 12 December, Moorhead had withdrawn his now half-strength force to a position astride the Kroh–Sungei Patani Road. Krohcol’s belated attempt to occupy the Ledge had been an ill-timed and costly disaster. The Japanese speed of movement, their ability to make rapid contact, maintain that contact, systematically outflank the Indians when necessary, repair demolished bridges, and always, therefore, maintain the initiative, were admirable traits of a highly trained and well-led army—qualities they were to employ throughout the campaign.
Having described the attempt to obstruct the Japanese 42nd Regiment’s advance along the Patani–Kroh Road at the Ledge, we now turn to operation Laycol along the Singora–Alor Star Road. This force consisted of a carrier platoon of the 1/8th Punjabis, a portion of the 273rd Anti-tank Battery and some artillery and engineers. A third movement into Siam was undertaken by an armoured train at Padang Besar in the state of Perlis, carrying a platoon of the 2/16th Punjab and engineers. The train travelled as far as Khlaung Ngae, about 25 kilometres into Siam, and was able to demolish a 60-metre railway bridge on the Singora line before withdrawing uncontested back across the border.
By dusk on 9 December, Laycol had advanced about sixteen kilometres inside Siam along the Alor Star–Singora Road to the village of Sadeo. It occupied a position just north of the village. At around 9.00 pm on 9 December, a Japanese column of about 30 trucks and headed by tanks with headlights on, approached the Indians. Two of the three advance guard Japanese tanks were hit by anti-tank guns. Lieutenant-Colonel Tsuji vividly recalled the well-drilled and instant Japanese response:
Jumping from their lorries two companies of our men, like hunting dogs, swiftly dispersed into the rubber plantation on both sides of the road and our field gun opened fire on the enemy front. After fighting for about an hour the British weakly crumbled to pieces and retreated to the south, leaving a blood-stained armoured car and sidecar . . . we discovered a blood-smeared map in the armoured car . . . it . . . showed clearly the enemy fortifications and dispositions around Changlun and Jitra.7
Tsuji was not alone in his admiration of the Japanese infantry near Sadeo on 9 December. The first British company commander to witness their drill agreed with his observations, but added a haunting perspective on these Japanese tactics: ‘. . . the British and Indian soldier had no answer—and indeed for
a time simply could not comprehend.’8 We now turn to the main Kedah British defensive position on the Jitra Line.
While the muddled and lengthy deliberations over Matador were occurring in Singapore, the 11th Indian Division troops assigned to either implement that contentious operation, or man the Jitra Line, were in a state of flux—both physically and mentally. Percival’s biographer, Clifford Kinvig, has stated that: ‘To keep such a large invasion force “cruising around”, as General Brooke put it, for so long for such a negligible purpose made little strategic sense.’9 To refer to the 11th Indian Division’s plight at this time as ‘cruising around’ is misleading.
When news of the Japanese landings came, two of the 11th Division battalions were standing by at Anak Bukit Railway Station ready; another two had their trucks loaded and were in camp ready to advance into Siam by road; and the remaining two were deployed near the frontier. All were awaiting the result of Brooke-Popham’s deliberations. The 1st Leicestershire Battalion’s experience would seem typical:
At 0300 hours on the 9th . . . the Battalion moved on bicycles to Anak Bukit Station and entrained for the move into Thailand . . .
Orders, however, were not received for the train to move, and at about 0800 hours twenty-seven enemy aircraft arrived and bombed Alor Star airfield and more passed over towards Penang. The Battalion detrained and waited in the fields near the station until 1500 hours, when it was ordered to return to man the Jitra Line. The sudden change from the offensive to the defensive caused the spirits of the whole division to drop considerably. For the next three days the Battalion worked night and day to complete the defensive position, especially erecting wire, of which there was, up till then, none in place; camouflaging and the laying of anti-tank mines also took place. The rain was almost continuous, mud was everywhere and, as all tents had been struck, the men were lying in the open with never a chance to get their boots, socks and feet really dry.10
According to the Leicesters’ historian, the defences at Jitra had begun in June, but progress had been slow due to ‘frequent change in the layout of the line and to the marshy ground, which had necessitated breastworks in many places’.11 It is extraordinary to record that he also mentioned wheelbarrows being unavailable and that wiring was forbidden owing to a fear of the wooden stakes rotting.12 The Chief Engineer, Brigadier Simson, has recorded that he saw Major-General Murray-Lyon as late as 1–2 December 1941 at Jitra—nine days before the fighting there—and saw no defences of any sort, other than the anti-tank ditch still under construction by the Public Works Department. Murray-Lyon explained that as he was on call to move off for Matador he was ‘reluctant to . . . risk any delay in unpacking tools and carrying out the work’.13
The 11th Indian Division’s Jitra Line extended over about nineteen kilometres of ground, running from just east of Jitra, to the coast. Brigadier Garrett’s 15th Brigade was deployed on the right sector, responsible for the defence of Jitra itself and around five kilometres of rubber plantations, rice fields, jungle and swamp. Hills bordered the eastern side of this right flank. The 2/9th Jats occupied the right flank of this 15th Brigade perimeter—around 3600 metres in length—from the eastern hills to the main Singora Road. To the Jats’ left were the 1st Leicesters, whose perimeter contained a portion of both the Trunk Road and its branch road which ran through Kodiang to the railway line situated at Kangar in Perlis. The Leicesters’ main responsibility was the security of the two roads.
Brigadier Lay’s 6th Brigade left sector perimeter was far larger, about 16 000 metres, with the 2nd East Surrey on the right and the 2/16th Punjab on the left. It was larger because ‘with the exception of the sector given to 2nd East Surrey and a belt of cultivated country on either side of the main railway line, the greater part of this wide front consisted of swamp’.14 Brigadier Carpendale’s 28th Brigade was in reserve. Support for the Jitra perimeter was to be given by two batteries of the 155th Field Regiment, one battery of the 22nd Mountain Regiment and three batteries of the 80th Anti-tank Regiment.
