Singapore, an island south
of the Malay peninsula, was acquired by
the East India Company in 1819. It was decided
in 1938 to build the Changi Naval Base on the
island. Despite the fears of a Japanese invasion the base was
only defended by a small force of Allied soldiers.
On 7th December the Japanese
Army began arriving at Kota Bharu. This was just a diversionary
force and the the main landings in the Malay
peninsula did not take place until the next day at Singora and Patani
on the north-east coast. Under the command of General Tomoyuki
Yamashita, the Japanese 18th Division, made rapid progress as
they forced Allied troops to retreat south.
The British
Army in Malaya did not have any tanks whereas the Japanese
had over two hundred. The Japanese
Air Force were also able to carry out a series of air attacks
on Allied positions. Unsuccessful attempts were made to halt the advance
of General Tomoyuki Yamashita at Perak
River, Kampar and the Muar River.
On 25th January 1942, General
Arthur Percival gave orders for a general
retreat across the Johore Strait to the island of Singapore. The island
was difficult to defend and on 8th February, 13,000 Japanese troops
landed on the northwest corner of the island. The next day another
17,000 arrived in the west. Percival, moved his soldiers to the southern
tip of the island but on 15th February he admitted defeat and surrendered
his 138,000 soldiers to the Japanese.
It was Britain's most humiliating
defeat of the war. Percival and his troops remained prisoners of the
Japanese until just before the end of the Second
World War.
(1)
George
Orwell, BBC radio broadcast (20th
December 1941)
With
the fall of Singapore, the war in the Far East enters into its second
phase.
It is evident that the Japanese now have two main objectives: one
is to cut the Burma Road, in hopes of thus knocking China out of the
war, and the other is to widen the sphere of Japanese control in the
Western Pacific, to such an extent that the Allies shall have no air
or naval bases within attacking distance of Japan. In order to achieve
this plan completely, the Japanese would have to control the whole
of the East Indies, the whole of Burma, Northern Australia and probably
New Zealand and Hawaii. Could they control all these areas, they would
have eliminated the danger of British or American counter-attack for
the time being, though even then their safety would depend on keeping
Russia out of the war. They are not likely to attain the whole even
of these objectives, but they may go some way towards it, and it is
clear that their first step must be the conquest of Rangoon and of
the big seaports of Java. The battle in Burma is already raging, and
the attack on Java is obviously imminent.
We cannot say yet how the
battle in Burma will end. The Japanese have advanced, but not very
rapidly, and the British have been reinforced both with aeroplanes
and with Chinese troops. The supply difficulties which decided the
issue in Malaya are less acute in the Burma area. If Rangoon should
fall, that is an end not actually of the Burma Road, but of the present
route by which supplies can reach the Burma Road from India or from
Britain. The capture of Rangoon by the Japanese would not end the
campaign in Burma because in this case the direction of the Japanese
advance must be northward, and there is no question of the Allied
army being driven into the sea.
Available from Amazon Books
(order below)
