Malayan campaign

Malayan campaign. This started on the night of 7/8 December 1941 when elements of the Twenty-Fifth Japanese Army under Lt-General Yamashita, covered by units of Vice-Admiral Kondō's Southern Force, invaded northern Malaya and southern Thailand with the fall of Singapore as their ultimate objective. On the morning of 7 December the Japanese committed the first act of aggression in the Pacific war when a British Catalina flying boat was shot down by land-based aircraft to maintain the secrecy of the invasion fleet's destination.

Yamashita had four divisions at his disposal but, according to one Japanese writer ( M. Tsuji, Singapore 1941–42: The Japanese Version of the Malayan Campaign of World War II, Sydney, NSW, 1960) after considering the fighting capacity of the British Army decided that three divisions would be enough. His force numbered 60,000 men, but as late as 26 December 5th Division still lacked one regiment, 18th Division lacked two regiments and its HQ, and the Imperial Guards Division, which had not seen action since the Russo-Japanese war of 1905, was two-thirds under strength. But the infantry was supported by the guns of Vice-Admiral Ozawa's Malaya Force, by 158 naval aircraft and 459 aircraft of 3rd Air Division, and by 80 tanks, 40 armoured cars, and several regiments of artillery.

By attacking and taking Malaya first, the Japanese were able to assault the great British base of Singapore from the rear, a tactic the defenders were ill-prepared to meet. The British and Indian garrison in Malaya also lacked the mobility of the Japanese on land, they quickly lost control of the sea, and their few air bases were poorly protected.

Instead of coinciding their attack with Pearl Harbor, as had been intended, the Japanese accidentally started their assault early, with Ozawa's warships beginning their bombardment of Kota Bharu in northern Malaya at 0115. Yamashita's troops then made an unopposed diversionary landing there before others began landing at Singora and Patani in southern Thailand, and during the next 48 hours there were more landings on the northern Malayan coast.

To oppose Yamashita the British C-in-C Far East, Air Chief Marshal Brooke-Popham, had some 88,600 Australian, British, Indian, and Malay troops, all commanded by Lt-General Arthur Percival. However, he had only 158 aircraft, mostly obsolete types, available for operations in Malaya, and no tanks. Lt-General Lewis Heath's 3rd Corps comprising the 9th and 11th Indian Divisions, and 28th Independent Infantry Brigade, was entrusted with the defence of northern Malaya, while the 8th Australian Division, commanded by Maj-General Bennett, defended Johore. Two infantry brigades were kept in Singapore with a third in reserve.

A pre-war plan (MATADOR) to occupy the Singora–Patani area of Thailand, to prevent just such a Japanese landing, was not implemented for political reasons; and an alternative, to occupy defensive positions around Jitra, was not ordered until ten hours after the Japanese had landed, a delay which proved disastrous. Because MATADOR was not activated Japanese aircraft were able to operate from the airfields at Singora and Patani, as well as from southern French Indo-China, and these soon wrought havoc amongst forward British air bases where air craft were often caught on the ground. To add to the defenders' problems the Prince of Wales and the Repulse, two of the Royal Navy's most powerful warships, were sunk by Japanese air craft after they had left Singapore to attack the Japanese beachheads.

Yamashita's 5th Division crossed to the west coast; the Imperial Guards Division occupied Bangkok; and elements of 18th Division, the Koba and Takumi Detachments, attacked along the east coast. The 5th Division's advance guard, the equivalent of only two battalions, supported by a tank company, swept aside 11th Division—many of whose poorly-trained Indian troops had never even seen a tank—at Jitra. Though not trained in jungle warfare, the 5th and 18th Japanese Divisions were battle-hardened veterans from the fighting in the China incident. They were more mobile than the defenders—they used bicycles on the excellent roads—and were often helped by a compliant Malayan civil population, and they moved south with spectacular speed. Time and again the British were outflanked, sometimes by seaborne landings from small boats, sometimes by attacks through the jungle, and on 11 January 1942, with the help of the Imperial Guards Division which had joined 5th Division on 24 December, the capital Kuala Lumpur fell.

The 3rd corps now withdrew to Johore. A new force, ‘Westforce’, comprising elements of the 8th Australian and 9th Indian Divisions, was formed under Bennett to halt the main Japanese advance; and nine days later ‘Eastforce’, comprising 22nd Australian Brigade and other units, was formed under Heath to halt the Japanese advance down the east coast. But they were quickly swept aside and by 31 January all British forces had withdrawn to Singapore.

With the fall of Singapore, the Malayan campaign was the Japanese Army's most brilliant campaign of the war. By advancing 965 km. (600 mi.) in 54 days, at a cost of under 10,000 casualties, Yamashita inflicted a crushing and ignominious defeat on the British from which their Far East empire never recovered. British casualties were 38,496, Australian 18,490, Indian 67,340, local volunteer groups 14,382. These casualties totalled 138,708 of whom more than 130,000 were prisoners-of-war.