by Peter Brune
Major Moses:
It would be correct to say that the responsibility for the loss of the 22nd Indian Bde. was Brig. Lay’s: he made the elementary error, apart from not following the specific order given by his Divisional Commander, of not occupying the ridge intended which was an excellent defensive position covering a natural obstacle (i.e. the river) and having a clear view of the intervening country west of the railway right up to Layang Layang and about 300 yards to the river on the west. As soon as Col. Trott and I reported the situation to Col. Coates (G1 of the 9th Indian Div.) and to General Bennett, steps were taken immediately to relieve Brig. Lay of his command, which was taken over by Co. [sic ‘Col.’] Trott.43
Brigadier Lay’s performance was indeed poor. In addition to Moses’s criticism, it should be stated that when an effort to bridge the gap between the two brigades was later made it was—not unlike the weak effort to assist Anderson at Parit Sulong—half-hearted. But there were other contributing factors in the debacle on the railway sector. The two conflicting railway mile points issued in the original 8th Division (Westforce) timetable was the first error. The second was Barstow’s apparent attempt to prove to Bennett that the Indian Army was indeed capable of sterner stuff, but in the end, such a demonstration was at the expense of basic local judgement. Although Brigadier Painter was placed in an appalling situation by a number of blunders on the part of Brigadier Lay, he too erred badly. When faced with a Japanese occupation of the railway behind him, he should have opted for a further determined attempt to breach the line. It seems inexcusable for a full brigade movement to have petered out in thick jungle because a track ceased to exist. Such an escape route should have been explored—time spent on reconnaissance is never wasted. On the 28 January, before it was discovered that the 22nd Indian Brigade was missing, General Percival decided to shorten the withdrawal timetable by 24 hours. In this decision, he was guided by the fear that the 11th Indian Division could not hold the western sector and thereby deny Skudai to the enemy for much longer. Faced with ‘mission impossible’, Painter’s effort to regain his lines was thus unwittingly reduced by a day.
On the night of 30/31 January 1942, Brigadier Taylor’s Eastforce passed through the outer bridgehead and crossed the causeway, followed by Bennett’s Westforce, and finally General Key’s 11th Indian Division’s force which had been holding off the Imperial Guards near Skudai. An inner bridgehead through which all forces passed was manned by the Argylls.
This Argylls’ remnant marched last across the causeway at 7.00 am on 31 January with its two pipers resolutely playing‘Hielan’ Laddie’. The causeway was then blown. The AIF’s Captain Wyett crossed with Colonel Stewart, and when he enquired as to why the regiment had been piped across, Stewart replied: ‘You know, Wyett, the trouble with you Australians is that you have no sense of history. When the story of the Argylls is written you will find that they go down in history as the last unit to cross the causeway and were piped across by their pipers.’44 All ‘terribly British’. Stewart’s own sense of history was somewhat limited. His pipers were in fact playing a lament for an empire on which the sun was setting. It might have been truer to the brutal reality of the moment to have piped ‘Flowers of the Forest’, which is usually played at funerals. The days of the white master ensconced in his luxurious Malayan plantation bungalow, complete with servants and sipping on his gin sling, were over. British Singapore, the great commercial crossroads of an empire, had but a fortnight to live. And an adolescent and naïve Australia was to soon learn its own tough lessons.
19
‘COMETH THE HOUR . . .’
On the first day of February 1942, General Percival spoke to Singaporeans from the radio studios at Caldecott Hill:
Our task has been both to impose losses on the enemy and to gain time to enable the forces of the Allies to be concentrated for this struggle in the Far East. Today we stand beleaguered in our island fortress.
Our task is to hold this fortress until help can come—as assuredly it will come. This we are determined to do.
