Descent into Hell: The fall of Singapore - Pudu and Changi - the Thai Burma railway

by Peter Brune

  But Hayley Bell’s most damning indictment of the security structure in Singapore came when he, in cooperation with Vinden and other interested officers, conducted an exercise to test the security of vital installations in Singapore. They were able to ‘blow up’ the naval base graving dock; ‘destroy’ the aviation fuel stocks on the island; ‘sink’ the moored fleet of RAF flying boats near RAF HQ; ‘wipe out’ the telephone exchange; and ‘demolish’ the lighting and power supplies to Singapore. Hayley Bell later commented that the navy took stock after the exercise, but that the ‘challenged civil utilities slumber on’.38 To add further insult to a growing range of injuries, Hayley Bell further asserted that the Thais were in close accord with the Japanese, which deeply offended Sir Josiah Crosby, the British Minister in Bangkok. The civil utilities may have ‘slumbered on’, but the Governor, General Bond (who had succeeded General Dobbie) and Crosby were incensed. Using their not inconsiderable collective influence, they succeeded in having Hayley Bell sent back to England in May 1939. Here was one of the most competent prewar officers engaged in the sad saga of Singapore’s defence, who was removed for displaying energy, acumen and common sense. The grandfather of the British actress Hayley Mills, Colonel Hayley Bell died in 1944, having seen many of his predictions materialise.

  During their tenure in office, Dobbie and Percival also had further difficulty with the RAF. In light of the fact that there was no British naval presence, the air force was confronted by a number of challenges. Its first task was to detect enemy seaborne convoys sailing from the Gulf of Siam and/ or the South China Sea, and then, having found them, to be in a position to offer multiple attacks on their shipping before they could land their invasion troops. The only airfields in Malaya were along the western coast and were used to service the commercial route from Calcutta to Singapore. The Air Ministry therefore decided to build two new strips: one at Gong Kedah, about 45 kilometres from Kota Bharu, which was in turn roughly sixteen kilometres from the Siam border; and the second at Kuantan, about halfway between Johore Bahru and the Siam–Malayan border. A third strip, which was privately owned, was purchased at Kota Bharu. But in an appalling and high-handed decision, the air force did not consult the army—which was responsible for the protection of the RAF personnel and their planes and strips—as to the selection of these airfields, which had been sited ‘in areas unsuitable for defence and highly vulnerable to enemy landings, since they were close to the coast’.39

  Percival debated this issue repeatedly with his RAF colleagues, Tedder and Peck, but got absolutely nowhere. The obvious problem was that given the scattered nature of the proposed RAF airfields in Malaya, the RAF would have had to deliver such a resounding blow to a Japanese invasion that it would be rendered virtually impotent before its arrival. And that was never going to be the case, given the number and quality of its planes. In turn, therefore, the army was now given a task which was beyond its meagre capability.

  Meanwhile, the situation in Europe was deteriorating rapidly. On 15 September 1938, Hitler demanded the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia, the integrity of which had been guaranteed by France. When Britain mobilised her fleet and war seemed likely, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Neville Chamberlain, flew to Munich to mediate a settlement. The ultimate catch-cry of appeasement, ‘Peace in our time’, was just another feeble attempt at peace. It engendered temporary relief in many quarters—except the Czechs—but had merely delayed the inevitable. In March 1939, German troops swept into Czechoslovakia and during the next month Albania was invaded by Italy. Growing in confidence, and sure that France and Britain would remain indecisive, Hitler then demanded Danzig and denounced the Anglo–German Naval Agreement signed only four years earlier.

  Whilst these events were rapidly unfolding, the Chiefs of Staff framed another appreciation in February 1939. Essentially, nothing much had changed since their assessment two years earlier. It was still recognised that a fleet would have to be despatched to the Far East to respond to a Japanese threat to India, Australia and New Zealand, and that such a fleet’s size and date of deployment would depend upon the available resources and the state of war in Europe. Of course it would. The point is that defence professionals, observers and commentators had been predicting this exact scenario for over twelve years and had been ignored. And with these rapidly changing events, it was further realised Japan had overtaken Italy as a major threat to British interests. Not long after Germany and Italy proclaimed a pact.

  In July 1939, the Committee of Imperial Defence decided to act. Realising that they were in no position to release a fleet, or a substantial portion of one to the Far East, they increased the period before relief to 90 days and ordered that ‘the implications of stocking Malaya with food reserves for the civil population and garrison for a period of six months should be investigated’.40 In August 1939, they further recognised the need to reinforce their army in Malaya and Singapore by posting the 12th Indian Infantry Brigade Group under Brigadier Paris (consisting of the 2nd Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, the 5/2nd Punjab, the 4/19th Hyderabads, the 122nd Field Regiment and the 15th Field Company) and two bomber squadrons from India. In addition, in September 1939, two further bomber squadrons arrived from the United Kingdom.

