Scapegoat: The Death of Prince of Wales and Repulse (25 page)

At 0620 on 9 December a single lookout on
Vampire
spotted a solitary aircraft. Phillips called for clarification, and decided to disregard the sighting:

‘Phillips remained unconvinced and, adopting the attitude of an ostrich beset by danger, he metaphorically buried his head in the sand and shrugged off the warning.’
¹¹

Phillips is sometimes cited at this point as believing simply what he wanted to hear, choosing to disbelieve a lookout because he was the bearer of bad news. This seems unlikely. The lookout believed he alone had sighted a plane through a gap in the clouds for no longer than a minute. There was no certainty either that it was Japanese or that it had sighted Force Z. It would have been far more likely, had the ships actually been spotted, that any aircraft would have come in for a closer look. Philips was bound to check with
Prince of Wales
’s radio room to see if it had picked up a sighting report. In the absence of any such, he took a judgment call, and he was right. The aircraft has never been identified, and if it did exist it sent no sighting report.

At 1300 the promised RAF Catalina appeared, and signalled a Japanese landing at Singora, one of the few times that Force Z saw friendly aircraft. At 1343 the Japanese submarine
I-65
reported sighting Force Z. At 1550 it lost the ships in a squall, found them again at 1652 but finally lost them again when a Japanese float plane threatened to attack and force it to submerge, finally signaling at 1710 that it had lost contact. Force Z steamed on, unaware it had been spotted. Perhaps at this moment if Force Z had had the extra two destroyers Cunningham was ordered to send the enlarged escort might have ‘pinged’ the Japanese submarine.

‘This [being spotted by I.650] was the cruellest of luck for the British. If their course had carried them just a few miles more to the east,
Prince of Wales
and
Repulse
would not have been spotted.’
¹²

The Japanese Admiral Ozawa only received the sighting report at 1540, and ordered cruisers to send out search planes. Something approaching panic took place as reconnaissance over Singapore confirmed the two ships were no longer there, and planes were scrambled willy-nilly, despite imminent nightfall. However, the weather cleared at around 1700 and Force Z was sighted by a search plane from cruiser
Kinu,
then by search planes from
Suzuya
and
Kumano
. It was, by any standards, remarkable bad luck. Force Z was only a few hours away from nightfall, and only a few miles away from being outside the Japanese planes’ search umbrella. Despite finally knowing it had been spotted by the Japanese, Force Z maintained radio silence
. Tenedos,
short of fuel, was detached, and ordered to signal Singapore next day at 0800 that Phillips was breaking off the attack against Singora. What Phillips did not know is that the path of Japanese warships returning from escorting the invasions would bring them extremely close to his forces.

At this point, the argument goes, Phillips knew that he had been spotted. There was no longer any reason to maintain radio silence, yet still he made no signal of his intentions to Singapore. Yet there was little point in any such signal. There were no ships in Singapore or heading there that could help him in time, except as anti-submarine escorts in the final run-in to Singapore. He had been told twice there was no fighter cover available, and Palliser had neither corrected his earlier signal to say there were, nor told Phillips that a squadron of Brewster Buffaloes were on stand-by. Furthermore, knowing he had been spotted, Phillips swung his force west at 1900 and increased speed to 26kt, to giving the impression he was heading to Singora. Having then hopefully told Japanese attackers where he was heading, he planned to turn south for a high-speed run to Singapore. What was the point of a signal to Singapore, when the signal he had arranged for
Tenedos
to send next morning said all he needed to say with no risk of giving away his position?

It is rarely pointed out that Phillips’s skillful changes of course and speed very nearly succeeded in allowing Force Z to evade the Japanese attack squadrons sent out to hunt them.