In carrying out this task we want the help of every man and woman in the fortress. There is work for all to do. Any of the enemy who sets foot in the fortress must be dealt with immediately. The enemy within our gates must be ruthlessly weeded out. There must be no loose talk or rumour mongering. Our duty is clear. With firm resolve and fixed determination we shall win through.1
Within a few days he also faced the press. Amongst a host of British editors, censors, broadcasters and members of the Ministry of Information was the Australian war correspondent Ian Morrison. Reading from notes, Percival made ‘an attempt to plead’2 for the cooperation of the civil population, explained the reasons for most of the remaining aircraft being withdrawn to Sumatra, elaborated on the difficult issue of labour supply and asked for the support of the press. He ended his statement with a final appeal for successful resistance which ‘would depend on whole-hearted cooperation between the military and civilian elements’.3 Morrison was not impressed:
Much of what the general said was sensible. But never have I heard a message put across with less conviction, with less force. Afterwards there were questions, and long agonizing silences before the next question was put. It was embarrassing as well as uninspiring. I felt that the general not only did not know how to deal with a group of pressmen, but that he did not know how to deal with any group of men.4
It will be remembered that Duff Cooper had been appointed Resident Commissioner for Far Eastern Affairs with Cabinet rank on 10 December 1941, and that he was also to preside over the War Council in Singapore. It had not taken Cooper long to identify the petty bungling and inefficiency of the civil authorities. He informed Churchill of the problem only eight days after his arrival, and three days later he cabled the same concerns to the Secretary of State for the Colonies. On 11 January, just prior to his return to the United Kingdom, he suggested the introduction of martial law and the appointment of a military governor.5
The issues of poor rates of pay for coolie labourers and their failure to turn up to dig critically important defensive dispositions on the Malay Peninsula have been previously identified. These problems were repeated in Singapore. It would seem strange for Percival to state that: ‘. . . not only was there no civil labour available for work on our own land defences of the island, but there was very often no military labour available either’,6 when Singapore’s population had been listed as 900 000 at the time when ration cards had been introduced7 and had swollen ‘to more than a million Asians’8 during the withdrawal from Malaya. The labour in both Malaya and Singapore was there. However, Percival believed that ‘we were likely to get better service by the voluntary system, provided we could get the support of influential leaders . . .’9 But his very next sentence is an admission of his own poor judgement and lack of drive:
As the difficulties increased, there was a growing demand in some service quarters for compulsion to be applied. It was in answer to this demand, and when the volunteer system had failed to produce the required results, that a measure was passed on 20 January to introduce compulsion. It came too late for its value to be disclosed.10
The supply of civilian labour was not the only problem. In time of war it must be put to highly prioritised tasks, organised efficiently, and supervised competently—and if necessary, ruthlessly. When such leadership is lacking, chaos is the end result. An example is the order in December that trenches be dug across sports fields in Singapore to prevent enemy landings. After the deputy municipal engineer had dutifully put coolies to work digging straight trenches, another official—pointing out that the trenches would also be used for shelters—demanded that they be redug in a zigzag pattern to counter air strafing. But after the work was completed, a third official demanded that the trenches be refilled owing to the potential health problems caused by mosquitoes breeding in them. The solution? The already shallow one-metre trenches were half filled.11
On 31 December, the long overdue expertise
needed in Singapore was provided by the appointment by Duff Cooper of the Chief Engineer Brigadier Ivan Simson as Director General Civil Defence. For all intents and purposes, Simson was still an unused commodity in the military sphere, and now, as the enemy were at Singapore’s causeway, he was asked to achieve the impossible. There was a lack of air raid shelters, poor protection for the docks and key buildings, substandard fire protection measures and, yet again, the unnecessary hindrance of the civil administration when Simson discovered that his deputy, Mr Bisseker, was actively thwarted in his attempts to administer efficient civil labour and transport.12
It will be remembered that when Wavell had visited Percival in Singapore during 7–8 January 1942, he had asked for plans for the defence of the north shore of Singapore Island. There were none. On the 9th Percival ordered Major-General Keith Simmons to undertake a preliminary reconnaissance of the north coast. When Wavell instructed Percival on 20 January to prepare a withdrawal timetable from Johore, and yet again, enquired into the defences on the north coast, Percival belatedly released a plan on the 23rd. It was undertaken by Major-General Keith Simmons, Brigadier Paris and officers of his 12th Brigade, and others representing III Corps and the Australian 8th Division. Major Dawkins, Bennett’s GSO2 was the Australian representative. Neither Brigadier Simson nor any of his Chief Engineer Staff were present or were consulted during this planning.13
In defending Singapore, Malaya Command was faced with two challenges. The first was to contest and hopefully defeat any Japanese attempt to invade the Island’s north coast, whilst the second was to protect the perceived vital ground: the central strip of land starting along a north–south line running from the River Kranji to the River Jurong, and stretching eastwards to the north–south line of the River Seletar through Paya Lebar and on to a point a few kilometres east of Kallang airfield. Within this central portion of the Island was to be found Singapore Town, with most of the population, its wharves, food stocks and a significant concentration of fixed defences. This central area also contained three vital reservoirs—the water supply from Johore had been cut off—a pumping station and pipelines, and in the vicinity of Bukit Timah lay further extensive ammunition and food dumps (and the always coveted high ground). Added to these features was the fact that this central area also contained the Island’s hospitals and oil storage tanks.
