Out in the Midday Sun

by Margaret Shennan

  Though he had been urged by Wavell to continue the fight to the limit of human endurance, Percival foresaw the possibility of mass reprisals against the civilian population in the event of prolonged resistance and the risk of raging epidemics with the imminent loss of water supplies. With no let-up in the bombing, machine-gunning and shelling, the General consulted his key defence advisers and senior commanders and reluctantly concluded that the only humane course was to negotiate a ceasefire. A deputation led by the Colonial Secretary was rejected out of hand by the Japanese. They insisted that the British High Commander should come in person to their General Headquarters in the former Ford Works at Bukit Timah. The unique picture of British officers, led by General Percival, bearing a white flag alongside the Union Jack as they marched to surrender to a triumphant General Yamashita and his staff appeared in newspapers around the world. It was Sunday 15 February a day which marked Britain’s worst military capitulation on record: some 130,000 British and Commonwealth troops were now prisoners.50 Tom Kitching summed up the universal feeling: ‘from whatever angle you look at this débâcle … the manner of the fall of Singapore provides the blackest page in the History of the British Empire’.51

  A ceasefire was agreed for 8.30 p.m. ‘Then came that unbelievable silence – unheralded and uncanny. It was heavenly in its relief, but ominous in its foreboding’, wrote G. H. Wade of the Medical Auxiliary Service.52 ‘That Sunday of capitulation I wept some bitter tears,’ wrote Constance Sleep.53 ‘So the “Fortress” of Singapore has fallen in one week! It all seems like a dream,’ wrote an incredulous Tom Kitching.54 Bitter disbelief swept over some of the keenest Volunteers. When the message came from his superior officer, ‘At first I didn’t quite catch what he had said and thought it was the enemy who had surrendered,’ was Bombardier Hay’s first reaction.55 ‘I was absolutely shocked; had never dreamt of surrender,’ Guy Hutchinson admitted. It was his job to tell his section. ‘I started to weep and told Pendrigh [his second in command] to tell the chaps while I went off to pull myself together.’56 John Soper similarly found it impossible to face his platoon: ‘I broke down completely with tears in my eyes and my voice just refusing to produce a sound of any description.’57

  Malaya Command gave out in a circular to all troops that shortage of stores and ammunition had forced the surrender. Seething anger might have overtaken shock had they known the truth. Some Britons began to suspect it the next day, seeing ‘a most extraordinary situation. British troops all over the place. Fully armed … And yet we have surrendered. And the number of Jap troops to be seen is absolutely negligible.’58 Ironically, in his last letter to his wife Lieutenant Alex Cullen had posed a hypothesis: I’m wondering if they [the Japanese] have the stuff to do it. It seems quite possible that their comparatively meagre resources are strained to the limit … Or is that wishful thinking?’59 The same thought struck Bombardier Hay. At the time of the surrender, ‘They could only have a small force on the island and it seemed quite possible that they had been outflanked.’60 Neither he nor Cullen nor Percival knew of Yamashita’s anxiety that Japan’s shock troops might be overstretched. ‘My attack on Singapore was a bluff,’ the Japanese commander wrote in his diary – ‘a bluff that worked … I was very frightened all the time that the British would discover our numerical weakness and lack of supplies and force me into disastrous street fighting.’61 He had gambled on the British propensity to misjudge the situation – and won.

  In the hiatus after the ceasefire some men made their getaway to the harbour. Even at this late hour a few made their way by boat to Sumatra and ultimately to Ceylon. As the darkness deepened, an unnatural calm reigned, ‘but most of us were overtired and too keyed up to sleep well’, wrote Soper.62 ‘11 p.m. … I lock my room’, recorded Kitching, ‘and sleep in the main survey office on four aspirins and a stiff stengah.’63 Somehow Wade and his medical colleagues found something to celebrate. ‘That night we had steak and kidney pudding, Xmas pudding and strawberries and cream all out of a tin for our “Surrender Dinner”’, followed the next morning by pork sausages, macaroni and haggis for their ‘Internment Breakfast’.64 They could not have known that these would be their last square meals for three and a half years.