What then followed was one of the more bizarre incidents of the engagement. Much has been made of the risks Phillips took, less of the risks the Japanese took. One of the latter – hurriedly launching a multitude of aircraft to attack in the dark enemy ships whose exact position was not known, in an area where their own ships were operating – nearly ended in farcical disaster. At around 2000 Japanese bombers searching for Force Z mistook a force of Japanese cruisers and destroyers searching for Force Z for Force Z itself, and preparatory to attacking dropped a flare over the cruiser
Chokai.
Following some frantic signaling
,
an attack was narrowly averted. For a long while it was assumed that Force Z had seen the flare the Japanese aircraft dropped over
Chokai
, and immediately turned away. Modern research
¹³
suggests that if seen at all the flare was only seen on the extreme wing of Force Z’s progress, and that when at 2015 Force Z, under cover of darkness
,
turned south for the run to Singapore, this was simply a planned manoeuvre. There has been some speculation as to what the outcome would have been had Force Z engaged the Japanese forces which one writer claims were only five miles distant, but another says were over twenty miles away. The British force was superior in terms of raw firepower, but a night action would have injected an element of uncertainty into the whole business. What is certain is that Phillips sent out by signal lamp at 2055 a message to Force Z marking the effective end of the mission as it had been planned:

‘I have most regretfully cancelled the operation because, having been located by aircraft, surprise was lost and our target would be almost certain to be gone by the morning and the enemy fully prepared for us.’
¹⁴

Phillips was reportedly much cheered by receiving a signal from Tennant of
Repulse
appreciated how difficult the decision had been, but supported it fully. It was a difficult decision to throw in the towel, and a brave one, as recognized even by one of Phillips’s most savage critics: ‘The decision [to cancel the operation] … showed a great deal of moral courage.’
¹⁵
And by others: ‘Phillips’s action, in ordering the return of his force to Singapore, was perhaps the most courageous in a brilliant and distinguished career.’
¹⁶

Ominously for Force Z at 2238 the moon rose and the rain stopped. At 2302 Palliser signalled saying that enemy bombers were undisturbed, and could attack Force Z five hours after sighting it. He also said the northern Malayan airfields were becoming untenable, and hinted that Air Chief Marshal Sir Robert Brooke-Popham might order the concentration of all air efforts on Singapore. To this writer, but apparently to no other, it seems quite extraordinary that having sent one signal stating there could be no fighter cover Palliser sends another in effect confirming the absence of air support when in fact a squadron of aircraft were on stand-by.

Yet it is only extraordinary if Palliser knew of this squadron. It seems totally bizarre, if not surreal, to question if the RAF had actually told the Navy of the available support. The more one reads about the tragi-comedy that was the fall of Singapore, the more one realizes that of all combat zones in the Second World War Singapore was the one where such an event was at least possible.

At 2335 Palliser sent the signal that could be deemed to mark the start of the downfall of Force Z. It read, simply enough: ‘Enemy reported landing at Kuantan’.

Kuantan was of vital strategic significance, and its capture would allow the Japanese to cut British forces in half. It was in effect on Force Z’s way home to Singapore and 400 miles away from the Japanese air bases, a distance at which Admiral Phillips had every reason to believe, on the Intelligence of the day, he was out of range. It also put Force Z clearly out of range of the two Japanese carriers, which Phillips had been told were off Saigon.

In effect, the signal meant that Phillips had no option but to stop off at Kuantan, and is likely to have welcomed it as offering Force Z a belated chance to make a difference. Not to have stopped off at Kuantan would have meant the Royal Navy turning an unacceptable blind eye to the very situation it was tasked to fight. In fact the report of a landing was false. Palliser must bear responsibility for not keeping a weather eye on the situation to stop Force Z going on a wild goose chase. He must also take responsibility for yet again not telling Phillips that air cover was in fact available, if indeed he knew. Most important of all, he must take responsibility for in effect sending Force Z to Kuantan, warning the RAF and not seeking at least some air cover over Kuantan. Apologists for Palliser have argued that expecting him to realize his signal would send Force Z to Kuantan would have required Palliser to be telepathic:

‘One cannot but feel that Admiral Phillips’s belief that air cover would meet him off Kuantan, when he had given Singapore no hint that he was proceeding there, demanded too high a degree of insight from the officers at the base.’
¹⁷

It did not demand too high a degree of insight, merely a normal level of intelligence. It did not need insight to realize that a commander at sea in the most hostile possible environment would not send signals that could reveal his position. After all, the whole plan for the survival of Force Z hinged on persuading the Japanese it was heading to Singora. It did not need insight to realize that, short of ordering Phillips to Kuantan, which Palliser did not have the power to do, the signal was the nearest thing possible to an order. Phillips was also justified in thinking that if Kuantan was being attacked it would, given its strategic importance, have whatever air cover was available over it, as indeed it did, in small measure. The efficiency of the RAF is highlighted by the fact that their aircraft failed to spot a battleship, a battle-cruiser and three destroyers off a spot reportedly being invaded by the Japanese.