In an effort to strengthen the western and eastern ends of this central area, two defensive lines were envisaged. The first, the Jurong Line, was on the western extremity and was to have stretched from the lower waters of the River Kranji southwards to the upper waters of the River Jurong. On the eastern side the Serangoon Line extended from the lower reaches of the river of the same name, southwards towards the coast. In an extraordinary revelation, Kirby has recorded that:
These [lines] had been reconnoitred before the outbreak of war and a layout of the defences prepared, but no works had been constructed or trenches dug. During January, on the Jurong Line an anti-tank ditch had been partially dug, a few section posts had been constructed and some clearing had been undertaken to provide a field of fire, but no other preparations had been made by the time the troops were withdrawn from Johore.14
The two lines were known as ‘switch lines’ because they ‘offered means of switching forces between east and west and of shortening the front and reducing the area to be defended if this became necessary’.15
There is no shortage of inconsistency about how the north shore of Singapore Island was to be defended. Kirby in the Official British History (1957) states that Percival’s instructions were: ‘. . . the whole coastline had to be defended on the beaches’.16 In The Chain of Disaster written thirteen years later, Kirby provided a different perspective:
He [Percival] told Keith Simmons that, as the coasts were unsuitable for the normal form of beach defence, the plan in each brigade area was to be based on small defended localities covering approaches to the coast, such as rivers, creeks, road and tracks. These defended posts were to be supported by mobile reserves located so that they could operate against Japanese parties seeking to infiltrate through or around the forward posts.17
‘Small defended localities’ do not constitute ‘the whole coastline’ being defended on the beaches. In The War in Malaya (1949), Percival, in hindsight, took an each way bet: ‘The basis of the defence was that the enemy must be prevented from landing or, if he succeeded in landing, that he must be stopped near the beaches and destroyed or driven out by counter attack.’18 Warren (2002) had written that ‘Malaya Command’s defence policy was to defend the coast with posts prepared for prolonged resistance. If the posts were surrounded they were to hang on and wait for relief by a counter-attacking force.’19 In the end none of the above objectives would be satisfied, because put simply, the plan was beyond the capabilities of the available men and material.
The defence of Singapore was organised in four areas: Northern, Western, Southern and Command Reserve. The Southern Area extended from the River Jurong eastwards around the coast and up to Changi. This sector was manned by the 1st and 2nd Malaya Brigades, the Straits Settlement Volunteer Force Brigade and Fortress Troops. It was under the command of Major-General Keith Simmons. The Northern Area stretched from Changi around the north-eastern coast to the pipeline near Woodlands. This III Corps sector was held by the British 18th Division and the 11th Indian Division, and was commanded by General Heath. The Western Area was under the command of General Bennett, and was manned by the 8th Australian Division and the 44th Indian Brigade. The Reserve Area was roughly bounded from west to east by Bukit Timah and Paya Lebar, and from Seletar Reservoir in the north to around Holland Road in the south. This central area was well sited but woefully undermanned, and consisted of the 12th and 15th Indian Brigades. Brigadier Paris’s 12th Brigade was in fact at roughly battalion strength—250 of the Argylls, 150 attached marines and about 500 of the 4/19th Hyderabads.20
Percival always believed that the Japanese would attack Singapore on the north-east coast, but in his postwar despatch and The War in Malaya, he made poor attempts to deny this fact:
This was the danger area [the AIF’s west coast] and I had specially selected for it the Australian Imperial Force under command of Maj.-Gen. Gordon Bennett because I thought that, of the troops which had had experience of fighting on the mainland, it was the freshest and the most likely to give a good account of itself.21
In a postwar letter to Kirby, Percival admitted that the above statement was ‘incorrect’ and ‘based on hindsight’.22 Of course it was. The allocation of resources confirms this fact. It will be remembered that Wavell and Percival had differed on this point. They had agreed that the soon-to-arrive British 18th Division should occupy the area most likely to be attacked, and that the AIF should occupy the second most vulnerable location. Wavell had forecast Bennett’s area as that locality, while Percival had chosen Heath’s. The Northern Area subsequently received five brigades to defend a 24-kilometre coastline, while Bennett possessed three to cover a coastline stretching for 32 kilometres. The artillery support was therefore in that proportion. The fact that Major-General Simmons had allocated the newly arrived Australian 4th Machine Gun Battalion to dig a part of Heath’s area just prior to the withdrawal from the mainland—against the understandable protests of Bennett—would seem yet more evidence of Percival and Simmons’s assessment.
The frontages of all brigades on the Island’s coast were allocated by Major-General Simmons and his staff subsequent to their recent reconnaissance and planning.23 In the Australian sector the plan contained a significant flaw which the Japanese were destined to fully exploit. Brigadier Maxwell’s 27th Brigade front stretched from just east of the causeway to the Kranji River, a length of around 3.6 kilometres, whereas Brigadier Taylor’s 22nd Brigade coastline sector was just over 14.6 kilometres. The last, and least vulnerable portion of the AIF coast, was manned by Brigadier Ballentine’s 44th Indian Brigade.
In the end, Percival’s plan to defend Singapor
e Island bore little relationship to reality. Four constructive criticisms should be made. First, it was based on the notion that the Japanese were to be stopped on the beaches, and yet the defenders (most notably Taylor’s 22nd Brigade) were hopelessly dispersed. Second, Taylor was forced to deploy all three of his battalions across his extensive coastline, which prevented him from using one battalion as a reserve. In an attempt to create a reserve he ordered each battalion to deploy one company at Battalion HQ. In so doing, he was forced to further weaken an already thin coastal defence. Third, we have noted that Malaya Command’s central reserve area was manned by a threadbare force which might at best have offered weak counterattacks. Last, when examining Percival’s army on Singapore Island, it should be remembered that the terms ‘battalion’ (and therefore equally ‘division’ and ‘brigade’) are misleading. Lionel Wigmore has left us with a realistic if depressing summary: