History of the Second World War (39 page)

General Homma at first refused to accept such a local surrender while American and Filipino detachments in the southern islands continued to maintain a guerrilla-type struggle, as were others in the more remote parts of Luzon. Wainwright then agreed to order a general surrender, for fear that the now disarmed garrison of Corregidor would be massacred. But some of these detachments still refused to comply — in loyalty to MacArthur’s urgings, from Australia, and it was not until June 9 that their resistance ceased.

The Americans had lost some 30,000 troops in the campaign, and their Filipino allies some 110,000. While a large proportion of the latter had melted away by desertion, the total of both who surrendered on the Bataan peninsula was about 80,000, and a further 15,000 on Corregidor. The Japanese casualties, though more difficult to determine, seem to have been only about 12,000, apart from the sick.

Nevertheless, despite the initial collapse, the defenders of the Philippines eventually held out much longer than anywhere else — four months on Bataan, and six months in all — although they had no effective support or supply from outside the Philippines.

THE FALL OF MALAYA — AND SINGAPORE

In the Japanese plan, the task of conquering Malaya and Singapore was allotted to General Yamashita’s 25th Army, comprising three divisions with supporting troops — a combat strength of about 70,000, and a total strength of about 110,000. Moreover the sea-transports available only sufficed to carry a quarter of the force direct across the Gulf of Siam — 17,000 combat troops, and 26,000 in all. This advanced fraction was to seize the northern airfields. The bulk of Yamashita’s army was to move overland, from Indo-China through Thailand and down the Kra Isthmus to reinforce the seaborne force as soon as possible, then pursuing the advance down the west coast of the Malay Peninsula.

Outwardly, it was a remarkably small expedition for such a far-reaching aim — and indeed less in numbers than the British total of 88,000 under General Percival defending Malaya (composed of 19,000 British troops, 15,000 Australian, 37,000 Indian, and 17,000 Malays). But these were a mixed lot, poorly equipped and trained in comparison with Yamashita’s three divisions — the Imperial Guards, the 5th, and the 18th — were among the best in the whole Japanese Army. They were supported by 211 tanks — whereas the British in Malaya had none — and 560 aircraft — nearly four times as many as the British aircraft in Malaya, while much superior in quality. Moreover, the Japanese reckoned that the monsoon, prevailing from November to March, would hinder British moves to counter their advance, as during this bad weather only the better roads would be passable. They also reckoned that the mountainous backbone of Malaya, up to 7,000 feet high and covered with dense jungle, would split the defence, and aid their intended switch from the east coast to the west.

The basic irony of the British dispositions was that the ground forces were widely dispersed to guard airfields that contained no adequate air force, and that these airfields had been built to cover a naval base that contained no fleet. The Japanese were to be the main beneficiaries from both airfields and naval base.

The chief Japanese landings were made at Singora and Patani on the Thai neck of the Malay Peninsula, with four subsidiary landings farther north on the coast of Thailand. The third in importance of the landings was made at Kota Bharu, just inside the frontier of Malaya. This force was intended, after seizing the British airfield there, to carry out a diversionary move down the east coast while the main advance was being made down the west coast. These landings were made in the early hours of December 8, local time — the landing at Kota Bharu, by a force of 5,500 Japanese, was actually over an hour before the stroke at Pearl Harbor. The airfield there was abandoned to the Japanese after a short fight, while those in Thai territory were taken still more easily. The intended British forestalling advance, ‘Operation Matador’, started too late because of reluctance to cross the frontier before Thailand’s neutrality had been violated by the Japanese. British air reconnaissance had discovered a Japanese fleet in the Gulf of Siam on December 6, but bad weather obscured its further moves, and aims. The preparatory moves for the ‘Matador’ offensive merely upset British dispositions for defence. By the morning of December 10 the Japanese 5th Division had already swung across to the west coast and penetrated the frontier of Malaya, advancing by two roads into Kedah.

That day a decisive disaster befell the British at sea.

