Singapore, fall of

Singapore, fall of. This British colony, an island base at the tip of the Malayan peninsula, commanded vital sea routes through the Orient and Netherlands East Indies, and also guarded India from the east and Australia from the north. The construction of the base between the wars was slow, and in many ways inadequate, and was hindered by Churchill's cutting expenditure on it during his time as chancellor of the exchequer (1924–9). Its capture by the Japanese—after Churchill had urged the garrison to fight to the last and implement a scorched earth policy if the island should look like falling—was, in Churchill's words, ‘the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history’.

By 31 January 1942, after their defeat in the Malayan campaign, the British forces had completed their withdrawal across the Johore Straits to Singapore. To defend the base GOC Malaya Command, Lt-General Arthur Percival, divided the island into three sectors. The southern was defended by two Malay and one Straits Settlements volunteer brigades; the western by 8th Australian Division (two brigades) and 44th Indian Infantry Brigade; and the northern by 3rd Corps comprising 11th Indian Division (two brigades), which included the remnants of 9th Indian Division (two brigades). Shortly before the Japanese attacked the newly arrived 18th British Division (three brigades) was also added to the garrison, but took little part in the fighting. Altogether, 13 brigades comprising some 70,000 fighting troops, plus 15,000 administrative and unarmed personnel, were available to Percival. But because he decided—and it was a difficult choice to make—to defend all 112 km. (70 mi.) of the coastline, there were inadequate forces where the Japanese landed and too small a mobile reserve to drive them back into the sea once ashore. It was the first of many errors of judgement.

Although called a fortress, and thought to be one by Churchill and by others who should have known better, Singapore was nothing of the sort. The permanent fixed defences had been primarily designed to guard the naval base from seaward attack; and though the guns could be traversed to fire inland they did not have the ancillary equipment or correct ammunition for land warfare. Defences constructed in Johore in case of attack from across the straits were incomplete but it had, anyway, been generally thought that 320 km. (200 mi.) of Malayan jungle made the island impregnable from that direction. Most of the formations defending the island were under strength, newly arrived, or contained half-trained troops, and sometimes all three. Many had taken part in the defeat on the mainland and were demoralized and short of weapons. Available air cover was far less than the planners had stipulated as necessary and the Japanese were able to make their preparations with little interference.

Opposing the defenders were 35,000 Japanese troops of Lt General Yamashita's Twenty-Fifth Army, well supported by aircraft and tanks. During the night of 8/9 February 1942 elements of the battle-hardened 5th and 18th Divisions landed on the north-west coast and the next evening the Imperial Guards Division began landing just west of the Causeway. They came ashore in great strength and though there were isolated, and spirited, counter-attacks, and some of the defenders fought tenaciously, it was soon obvious that the island's defence had been poorly planned, was being badly executed, and that its participants were disheartened.

By 12 February 1942 the situation seemed irretrievable and Percival ordered the formation of a perimeter around Singapore town. This did nothing to improve the spirit of those fighting outside it, while in it the numbers of armed deserters mounted, panic-stricken refugees flooded in, the water supply was damaged by bombing, civil labour had been withdrawn, and morale began to disintegrate. At a conference on 15 February Percival commented that it was pointless to remain on the defensive: he either had to go on to the offensive or capitulate. He favoured the former but his commanders did not; that afternoon he surrendered unconditionally and 14,000 Australian, 16,000 British, and 32,000 Indian troops became prisoners-of-war; many of the last joined the Japanese-sponsored Indian National Army. It was an ignominious end, particularly as Yamashita had outrun his supplies and probably would have had to withdraw before a determined counter-attack. But for Yamashita—whose casualties amounted to 1,714 killed and 3,378 wounded—it was the culmination of a brilliant campaign that ranked, alongside the capture of the Malayan peninsula, as the Japanese Army's most outstanding achievement of the war. See also Brooke-Popham.

Bibliography

Allen, L. , Singapore 1941–42 (London, 1977).
MacIntyre, W. , The Rise and Fall of the Singapore Naval Base 1919–1942 (London, 1979).