Battle Story (3 page)

There were other, less dramatic factors in leading Japan to adopt a war policy. The conflict in China had not been as swift or as straightforward as had been anticipated. One of the political justifications for attacking the British and the Americans was that both powers would be forced to reduce their support for the Chiang Kai-shek’s forces. This was less than realistic since Chiang was much more reliant on support from the Soviet Union, but it did have a certain appeal to popular opinion in Japan and the news media – totally under Japanese government control – encouraged the belief that the Chinese forces would be mortally weakened by the loss of American aid. Similarly, there was a view that the Chinese government was heavily reliant on the fundraising activities of the Chinese diaspora of merchants and professionals across South Asia generally, but in Singapore and Malaya in particular. This was not unfounded; the Chinese communities did raise substantial sums for the war effort at home, but certainly
not enough to have a profound effect on China’s ability to resist the Japanese invasion. In reality, fundraising in the British colonies and American contributions to the Chinese government were insignificant issues compared to the wider questions of Japan’s economic need for raw materials and foodstuffs, as well as her political desire to be a great international power and the leading force in Asia; neither issue – singly or in combination – was enough of a challenge to provoke war.

The attacks of December 1941 brought the Western Allies together with a shared objective: the defeat of Japan. In the early months of the war active co-operation was almost non-existent. The United States was not in a position to intervene in support of Britain or the Netherlands; although America had been providing arms and other supplies to Britain for some considerable time, the tide of public opinion in the US had not turned in favour of active participation. Pearl Harbor changed everything in that regard. America had been attacked with no declaration of war, thousands of lives and millions of dollars’ worth of material had been destroyed and the American public was now ready for a fight even if their military was not. In that sense, the Pearl Harbor attack can be seen as a gigantic political and strategic error. It is not absolutely certain that the United States would have entered a war with Japan on the basis of her invasions of Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, but there could be little doubt that a direct attack on an American port or on the Philippines would force the issue.

Japan’s attack on America did more than bring war to the Pacific. Germany chose to declare war on the United States in support of her Asian ally. President Roosevelt had been pushing toward declaring war with Germany for some time, but had not had the political support which would enable him to do so; now Hitler had saved him the necessity by declaring war on the United States.

In a sense, this clearly defined who was fighting for what. At its simplest, the Western Allies were committed to a war which would destroy the power of Germany, Japan and Italy, and in turn those nations were committed to a war which would destroy the power of Britain and America. In the case of Britain and the Netherlands, this included ensuring that they retained possession of the mineral and agricultural wealth of Malaya and the Dutch East Indies. They could only do this by preserving a certain aura of invincibility and convincing local public opinion that the European powers could protect their communities from invasion.

Malaya. Location of military formations, airfields and air force units, 8 December 1941.

Singapore Island. Location of military formations, airfields and air force units, 8 December 1941.

The British defence posture in Malaya was bound by several constraints, some of which were effectively contradictory. Both Malaya and the Dutch East Indies had long been seen as military backwaters. Despite the economic significance of South East Asia to both Britain and the Netherlands, neither country had really made any great effort to ensure that there was proper planning and organisational procedures in the pre-war years. From the 1920s onward, successive British governments had developed a policy of simply assuming that there would not be another major war for the next ten years; a policy that was renewed periodically by incoming governments as they tried to cope with the depression of the 1930s by limiting spending on defence. The huge investment in the Singapore naval base would be the great exception, but in practice the failure to provide the necessary structure to protect the base would in due course make it something of a white elephant. The base was not simply a military asset. In part it was built to show the power of the British Empire and to demonstrate an intention to retain control of the Far East colonies, and thus the mineral wealth of Malaya and the commercial value of Singapore. It was also a gesture of solidarity
with Australia and New Zealand; an indication that Britain was committed to ensuring the viability of the trade routes through the Pacific, the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea.

It was also a statement aimed at Japan: that Britain intended to be the primary naval power in the Western Pacific in partnership with the United States in the Central and Eastern Pacific. Naturally, such a policy rested on having a powerful and modern fleet that would be the equal of any Japanese force. Since Britain could not possibly hope to maintain such a fleet at Singapore without abandoning her commitments elsewhere, the statement was less than secure, but the British government felt confident – and with some reason – that in the event of a war with Japan, they would be able to count on American support. Planning for war in South East Asia essentially depended on the belief that Singapore could stand for 180 days, the maximum length of time that it would take to mount a relief expedition. In fact, the necessary stockpile of supplies was never amassed and the plan had not taken account of the possibility that there might be a major war in Europe that would prevent the dispatch of ships and materiel to Singapore. Defeat in the East was not inevitable even as late as 1939, and it was not unreasonable that the reality of war with Germany and Italy should take precedence over the possibility of war with Japan. There was little value in preserving distant colonies if the home country was at risk of being conquered. Equally, there was no value to maintaining a very large force of men on the other side of the world if they were not to be equipped properly, trained properly or led properly, and the failure to put sensible policies in place in any of these regards was an inexcusable dereliction of duty on the part of both the civil and military power in London.

The planning process of the 1930s depended on a large air force and a consequent need to protect the many airfields scattered through the peninsula, but there were also political and diplomatic considerations. British rule in Malaya had not been achieved through simple conquest and there was no single unified system of political control. The Straits Settlements – Singapore, Dinding and Penang – constituted a single Crown colony, but the rest of Malaya fell into two groups, the Federated Malay States (FMS) of Pahang, Perak, Negri Sembilan and Selangor and the Unfederated Malay States of Terengganu, Perlis, Johore, Kedah and Kelantan. The latter group enjoyed a greater degree of self-government than the others, but the British administration was obliged to provide defence for all of them. The rapid advance of the Japanese effectively rendered the treaty obligations redundant, but they had only exerted a very minor influence on the general planning process. Although there was clearly little he could do, throughout the course of the campaign Lieutenant General Arthur Percival, General Officer Commanding (GOC) of Malaya Command, would receive a number of remonstrations from sultans who felt, not unreasonably, that the British were failing to live up to their obligations.

1. Scottish company of the Federated Malay States Volunteers. (Malayan Volunteers Association)

In practical military terms, Percival’s chief responsibilities were the defence of Malaya as a valuable economic asset and that was seen as depending on, and being crucial to, the preservation of the massive Singapore naval base. Construction of the base had been announced in 1923 but progress had been slow until the Japanese attack on Manchuria in 1931. By the time it was completed in 1939 it had cost something in the region of £60 million and was possibly the most costly naval installation ever built. It covered more than 20 square miles, held a massive fuel supply and had the largest dry dock in the world. It was built to support a massive fleet which could protect British interests throughout Asia, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, but by the time hostilities began in 1941 Britain was already at war with Germany and Italy and most of the fleet was already committed to operations in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, thus little could be spared for operations in South Asia.

2. Wartime medical pannier, possibly issued to the Federated Malay States Volunteers. (Author’s collection)

3. A pre-war elevated bungalow in the Singapore naval base. (Author’s collection)