  When the Second World War began in Europe in September 1939 the naval base and Singapore’s coastal defences were operational but some engineering work was still to be done on the 15-inch heavy gun emplacements; there were three British, one Indian, one Malay and two volunteer battalions; three anti-aircraft artillery regiments; two heavy coast defence artillery regiments; and four engineer companies on Singapore Island. Penang’s defences included one Indian battalion, one volunteer battalion, a heavy coast defence battery and one engineer company. Kirby, in The War Against Japan:

  The defence of northern Malaya was entrusted to the Federated Malay States Volunteers, and the defence of Johore to its State Forces. The 12th Infantry Brigade and 22nd Mountain Regiment were retained as a mobile reserve for the defence of Johore. There were six air force squadrons of fifty-eight first-line aircraft.41

  The time from the outbreak of war in Europe, until the beginning of the Pacific War, was a critical 27-month period in the preparation of Malaya and Singapore for war—critical because the very scenario that had been predicted by a significant number of the serving military, strategists and observers alike, had now come to pass. The foreseen inability of a British western hemisphere fleet to come to the aid of British interests in the Far East had now occurred; the necessity of addressing the issue of defending Singapore by holding the Malay Peninsula with Johore as the vital ground was acknowledged in most circles; the methodology and even the timing (the north-east monsoon) of Japan’s probable invasion of Siam and Malaya had been foreshadowed. Moreover, an accurate appreciation of the Japanese landing points and subsequent movements had been made, and made in a number of circles. Therefore, it was realised that the coordination of all parties involved in the future fight—the three services and the civil administration—would be instrumental in mounting a successful defence.

  The truth is that the use made of this 27-month period was an abject failure. There was poor, uncoordinated and therefore dysfunctional decision making in London and in Singapore. In essential terms, by the end of 1939, the administrative and military power base in the defence of Singapore and Malaya consisted of five key figures: the Governor, Sir Shenton Thomas; the Secretary of Defence, Charles Vlieland; the GOC, Major-General Bond; the Air Officer Commanding, Far East, Air Vice-Marshal Babington; and later, when the British withdrew their China Squadron from Hong Kong and deployed it at Singapore, Admiral Percy Noble, representing the Royal Navy.

  Thomas had been appointed to the position of Governor and Commander-in-Chief in 1934, after having spent all of his prior colonial service in Africa. He was not an authority on matters military and had not served in the First World War; in fact, his colonial service had virtually shielded him from war and its effects entirely. His biographe
r described him as ‘by character and upbringing . . . a sincere churchman, always honest and direct, not devious in any way’.42 Mr V A Bowden, who had served in the British Army from 1915 to 1919 and had worked in Japan and China for 25 years, including six years as Australian Government Commissioner in China (1935–41), was the Australian Government Representative in Singapore between 1941 and the capitulation of Singapore. He described Thomas as ‘more ready at producing reasons for not doing things than for doing them, and in the Malayan Civil Service there seemed to be too much of the old bureaucratic doctrine that action means to risk blunders, and inaction means safety’.43 Kirby was even harsher:

  . . . Thomas proved to be a man who was inclined to be influenced by the opinions of those with whom he was in daily contact, in this case his senior Malayan civil servants and in particular the Colonial Secretary . . .

  Events were to show that the Governor was a weak chairman of the War Committee, incapable of enforcing measures which would prepare Malaya for war.44

  Thomas was the Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Straits Settlements, High Commissioner of the Federated Malay States, and, through his indirect power, also a critical influence over the Unfederated Malay States. He was therefore in charge of a cumbersome, inefficient government organisation that was ideally suited to placing export dollars or pounds into Britain’s coffers, but not structured or inclined in any way towards a contribution to a major war effort.

  It will be remembered that in August 1938 the Chiefs of Staff had recommended the stockpiling of six months’ food supplies for Malaya should war break out in the Far East. Charles Vlieland was given the job of assessing this problem. Educated at Oxford, he had joined the Malayan Civil Service in 1914 at the age of 24. Like Thomas, Vlieland did not possess a military background. According to Shenton’s biographer, Vlieland ‘was not renowned for his tact, and certainly made no attempt to curb his intolerance of inefficiency or ignorance wherever in his view either existed’.45 In some circles this rather superior manner earnt him the nickname of ‘Starchie Archie’. As a basis for undertaking his study, he requested the plans for the defence of Singapore and Malaya. After studying those plans, Vlieland formed the view that in the event of war, the Japanese would land in Siam and that the Malay Peninsula must therefore constitute the vital ground. He also advocated that the existing Defence Committee be abolished and that a new committee be established with the Governor in the chair; that a Secretary of Defence be appointed who would be responsible for the coordination of the civil administration in time of war; and that the remaining members of the committee be the commanders of the three services. In the event of war, the Defence Committee was to become the War Committee. Thomas embraced the proposal and appointed Vlieland to the position of Secretary of Defence.