After the decision in July to cut off Japan’s oil supplies, Winston Churchill had belatedly ‘realised the formidable effects of the embargoes’ and a month later, on August 25, proposed the despatch of what he called a ‘deterrent’ naval force to the East. The Admiralty were planning to assemble there the
Nelson,
the
Rodney,
and four older battleships, together with a battlecruiser and two to three aircraft-carriers. Churchill preferred to employ ‘the smallest number of the best ships’, and proposed to send one of the new
King George V
type battleships, with a battlecruiser and an aircraft-carrier, telling the Admiralty, on August 29:

I cannot feel that Japan will face the combination now forming against her of the United States, Great Britain, and Russia. . . . Nothing would increase her hesitation more than the appearance of the force I mentioned, and above all a
K.G.V.
This might indeed be a decisive deterrent.*

* Churchill:
The Second World War,
vol. III, p. 774.

Accordingly the
Prince of Wales
and the battlecruiser
Repulse
sailed for Singapore — but without any aircraft-carrier. The one that had been earmarked ran ashore in Jamaica and had to be docked for repairs. There was another actually in the Indian Ocean, and within reach of Singapore, but no orders were given for her to move there. Thus the two big ships had to depend for air cover upon shore-based fighters, and these were scanty — even apart from the early loss of the northern airfields.

The
Prince of Wales
and
Repulse
reached Singapore on December 2, and next day Admiral Sir Tom Phillips arrived to take command of the ‘Far Eastern Fleet’. On the 6th, as already mentioned, a large Japanese convoy of transports was reported to be sailing from Indo-China in the direction of Malaya. By midday on the 8th Phillips heard that they were disembarking their troops at Singora and Kota Bahru, covered by at least one battleship of the
Kongo
class, five cruisers, and twenty destroyers. In the late afternoon Phillips gallantly sailed north with what was called Force Z — his two big ships and an escort of four destroyers — to strike at the transports, although no shore-based air cover could be provided so far north now that the airfields there were lost.

In the evening of the 9th the weather cleared, and with it Phillips’s cloak of obscurity. His Force Z was spotted from the air, so he turned south and headed for Singapore. But that night a signal came from there reporting, mistakenly, that a Japanese landing had been made at Kuantan, a midway point. Reckoning that surprise might be possible, and the risk justified, he altered course for Kuantan.

The Japanese were well prepared for any interception move by Force Z, whose arrival at Singapore had been broadcast to the world. Their elite 22nd Air Flotilla, with the best pilots of the Naval Air Arm, was based on the airfields near Saigon, in the south of Indo-China. Moreover, a patrol line of twelve submarines covered the approaches from Singapore to Kota Bharu and Singora. Already, in the early afternoon of the 9th, Force Z’s northward move had been sighted and reported by the most easterly submarine of this screen. When the report came, the 22nd Air Flotilla, which had been preparing for a raid on Singapore, hurriedly exchanged its bombs for torpedoes and set off for a night attack on Force Z, but failed to find it because of Phillips’s southward turn. However the air flotilla set off again just before dawn, and this time Force Z was found, near Kuantan. The Japanese employed thirty-four high-level bombers and fifty-one torpedo-bombers, the former opening the attack soon after 1100 hours and the latter following, in successive waves. Both kinds of bombing proved remarkably accurate — despite the fact that it was against ships manoeuvring at high speed, not static and taken by surprise as at Pearl Harbor. Moreover the
Prince of Wales
with 175 anti-aircraft guns could pump out 60,000 shells a minute. Both ships were sunk, the
Repulse
by 1230 and the
Prince of Wales
by 1320. The escorting destroyers managed to save over 2,000 men out of 2,800 in the two ships’ crews, though Admiral Phillips himself was among those lost. The Japanese abstained from interference with the rescue work. They lost only three aircraft.

Before the war the heads of the Admiralty had scorned the idea that battleships could be sunk by air attack, and Churchill had tended to support their view. The delusion even persisted until the fatal days of December 1941. Moreover, as Churchill wrote: ‘The efficiency of the Japanese in air warfare was at this time greatly under-estimated both by ourselves and by the Americans.’*

* Churchill:
The Second World War,
vol. III, p. 551.