  Why did Britain lose Malaya? Why did Singapore fall? Those who paid for the disaster with their freedom were driven by a need to know, and, as soon as the news of the capitulation circulated, ‘Around the imaginary camp fires there then began the first of an interminable series of recriminations, trying to place the blame for our failure.’65 As one man bitterly protested, 15 February was ‘the disastrous day that took all the prizes of life away from us’.66 As if to pre-empt a flood of criticism against the military, two days after Singapore fell General Wavell asserted that ‘The trouble goes a long way back: the climate, the atmosphere of the country (the whole of Malaya has been asleep for at least 200 years) …’67 However, this teleological argument had no appeal. The handling of the campaign did not reflect well on senior officers of the armed forces, who stood accused of defeatism, lack of co-ordination, complete chaos at headquarters, and a lack of leadership and foresight. Answers were called for to assuage ‘the feelings of those who suffered in the darkness of what they considered to be incompetence’.

  Why were our two capital ships, ‘Prince of Wales’ and ‘Repulse’ … allowed to go outside the zone of our air defence even after the accuracy of Jap bombing had been amply demonstrated? Why were 18th Division ever brought into a battle which had already been lost? Was it mere pigheadedness on the part of somebody in the War House? Or was it done on incorrect information supplied by Malaya Command? … Why were there no heavy up-to-date A.A. [anti-aircraft] guns to defend such an important fortress? Why was no determined effort made to study, counter and prepare our fresh troops against Jap tactics, especially as regards noise? … Why, after wasting valuable troops by sending them to Singapore was the Navy’s offer to evacuate a large number of them refused? Was it because Command were incapable of organising such a withdrawal?68

  General Percival’s official explanation for the surrender – shortage of stores and ammunition – cut little ice. ‘He might have added total lack of air support and a non-existent Navy,’ noted prisoner of war Captain Henry Malet, and the fact that ‘the 18th Division which arrived a few days before the end were totally untried troops pitchforked into a pretty chaotic muddle and were only trained for desert warfare. The last 4,000 Australian reinforcements had had 3 weeks’ training and had never even fired their rifles in practice!’69 Inevitably, people cast about for stones to throw, and the most vulnerable figure was General Percival, the commander on the spot. After his eventual release at the end of the war his military career was over, and his reputation has never been fully rehabilitated.70

  So far as prisoner of war John Soper was concerned, the General and his staff officers were responsible for ‘an incompetent and unimaginative command, incapable of rising above red tape and a military orthodoxy based on out-of-date ideas’ so that defeat was inevitable. To illustrate this point, it was

  a day or two after the landing on Singapore island when things were extremely critical that an order came round about dress. It had been noticed that some of the troops, both officers and O.R.s [other ranks], were going about slackly and dirtily dressed: this must cease forthwith, and correct dress must at all times be worn. Slovenly habits would have a bad effect on the civilian population. Even at a time of crisis it was impossible to overcome the ingrained belief, so assiduously cultivated in the army, that the outward appearance of a thing is the only part that matters.

  It was this failure of perception that inhibited proper jungle training, the use of amphibious attacks (of the kind carried out once, in late December 1941 by a mixed naval group on the Perak coast, code name Roseforce), and the exploitation of other guerrilla tactics; it was this absence of imagination that had prevented the British from maximizing the services of the Chinese against the Japanese in Malaya. Those Chinese Communists who we
re enlisted as irregulars in Dalforce fought with the utmost tenacity and heroism, but ‘in Singapore alone their strength could easily have been trebled and the upcountry potentialities were entirely untapped’.71