To provide both a covering screen and to create more time for the construction of the Jitra perimeter, Brigadier Garrett was allocated a part of the 1/14th Punjabis and the 2/1st Gurkhas to man outposts. By the evening of 10 December, the Punjabis were deployed about nine kilometres from the frontier on the Trunk Road at Changlun, while the latter were deployed behind a stream just north of Asun. Two further outposts, separated by six kilometres of thick jungle, were astride the branch road at Imam, and another at Bemban. While the Jitra Line occupants were strengthening their defences, the Japanese had spent much of 10 December repairing bridges and parts of the Trunk Road.
The enemy thrust began in earnest again the next day. Alan Warren, in Singapore 1942:
At Changlun on the morning of 11 December the 1/14th Punjabis were dug in behind the Sungei [river] Laka. A patrol of two platoons was sent out at dawn under Captain Mohammed Akham but was never seen again. A Japanese spotter plane was soon seen overhead and the Punjabis were under attack by 8 a.m.15
The 1/14th Punjabis halted the first Japanese attack on the bridge across the Laka, but when a demolition charge failed to destroy it and the enemy pressure intensified, the Battalion withdrew over a distance of about twelve kilometres back towards the 2/1st Gurkha position near Asun. At a conference between General Murray-Lyon, Brigadier Garrett and the two battalion commanders during the afternoon, Murray-Lyon ordered the Punjabis to form another outpost around three kilometres north of Asun. This order was against the wishes of Garrett and the Punjabis’ CO, who advocated a withdrawal behind the causeway at Asun, so as to enable it to be blown and used as an anti-tank obstacle. But Murray-Lyon was convinced that the enemy were without tanks. The order stood.16
The only reason Murray-Lyon did not know of the presence of Japanese tanks was that the enemy engineers had been busily repairing the bridge at Changlun to bear the weight of the ten medium tanks and a mixture of reconnaissance tanks and armoured cars that were soon to descend upon the Indians. At approximately 4.30 pm the rear of the column, in driving rain and still short of their new position, were attacked by Japanese medium tanks and motorised infantry. Many of the terror-stricken Indians had never laid eyes on a tank, let alone been on the receiving end of its intense close-quarter fire. In the resulting confusion and panic, the Punjabis lost two anti-tank guns and two mountain guns and were scattered. The Japanese continued onwards towards the Gurkhas’ perimeter at Asun.17
Aggression and speed of movement by the Japanese, and a lack of depth in the Indian defences, now caused pandemonium. When enemy tanks were seen approaching the bridge, the Gurkhas made two attempts to blow it up, but the charge failed. When the leading tank was then halted by an anti-tank rifle, the Japanese maintained the momentum of the assault by crossing the river and immediately conducted a frontal and flank attack. The tanks then resumed their progress. By 6.45 pm on 11 December, aggressively maintaining their momentum along the road, the Japanese had by-passed the Gurkhas behind the swamp and proceeded to overrun their battalion HQ, which fell within a half hour. Alan Warren has left us with a tragic summary of the plight of the Punjabis and Gurkhas during their barely ten- and-three-quarter hour nightmare:
Of 550 Gurkhas to go into action, only two hundred made their way back to British lines. Of the 350 missing, perhaps twenty to thirty were killed in the fighting and the rest were eventually rounded up and taken prisoner. Of the Punjabis, around 270 were led southwards by Garrett and other officers to escape capture.18
Back at Jitra, the 1st Leicesters had a standing patrol beyond the bridge in front of their right flank. At around 8.30 pm on 11 December, approaching lights were spotted. When a flare was fired from the standing patrol the enemy tanks stopped and turned off their lights. Heavy fire now ensued. In a disturbing repetition of past attempts, a charge on the bridge failed to explode and the tanks came on. The first two were stopped by anti-tank guns and stalled on an embankment, blocking the rest of the column. The Leicesters had also hast
ily prepared a nearby roadblock the night before, consisting of tree trunks, wire and some mines. Meanwhile, north of the Leicesters’ perimeter on the Kodiang Road, troops moving back from an outpost were mistaken for the enemy, causing a bridge to be blown—this time the charge worked. Lost on the far side of the stream were ‘the trucks and carriers of the covering and outpost troops, four mountain guns, and seven anti-tank guns’.19
With Brigadier Garrett still missing, command of the 15th Brigade was given to Brigadier Carpendale, and, as the 1/14th Punjabis were still scattered, the 2/2nd Gurhkas became the brigade reserve. At dawn on 12 December, it was discovered that the Japanese had penetrated the Leicesters’ C Company perimeter and a small area to the east (the Jats’ side) of the road. A counterattack by C Company, which was strengthened by elements of A Company and a number of carriers, eventually drove the enemy from the area. But the real threat seemed to be further to the east in the Jats’ perimeter.
Although the Leicesters managed to secure the right flank of their perimeter, the Japanese did make some progress between them and the Jats to their east (the right flank). During the night misleading reports came in from the far eastern boundary of the Jats’ perimeter claiming that the enemy were infiltrating between their eastern extremity and the jungle-clad hills. The reports were misleading because the phone contact to that company had failed. But an anxious Brigadier Carpendale, after contacting Brigadier Lay, managed to procure two companies from each of the 2/16th and 1/8th Punjabis to be deployed well to the south of the perceived gap. This measure would, it was hoped, prevent the Japanese from a wide encircling movement around the eastern boundary of the Jitra Line. The four-company reinforcement of the Jats had been done without the knowledge or consent of Murray-Lyon.