This stroke settled the fate of Malaya — and Singapore. The Japanese were able to continue their landings unchecked, and establish air bases ashore. The superiority of their air force over the meagre British air strength in Malaya was decisive in crumbling the resistance of the British troops and enabling their own troops to push down the Malay Peninsula and force the backdoor into Singapore. Its fall was the consequence of earlier oversight and misjudgement — mainly in London.

From December 10 onwards, the British retreat down the west coast became almost continuous. Road blocks such as the large one at Jitra were either overcome by Japanese tanks and artillery or by flank threat from Japanese infantry infiltrating through the bordering jungle. The commander in northern Malaya, General Heath, hoped to make a stand on the Perak River, but this line was turned by the Japanese column thrusting obliquely down from Patani. A strong position behind, at Kampar, was turned by flank action from the sea that was carried out by troops using small craft captured in the advance.

On December 27, Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Pownall took over as C.-in-C. Far East from Air Chief Marshal Sir Robert Brooke-Popham.

The British fell back at the beginning of January to the Slim River, covering Selangor Province, and the approaches to the southern airfields near Kuala Lumpur. But on the night of the 7th/8th a company of Japanese tanks broke through the ill-organised defence and raced on to seize the road-bridge — which was nearly twenty miles beyond the front line. The British troops north of the river were cut off, losing some 4,000 troops and their equipment — at a cost to the Japanese of only six tanks and a few infantry. The 11th Indian Division was shattered. The disaster entailed the early abandonment of central Malaya and jeopardised the chance of holding northern Johore long enough for adequate reinforcements to reach Singapore by sea from the Middle East.

On the very day of the disaster General Wavell arrived in Singapore on his way to Java to take up the new, emergency post of Supreme Commander, A.B.D.A. (American, British, Dutch, Australian) Command. Pownall then became Chief of Staff A.B.D.A., Far East Headquarters being abolished. Wavell decided that the defence was now to be based on Johore, the best troops and the reinforcements being kept there. That meant a quicker withdrawal, instead of the gradual one planned by General Percival. Kuala Lumpur was abandoned on January 11, and the bottleneck position at Tampin on the 13th (instead of the 24th). It also, by giving the Japanese access to the better road system in Johore, enabled them to employ two divisions simultaneously, instead of in turn — which nullified a tough defence of Gemas by the Australians. Thus the withdrawal through Johore became even quicker than intended.

Meanwhile, a corresponding withdrawal of the British force on the east coast had led to the abandonment of Kuantan and its airfield on January 6; of Endau on the 21st, following a seaborne threat; and by the 30th both ‘Eastforce’ and ‘Westforce’ were back at the extreme southern end of the Malay Peninsula. The rearguards crossed the straits next night, into Singapore Island. The Japanese Army Air Force, less effective than the Naval air arm, had done little to harry the retreat, and only proved effective against airfields.

Thus the Japanese had conquered Malaya in fifty-four days. Their total casualties were only about 4,600 — whereas the British had lost about 25,000 (mainly prisoners), and a large quantity of equipment.

It was on the night of Sunday, February 8, 1942, that the two leading divisions of the Japanese invading force, which had swept down the 500-mile length of the Malay Peninsula, crossed the narrow channel which separates Singapore Island from the mainland. The crossing was made on an eight-mile stretch of the thirty-mile straits, which here were less than a mile in width. This sector was held by three battalions of the 22nd Australian Brigade.

Armoured landing craft carried the first waves of attackers, but the rest followed in any sort of boats that could be collected, and a number of the Japanese even swam across — with their rifles and ammunition. Some of the craft were sunk, but most of the assault troops landed safely, helped by failures on the defenders’ side that have never been satisfactorily explained. The beach searchlights were not employed, means of communication failed or were not used, and the artillery was slow to put down its intended curtain of defensive fire.

By daylight 13,000 Japanese were ashore, and the Australians had fallen back to inland positions. Before midday the invaders’ strength had risen to more than 20,000, and they had established a deep lodgement in the north-western part of the island. Later a third Japanese division landed, making the total well over 30,000.