  This was no maverick view. It was shared by Major Spencer Chapman, who spent the rest of the war with the Chinese guerrillas and agreed with the Chinese judgement that, if the Governor and the GOC had implemented a scheme put to them in August 1941 by the Special Operations Executive for Asian stay-behind-parties under British officers, the Japanese advance could have been delayed until the 18th Division and RAF reinforcements were deployed. As for the controversial commander of the Australian Imperial Forces, remarkably, news reached the prisoners in Singapore that, in the search for scapegoats, ‘Feeling in Australia ran very high against General Gordon Bennett, who escaped with his staff before the end. In other words, he was nearly lynched.’72 According to the evidence of a British Volunteer in the same escape party, the General’s nerve cracked on the flight from Singapore.73 He was the second senior commander for whom the strain had proved too much – Air Vice-Marshal Pulford being the other.74 Inside the confines of the military headquarters at Fort Canning and Government House, the debilitating personality clashes between the leading figures – Brooke-Popham, Duff Cooper, Wavell, Shenton Thomas and Colonial Secretary Stanley Jones – and the absurd transience of their responsibilities, had undermined cohesive command.75 The leaders encapsulated the mistrust between civilians, who felt they belonged in Malaya, and the servicemen who had been arbitrarily posted there. Even in the most desperate of situations – on Pompong Island, for instance, after the sinking of the Kuala – the hostility between RAF Squadron Leader Farwell and Group Captain Nunn of the Straits Settlements Volunteer Air Force exposed the intense dislike felt by the civilian group of survivors towards the regular services. Civilian Kenneth Brundle, who was there, explains:

  These extreme feelings were symptomatic of the times. Everybody wanted someone to blame for the Malayan campaign fiasco. The first hate was against the Australians because so many of them appeared to be drunken deserters during the late days of February, and secondly the R.A.F. because it was believed that most of their aircraft had been destroyed on the ground with little effort made to get them airborne. Also it was known that when they retreated from their airfields, they failed to destroy aircraft under repair and left their maintenance tools on the ground. (I actually saw this at a Singapore airfield.) Apportioning blame became a prime pastime on the island … The survivors were desperate.76

  The British press had meanwhile added fuel to the fire by denigrating both civilians and service commanders for failing to harness the support of the Malay people. This accusation aroused deep indignation in Europeans like Tom Kitching, who wrote angrily in his diary:

  The home papers are furious about Malaya, but the height of absurdity is reached by the ‘Daily Express’ which says ‘Whisky-swilling planters and military birds of passage forgot that the Malay has the makings of the finest soldier in the East’ … Ye Gods! Even for the ‘Daily Express’ this is the utterest of utter tripe. The Malay Police have ratted all over the place, the Volunteers have refused to fight.77

  It was true that by the New Year of 1942 the Malay Volunteer platoons had disbanded en masse, but those who knew the Malay people well did not necessarily blame them for this action.78 It has since become obvious that the Malayan disaster was the responsibility of the Europeans, not the Asian races.

  This is probably the only point of common agreement. For the rest, the debate continues even after fifty years or more. Duff Cooper’s charge against the Malayan Civil Service – that it ‘failed lamentably in making adequate preparations for War’ – was repeated with relish in the 1990s by the military historian Corelli Barnett, who vilified the Service as ‘a handful of imperial rulers in white duck or khaki drill whose minds (with rare exceptions) were ossified by the arrogance of race and empire and hierarchical snobberies of colonial society, and whose energies had been unsprung by long service in damp heat, by a social round lubricated by an excess of gin-slings and stengahs’.79

  Since then, Peter Elphick and Michael Smith have introduced a new inflection to the debate by demonstrating how the treachery of an army officer – turned mole – helped to precipitate the initial loss of airpower in northern Malaya.80

