by Peter Brune
When the enemy landed close to the B Company defenders and were therefore seen, they took heavy casualties, but a systematic bypassing of the Australians transpired over their long and thinly held perimeter. Although Keegan’s company managed to hold its ground, the Japanese moved down the River Murai in strength. In an effort to contest that thrust, most of Captain Thomas’s C Company were ordered to move up to its headwaters. Thomas’s patrols soon reported that the enemy were outflanking the Battalion and moving in strength on Ama Keng. Private Ron Stanton was a reinforcement with C Company:
When we went forward we went through rubber and then scrub . . . the Japs were coming through and they were making a hell of a noise. You see most of the problem was, you’d be holding the Japs and then you’d find that they’d gone around you somewhere . . . we were cut off, cut off a few times.26
At around 3.00 am on the 9th, with his company still under attack and having taken heavy casualties, Keegan ordered it to withdraw to the Battalion HQ perimeter. Thomas’s C Company was also ordered out. While B and C Companies had been thus heavily engaged, Captain Vincent’s D Company had experienced a relatively quiet time. But when it too was ordered to withdraw, two of its platoons were cut off on their way back to the Battalion perimeter. In an interview with the author, Sergeant Bert Donaldson, an original of D Company, noted the confusion of the withdrawal in that pitch-black darkness, and the lack of training of some of the reinforcement officers:
. . . I didn’t see them [the Japanese] coming, or landing, they’d already landed . . . we were told to withdraw and we were heading back to Company HQ . . . I got to company HQ and there were four or five blokes including Lieutenant Furner standing in a group, no doubt discussing the situation, what they had to do. And the bullets were starting to fly around, this is how much they knew . . . and I came along and said, ‘Don’t just bloody stand there keep moving!’ . . . as soon as I sang out, bang I got hit and they opened up on these blokes that were standing in a group . . . I brought Lieutenant Furner out who was also wounded . . . through the chest and he was spitting blood.27
By the onset of daylight on 9 February 1942, Brigadier Taylor’s 22nd Brigade had been subjected to a crushing assault in overwhelming strength on the north-west coast, which had seen it rapidly infiltrated and dispersed into often confused, scattered parties.
We left Lieutenant-Colonel Assheton’s 2/20th Battalion remnant in its Battalion HQ perimeter about one and a half kilometres inland astride the Lim Chu Kang Road. At daylight its soldiers saw Japanese forward of their perimeter moving across that road in strength towards the east. In an effort to assist Captain Richardson’s D Company to regain the perimeter, Assheton ordered a mortar barrage and a platoon-strength attack. But by around 9.15 am, with a further enemy crossing of the road south of his perimeter and also with their strength increasing, Assheton ordered his men to withdraw to Ama Keng village, with the intent of linking up with Varley and his 2/18th Battalion.
While moving to a position on the 2/20th’s left flank, Captain Ewart’s B Company was ambushed, which saw the Battalion intelligence officer killed and Ewart wounded. After Lieutenant Cornforth’s A Company platoon had attacked and eliminated those Japanese, Cornforth’s men and the B Company remnant pressed on only to find themselves immersed in another fight against the Japanese occupying their objective. The Australians took further casualties. In the confused and desperate fighting which then ensued, Major Merritt’s A Company rearguard (less Cornforth’s platoon) held its ground until around 10.00 am, when as last out, it came under intense enemy machine gun fire from its rear, which caused it to break up into small parties. Cornforth’s platoon meanwhile was joined by Lieutenant-Colonel Assheton and also withdrew. This 2/20th remnant was now ordered by the CO to traverse the swamp country around the River Kranji and attempt to gain Australian lines. In that process, Lieutenant-Colonel Assheton was killed and the party were broken up and scattered, eventually reaching Bukit Panjang village.
We left Captain Richardson’s D Company, 2/20th Battalion still in its positions after having failed to receive Assheton’s earlier order to withdraw to Battalion HQ. When Richardson finally received the order at around 10.30 am on 9 February, his men, accompanied by Lieutenant Wankey’s machine gunners, did in fact gain that perimeter only to find its only occupants long dead. Moving southwards, Richardson’s men reached the River Kankar ‘and ran into a party of Japs who were up trees and lying in the undergrowth’.28 The resulting fight saw the party split into two groups, one consisting of Captain Richardson, his HQ and a part of a platoon which went to the west, while the other (without officers) broke to the east. Richardson’s soldiers crossed the river at its shallow point, despite taking casualties in the process, while the second party suffered the mixed fortune of the strong swimmers assisting the less competent (one or two still drowned), while others had to abandon their packs and weapons to cross.
