Battle Story (6 page)

Infantry units throughout the British Empire and Commonwealth conformed to a common organisation. Each battalion had four rifle companies divided into four platoons and each platoon into three ‘sections’ of ten men. The standard firearm of all the Allied infantry, British, Indian and Australian, was the Lee-Enfield .303 calibre rifle. A reliable and accurate bolt-action weapon with a ten-round magazine, the Lee-Enfield was far superior to the Japanese Arisaka. In addition to the Lee-Enfields, each section had a Bren light machine gun. The Bren – like the Lee-Enfield – was a fine piece of equipment. The magazine could take thirty rounds, though it was common practice to load with only twenty-eight to reduce strain on the magazine spring and prevent jamming. Experience in France in 1940 had shown the need for another automatic weapon at section level. The Sten gun had been invented to fill this need along with large purchases of Thompson sub-machine guns from the United States, but many units in Malaya Command did not receive either in adequate quantities due to the demands of other theatres.

13. The Vickers machine gun was the standard for all Commonwealth countries. This one in use in Malaya, December 1941.

In theory, each infantry battalion also had a machine-gun platoon with Vickers .303in machine guns and a mortar platoon with 3in mortars. These were both good-quality weapons, but again the demands of other theatres had taken precedence and several battalions did not have their full complement. The battalion-level anti-tank weapon was the Boyes anti-tank rifle, a 0.5in bolt-action weapon, which was completely obsolete in Europe and North Africa against German and Italian vehicles, but could still make an impression on some of the lighter Japanese armoured cars and tanks.

One of the peculiarities of the British approach to combat was the Bren carrier. This lightly armoured tracked vehicle was put to innumerable uses, but its chief function was to provide rapid intervention and support for the rifle companies. Although a good deal of the tactical practice of an infantry battalion revolved around its carrier platoon, many units in Malaya Command did not have their full complement and some had none at all.

A great weakness in Malaya Command was communication. There was little wireless equipment and a good deal of what was available was not very effective. Laying cables for field telephones was slow and cumbersome and the cables themselves were very vulnerable to artillery fire.

14. A Bren light machine gun on a tripod mount; a rare configuration. (Joost J. Bakker)

The artillery element of Malaya Command suffered from the same problems as the infantry. Most of the field artillery regiments had been issued with the excellent 25-pounder gun/howitzer, but because of the demands of the North Africa campaign several units had only two batteries of eight guns rather than three. The anti-tank regiments were, in the main, at full strength with forty-eight 2-pounder guns each. The 2-pounder was reasonably accurate and had a good rate of fire, but was relatively slow to deploy. Like the Boyes rifle, it had been made obsolete by the rapid development of armour in European armies, but it was capable of holding its own against Japanese tanks and armoured cars.

The most significant weakness on the ground lay in the complete absence of tanks. British tanks were not particularly well armoured or well armed, though many models were mechanically reliable. The various Vickers light tanks and the Matilda and Valentine models had proved to be entirely inadequate against the Axis forces in the desert, where a high degree of visibility often meant a British vehicle could be knocked out of action long before it was close enough to engage effectively, but these same vehicles
would have been on a par with their Japanese counterparts. The lack of tanks was not caused by demands elsewhere, but had been a matter of policy. Although General Bond had asked for at least one regiment of medium tanks as early as 1940, there was a near-universal assumption that tanks could not operate in the terrain of Malaya.

15. Japanese anti-tank rifle. Developed in the First World War, anti-tank rifles were largely obsolete before 1941, but were capable of penetrating the light armour of the few Allied armoured cars in Malaya. (Author’s collection)

16. Battlefield Archaeology. An example of the Japanese anti-tank rifle. The tropical climate means that most material degrades very quickly. (Author’s collection)

17. 25-pounder field guns at Sentosa, Singapore. (Author’s collection)

There was a modest supply of armoured cars, mostly Marmon- Herringtons and Lanchesters, but these were slow and lightly armoured. None of them mounted anything heavier than a machine gun and were therefore clearly incapable of standing up to Japanese tanks. The problems were multiplied by an almost total deficiency in training. The Indian 3rd Cavalry had their horses replaced with armoured cars but had had virtually no training at all, with the result that almost all of their vehicles were written off before they could go into action. In addition, because of the assumption that Malaya was not suitable territory for armoured conflict, none of the infantry units had had any worthwhile training in dealing with armoured attacks; many soldiers had never even seen a tank before they encountered them on the battlefield.

The assumptions about the ‘impenetrable jungle’ and the impracticality of armoured warfare were simply ridiculous and should have been challenged by the senior officers in Malaya Command. Armies in general – and tanks in particular – travel along roads primarily, only deploying to countryside when obstructed by the enemy, and although there were few roads running east–west across the country, there were fine highways running south from Thailand to Singapore. Tactical assumptions made once the campaign started were often just as bad. Wavell’s instructions to Percival that he should fight the ‘main battle’ in areas where his ‘superior artillery’ could be used to advantage were not superficially unreasonable, but rather depended on the belief that the Japanese artillery was not capable of effective counter-battery work. In practice, poor communications, poor training, a failure to ensure adequate supplies of ammunition and the inability to stem Japanese advance undermined the premise. After the lengthy retreat down the peninsula, the troops were not confident in combat and became increasingly unlikely to make a determined stand. Often, when they did stop the Japanese advance, they were obliged to retire because of threats to their flanks or breakthroughs against other units that might result in encirclement. A number of withdrawals occurred due to misleading orders or to the perceived need to maintain the integrity of formations as viable combat assets.