  However, British Malayans continued to believe, with some justice, that their civil government was repeatedly hamstrung by Whitehall in its efforts to meet the demands of war, and that the loss of Malaya and Singapore was the responsibility of the armed services and the result of decisions made at home in Britain. The consequence was a deep legacy of bitterness. In the words of Constance Sleep, ‘We who remained in Malaya must feel bitter about it until the end of our lives – we still feel that Malaya and we who remained in it were sacrificed.’81 And Leslie Froggatt asserted, ‘London has never experienced, and will never understand, the reactions of the European in the Far East when the Japs came in … and above all, that bitter sense of betrayal.’82 A Volunteer prisoner, Captain Malet, tried to rationalize the situation: ‘we know we were sacrificed for Libya and the European fronts, and rightly, too, probably, but it is a bit hard on the likes of us who lived in the country’.83 To Malet’s fellow Malayans (for he himself did not survive his ordeal), it was galling to have to live with the knowledge that in the eyes of the British government around 18,000 British and Allied civilians were expendable – used ‘like the instalments of hire purchase to keep an Empire’.84

  Photographs

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  1. The pavilion of the Singapore Cricket Club: its commanding position on the Padang reflected the significance of the club to the European colonial society. Founded in 1861, it had a membership of 666 by 1907, and its imposing new pavilion provided a theatrical setting for members and their ladies.

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  2. Ladies’ Day at the Penang Swimming Club. The original clubhouse was an ‘old rambling wooden house by the Pagar on the beach’.

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  3. Guthrie & Co., Singapore: after eighty years of successful commercial trading in the East, the Scottish firm was housed in new head offices and acquired new godowns on Havelock Road by the Singapore river. As a result of expanding business in the rubber boom of 1906-12, Guthrie’s also opened an office in Kuala Lumpur in 1910.

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  4. An open-cast tin mine in the 1920s. This view shows the layout of the Lingui tin mine, Johore. The pontoon, a large shed housing the steam engine, can be seen on the right. From the sluice boxes (top centre), the tin dust, separated from the waste, is channelled down the chute into pans and then bagged to be transported for smelting.

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  5. Swettenham Wharf, Penang, a regular port of call for passenger liners and freight steamers.

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  6. This roomy wooden bungalow, built in traditional Malay style, with a large garden, was an imposing family home for the Manager of the Lingui tin mine in South Johore in the inter-war years.

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  7. Life in Singapore in the 1930s: a view of the ground-floor interior of the Snell family’s new residence in Adam Park, Singapore.

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  8. A reception at Government House, Singapore, 1933: an invitation to an official garden party was highly prized. Here Mr and Mrs Snell are introduced to the Governor, Sir Cecil Clementi, and Lady Clementi.

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  9. The visit of the Duke of Gloucester, 20 April 1929: a limousine carrying the Duke is watched by curious bystanders of all races as it sweeps towards Orchard Road during his official visit to Singapore.

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  10. Singapore Swimming Club, Tanjong Rhu: a view of the children’s pool. In the background is the large blue-tiled adult pool with diving boards and surrounding tables shaded by umbrellas, which made it one of the most popular venues in Singapore.

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  11. The King’s Birthday Parade, 1931, was celebrated in Singapore with a march-past on the Padang, against the backcl
oth of St Andrew’s Cathedral (right) and City Hall (left).

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  12. The mems taking afternoon tea: a gathering of friends and neighbours at the home of Mrs Kathleen Price (centre) in Butterworth. The children, meanwhile, were having tea a short distance away in the garden with their amahs, c. 1937.

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  13. In the inter-war years, fancydress balls and parties were all the rage. John Soper, dressed as Robin Hood, and his wife Marjorie, as Maid Marian, enjoy an evening’s fun at the Butterworth Club with their neighbours, the Fergusons.

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  14. Guests attend the open-air reception of Alex and Dorothy Cullen (centre front table), following their wedding at the Presbyterian Church, Orchard Road, in June 1931, where the bride’s father, Revd Stephen Band, was minister.

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  15. In the 1920s and 30s, estates and tin mines sometimes had private swimming pools and tennis courts. Here a group at the Tengkil tin mine in South Johore arrange a foursome for a late afternoon game of tennis.