The 2/20th Battalion’s fighting on its north-west coast perimeter had been against impossible odds, as the greatest concentration of enemy troops had landed on their perimeter. After inflicting telling casualties upon the Japanese—with the sterling assistance of the 2/4th Machine Gun detachment—the 2/20th had been broken up, had lost its command control and had been forced to traverse country that caused many within it to have great difficulties in navigation.
While the 2/20th were thus engaged during the early hours of 9 February, it will be recalled that Lieutenant-Colonel Varley’s 2/18th Battalion had formed a partially occupied battalion perimeter north of Ama Keng to offer a staging point for its incoming troops. Varley then gave orders for his second-in-command to withdraw his HQ to the southern outskirts of Ama Keng, while he went to Taylor’s Brigade HQ to report in. Lieutenant-Colonel Varley:
It was after . . . returning to Bn HQ position, about 20 minutes later, that firing was heard where the enemy had made contact with A Coy and this firing increased as time went on. Simultaneously Major Davis who was acting as Bn 2/ic . . . with Captain Hence, Adjutant, contacted [the] Brigade Commander while establishing Battalion HQ and in the subsequent discussion understood that he was ordered . . . to move Battalion HQ and its personnel . . . to the NW corner of Tengah Aerodrome about 2000 yds further back. This plan was carried out unbeknown to me. I was at this time at Ama Keng village. There was apparently a misunderstanding of the Brigade Commander’s instructions and orders . . . I found myself . . . with about 25 men . . . and therefore not sufficient men to hold this portion of the perimeter should an attack against us be made.29
Varley’s B Company, now greatly under strength, found itself repeatedly in contact with enemy parties. It was unable to reach Battalion HQ, moved off and reached Bukit Timah village without contacting any 22nd Brigade personnel. Incredibly, those luckless soldiers were then gathered in by ‘Admin personnel’ and driven by truck convoy to the General Base Depot. The remainder of the Battalion were then ordered by Brigadier Taylor back to Tengah airfield and thence to the village of Bulim. In this move the 2/10th Field Company performed magnificently in an infantry support role, which facilitated the 2/18th’s withdrawal. Varley’s exhausted Battalion had paid a horrendous price for its unequal battle. After less than 24 hours’ fighting it now numbered slightly less than half its original strength in both officers and other ranks.
The story of the 2/20th and 2/18th Battalions’ withdrawal from Singapore’s north-west coast is tragic enough, but the 2/19th’s passage out was also a terrible ordeal. We left those soldiers in a battalion perimeter in the early hours of 9 February.
When Captain Vincent’s D Company had made its way out of its left flank perimeter to join the remainder of the Battalion at its HQ, its attached 16 Platoon of the 2/4th Machine Gun Battalion, deployed at the water’s edge, had great difficulty withdrawing. After destroying their guns they found Vincent’s Company HQ deserted and set off through enemy-held territory in small groups. Of the 25 members of the platoon, ten were later listed as killed or missing, and six of the remaining fift
een were wounded.30
At around daylight it became clear to Lieutenant-Colonel Robertson that the new Battalion perimeter around his HQ was surrounded. He determined that the only chance the Battalion had was to force a breakthrough towards Tengah. He hoped to achieve this by infantry attacks to the north, east and west sides of the perimeter to gain time and space for his carriers to force an escape route. This would be used by four trucks and two ambulances carrying the critically wounded. It was a forlorn hope—the Japanese had aircraft support, were in strength on an extended ridge covering the main track to the road to Tengah and had concentrated artillery and mortar fire cover of that feature. Robertson hoped that once the pressure upon the perimeter had been eased by the infantry attacks and a penetration of the main enemy ridge position was completed, the carriers and trucks would be able to burst through any further ‘isolated’ enemy positions. The folly of Lieutenant-Colonel Robertson’s earlier move to shift his Battalion HQ just before the enemy landing was now cruelly exposed—the very ridge occupied by the Japanese was, in fact, the site of Anderson’s original Battalion HQ. Anderson had chosen it carefully because it dominated the area, and as such was ideally suited as the Battalion rendezvous point, and as the obvious line of withdrawal. Anderson had chosen it for all the right reasons, and Robertson had abandoned it for all the wrong ones.