At 2352 the Japanese submarine
I-58
sighted Force Z. A faulty tube hatch delayed its attack, but eventually five torpedoes were launched at
Repulse
. All missed.

10 December

At 0052 on 10 December Force Z changed course south-west for Kuantan. No signal was sent to Singapore. Phillips did not know he had been spotted, had surprise as his only ally for an attack on Kuantan and as discussed above would have been mad to risk giving his position away. It was reasonable for Phillips and his staff to believe that he was two hours south of where the Japanese thought he was, and steaming in the opposite direction. He had already arranged for
Tenedos
to do what was necessary in the morning, at a safe distance from
Prince of Wales.

A bizarre signal was received from the Admiralty during the night, apparently reminding Phillips of the dangers of ships being attacked by torpedoes in harbour. This slightly surreal signal – Phillips was confused by it and said something about the First Sea Lord going off at half-cock – is important not for its rather silly nature, but rather as a hint that the Admiralty knew that Japanese land-based bombers had a torpedo-carrying capacity. If they did have this information no-one had passed it on to Force Z.

The Japanese received
I-58’s
sighting report at 0211 – the famed Japanese military efficiency did not cover the quick handing-on of sighting reports in this action – and ordered the 22nd Air Flotilla to attack the ships later in the day, giving up on the idea of a surface attack following the near fiasco with
Chokai
and her force. Failure to report-on sighting signals meant that the Japanese did not realize Force Z was steaming south-west, not south directly towards Singapore. Force Z sailed on through the night. Unbeknown to it, eleven Japanese search planes from 22nd Flotilla were dispatched at 0455, and at 0625, 0644, 0650, 0800 eighty-five Japanese bombers flew off from their land bases.

Action Stations was called just before dawn at 0500. A tug and three barges were briefly investigated at 0515; Force Z was nearly at Kuantan and bigger targets were in prospect. A solitary aircraft was spotted from
Repulse
at 0630, but no action was taken, and the aircraft’s identity remains something of a mystery. It is possible it was identified as British, but in any event Force Z was hoping to announce its presence in the most dramatic way possible in a few minutes, and if Kuantan was indeed being attacked it was hardly a surprise to see an aircraft flying over it. At 0720
Prince of Wales
launched its Walrus aircraft to reconnoitre Kuantan; it was directed to land at Singapore, as was
Repulse
’s aircraft, launched later for anti-submarine reconnaissance. Capital ships were very vulnerable if they had to stop to take back on board their aircraft, one reason why the provision for carrying aircraft was progressively removed from the KGV class as the war went on.

The Walrus reported that all seemed calm, and at 0845 the destroyer
Express
was sent ahead, and reported ‘complete peace’. Some versions have it saying that things were, ‘As quiet as a wet Sunday afternoon.’ Force Z dawdled whilst some barges and small craft were investigated, at the suggestion of Captain Tennant of
Repulse
. This delay has received severe criticism, it being argued that it showed a complete lack of urgency and a failure to realize the seriousness of the situation Force Z found itself in. As usual in this story, it is not as simple as that. If the Japanese had actually landed on Kuantan and dug in, the 14-inch guns of
Prince of Wales
and the 15-inch guns of
Repulse
were the only British weapons in the Far East capable of digging them out. If Japanese troops were in possession of this crucial interchange, they were hardly likely to announce themselves to two British capital ships, much more likely to keep their heads down and hope the ships would go away. As for the small force of barges, they could merely have been the advance party for a larger force. Most important of all, both Phillips and Tennant (and the delay at Kuantan must be a shared responsibility) believed they were out of range of Japanese land-based aircraft. Perhaps most crucially of all, there has been no evidence offered to suggest that had Force Z kept on its way to Singapore it would have been less likely to be spotted.