The attack went in at about 7.00 am. Although the infantry gained some ground the cost was high. And when the vehicle column moved out, Japanese air strafing, artillery, mortar and small arms fire disabled the lead carrier just as it reached the crest of the ridge, and its occupants were unable to make ground. In scenes reminiscent of Anderson column’s withdrawal to Parit Sulong, the trucks were hit, and a number of their wounded occupants, keen to assist, took up arms and joined in. Amongst them was Lieutenant Dal Ottley, who had undertaken the recce of the mainland on 7 January. His body and many of the wounded from the trucks were found a month later by work parties of Australian POWs. Despite the fact that Sergeant Parramore in the disabled lead carrier continued to fire onto the enemy ridge positions, the Japanese set up a series of roadblocks to the 2/19th rear, and with Parramore now cut off at the front, the position was hopeless. When Major Lloyd Hughes saw Parramore and his carrier troops become pinned down and cut off, he gathered twenty men from HQ Company and attacked. After gaining the ridge he was ‘struck by a machine gun burst, killing him instantly’.31 The 2/19th had lost one of its favourite sons.
Within an hour of that brave but futile action, and with the enemy in such strength to the front on the ridges and in possession of the rear tracks, Robertson decided to attempt to force an escape passage along the rearward swamp line, cross the River Berih and push through to Brigade HQ. Just as this movement was under way, around 50 Japanese broke through the perimeter. Although most were eliminated, a couple found cover and poured telling fire at the Australians. The 2/19th Unit History would later record that:
Major Tom Vincent had about twenty men with him nearby, and they immediately rushed towards the Japanese. They had to cross a small rise in the ground, and as they went forward Major Vincent caught a full blast from one of the enemy light automatics and fell. The remainder of the Japanese were speedily disposed of, but it was one of our worst moments to see Tom Vincent fall.32
The story of those 2/19th Battalion parties that were able to escape their perimeter during the morning of 9 February is one of a slow, laborious passage through the swamp line, assisting their walking wounded, and in the process, being further broken up and scattered. Sergeant Parramore and a couple of his comrades, still cut off at the front stayed, fought, and perished. About a hundred of the Battalion’s badly wounded and those unable to walk were left in the care of the Battalion doctor, Captain Shale and two orderlies. They were not seen again. The 2/19th Battalion estimated its losses at ten officers and 259 other ranks ‘plus the many wounded never recorded, and the missing’.33 Given that Captain Cousens’s A Company had only sustained eight wounded during the Japanese air and artillery bombardments at their Choa Chu Kang village perimeter and had made good their withdrawal from that venue, the 2/19th losses on the coast were very heavy for the three companies committed.
In about twelve hours Brigadier Taylor’s 22nd Brigade AIF had been cut to ribbons and virtually destroyed as a cohesive fighting force.
We now come to the onset of arguably the most controversial issue in the fall of Singapore: stragglers. In his Operations of 8 Australian Division in Malaya, 1941–1942, Colonel Jim Thyer, Bennett’s GSO1, wrote that:
It is important to record that about this time [during the morning of 9 February] a most disturbing report was received at HQ Malaya Command to the effect that there were 2000 AIF troops in Singapore. The Staff Captain of 22 Australian Infantry Brigade was dispatched with transport to collect these men and transfer them to their units. Some stragglers were found, but the number originally stated seems an exaggeration. A check of units ascertained that all the artillery, signals and engineers were still at their posts, the 27 Brigade was intact, Brigadier Taylor still had 300 men of his Brigade with him and 700 men driven out at the landings were at the base depot being re-clothed and re-armed. Some of these had in the first instance been collected in the streets of the city. Nevertheless, there were many fighting men, Australians, British and Indians wandering around the docks attempting to board ships, when their place was at the front.
It was subsequently learnt from the Provost Marshal at Singapore that although there were many troops seeking safety and means of escape, the bulk of the men were stragglers who had come back looking for food and rest.34
The term ‘straggler’ is an ambiguous one, because it is used to describe four distinctly different types of soldiers not with their unit. The first is the soldier genuinely lost and attempting to rejoin his formation; the second applies to wounded men making their way to the rear; the third refers to a soldier who is separated from his unit and cannot be returned to it because of his mental rather than physical condition; but the term also includes a soldier who has no legitimate reason for being absent. In blunt terms, the last is a deserter.
Lieutenant-Colonel Pond had been the 27th Brigade’s Brigade Major. Promoted to command of the 2/29th Battalion after Muar, he observed first hand this last category of ‘stragglers’:
. . . Indians and Australian tps [troops] were moving back through Bn position thus attracting attention from the air. These troops were quite out of control and leaderless and stated that they had had enough. CO [Pond] called on several parties to stop and occupy the line but they would not do so. Men were mainly from 2/19th and 2/20th Bns. One party of about 50 from 2/19th Bn was halted by the CO and it was found that an Offr [sic ‘officer’] (whose name was not taken) was included in it. After great difficulty the party was persuaded to occupy a position but it ultimately vacated it.35
We have noted the tremendous performance of the 2/19th’s survivors of Bakri and Parit Sulong only hours before on that north-west coast.
The men described above were obviously untrained reinforcements. And Pond’s observation of ‘Indians’ as well as Australians is also significant. The Indians must have been ‘stragglers’ from the adjoining 44th Indian Brigade, who had seen very little action the previous night. It will be recalled that Brigadier Ballentine’s very poorly trained 44th Indian Brigade had arrived at Singapore on 22 January, and the Australian reinforcements two days later. Further, although Lieutenant Wankey’s machine gunners had fought bravely on Richardson’s D Company 2/20th shoreline when the withdrawal to the airstrip occurred, six of their number ‘became detached’.36 Major Cough, 2/4th Machine Gun Battalion: ‘In my opinion, becoming detached is a nice way of saying “they shot thru” . . .’37 The point is that the six men described were members of Wankey’s 13 Platoon who had fought tenaciously at the shoreline.38 Clearly, they were not deserters. Here we have an example of the ‘fog of war’ in which there is a tendency to brand anyone who is lost, or cannot find a wi
thdrawal point as a ‘deserter’. In many instances, therefore, the term can constitute an unfair slight upon soldiers who are guilty of being nothing more than utterly confused. And Pond’s 2/29th Battalion was soon to endure its own difficulties due to its massive reinforcements.
As the fighting on Singapore Island becomes ever more desperate over the next few days, the issue of ‘stragglers’ will become more pronounced and controversial.
It was not until around midnight on 8 February that Brigadier Taylor began to receive some idea of the magnitude, and success of, the Japanese landings on his 22nd Brigade front. He immediately contacted Bennett and requested fresh reserves to enable him to counterattack at dawn. Shortly after, Bennett ordered Lieutenant-Colonel Pond’s 2/29th Battalion to move to Tengah airfield and placed it under Taylor’s command; he further ordered the 2/10th Field Regiment to shell the obvious Japanese assembly point across the Strait at the River Skudai; he asked Malaya Command for air support at dawn; and, after ordering the Special Reserve Battalion—formed the day before and now under the command of Major Saggers—and the reserve company of the 2/4th Machine Gun Battalion to ‘stand to’ at 3.00 am on 9 February, he ordered both formations forward to Tengah airfield just over an hour later.
General Percival reacted to the extensive Japanese landings across Taylor’s front at 8.30 am on 9 February. When he discovered that General Heath’s Northern Area had not been attacked, he ordered Brigadier Paris’s 12th Indian Brigade forward to the village of Keat Hong to come under Bennett’s command. As had applied so often during the campaign the term ‘brigade’ is misleading. Percival was, in fact, committing little more than a battalion to the fight. After its dreadful losses at Slim River, the 5/2nd Punjabis had not yet rejoined their Brigade, and the Argylls and Hyderabads could muster but 900 officers and other ranks between them. Further, the 12th Indian Brigade was to be committed as the Malaya Command reserve without its standard artillery support.