  Vlieland claimed that he had developed ‘a considerable knowledge of the varied terrain of Malaya by hunting game in its forests, shooting over its open countryside and round its coasts’.46 Further, he claimed his own unique intelligence network consisting of ‘planters, miners, prospectors, foresters and game rangers’, who he said, ‘could send word of strange things which were happening in odd places’.47 He would later assert that the best forecast he received concerning the eventual disasters in Hong Kong and Malaya was from a Chinese servant who ‘had worked for British masters in both territories for thirty years’.48 Military intelligence made easy—go hunting and listen to your servants.

  It is interesting to note that Dobbie was still in Singapore at the time of Vlieland’s appointment but did not object. Dobbie probably saw the potential of the committee, but failed to perceive the incompetence and vested interests of its civil component. Vlieland was in a unique position of power. He had, as Secretary of Defence, direct access to Thomas and great influence over the conduct of the civil service in respect of defence issues. In an extraordinary procedure, Vlieland also proposed that the Defence Committee ‘should be a purely consultative body with no secretary, no agenda and no minutes and that its members should be free to take action or not as they pleased within their own spheres of responsibility’.49

  Under the old system, the GOC had been chairman of the Defence Committee. With Thomas now as chairman, Vlieland was able to do two things: use his influence and ready access to the Governor; and side with the RAF representative on the committee, whose views he shared. This isolated an increasingly stubborn GOC, Bond, and tended to inhibit progress. In blunt terms, Vlieland was clearly manipulating the Governor, cultivating the RAF representative’s friendship, and thereby seeking to weaken Bond’s influence.

  The RAF representative on the Defence Committee was the Air Officer Commanding, Far East, Air Vice-Marshal John Tremayne Babington. During the First World War Babington had been a member of the Royal Naval Air Service. In early January 1920 he had been removed from the navy list and given a permanent commission in the Royal Air Force. From 1929 to 1934 Babington had been the British Air Representative to the League of Nations; from 1934 to 1936 the Commander, RAF Station Halton and Commandant, No 1 School of Technical Training; and from 1936 to 1938 Commandant at the RAF 24 Training Group. He was posted to Singapore in 1938.

  Babington was a passionate advocate of the theories of Lord Trenchard who was often referred to as the ‘Father of the RAF’. Given the current inability of the Royal Navy to defend Singapore and Malaya, he had a rather inflated opinion of the RAF’s ability to accomplish that task, and consequently, a poor perspective of how the three service arms might best coordinate their endeavours for the common good. In Babington’s eyes, the army’s role was nothing more than to guarantee the security of the RAF and its bases. In order to detect, and subsequently attack, an enemy seaborne operation both at sea and then at its landing points, the RAF required dispersed bases stretching as far as the Siam border. The greater the range of aircraft, he argued, the earlier and more decisive the defence would be.

  From August 1939, Dobbie’s successor as GOC Malaya was Major-General Lionel Vivian Bond. Born in 1884, Bond had begun his military career in the Royal Engineers in 1903. He had seen action in India in 1908, had fought in Mesopotamia during the First World War and he had seen further service as Chief Engineer, Aldershot Command, Commanding Officer Chatham Area, Commandant Royal School of Military Engineering and Inspector of Royal Engineers, War Office. According to the Official British Historian, Bond was ‘a man of sterling worth and character’, but ‘was lacking in personality’ and ‘kept himself aloof and was inclined to exercise control from his office chair’.50

  Bond’s views concerning the defence of Malaya and Singapore differed markedly from those of Babington and Vlieland, and therefore, by extension, Thomas. Aware that consultation had not occurred concerning the RAF’s widely dispersed airfields on the Malay Peninsula, that they were poorly sited, and further, that he did not possess the resources to adequately protect them, Bond steadfastly refused to comply with the plan. In his view the vital ground for the defence of the Singapore Base was Johore. Given this assessment, it is surprising that Bond did not see the need for the defensive line of pillboxes which Dobbie had designed in southern Johore, and had in fact begun to build. Here is a clear example of Hayley Bell’s contention that the short tenures of GOCs in Singapore had inhibited astute, continuous defence planning and implementation.

  When in September 1939 the Defence Committee automatically became the War Committee, it was thus composed of Thomas, Vlieland, Babington and Bond. Later, when Headquarters China Squadron was transferred to Singapore, the Royal Navy representative became Admiral Sir Percy Noble.

  The reader could be forgiven for thinking that upon the outbreak of war in Europe, this committee, entrusted with such critical challenges and a decided lack of resources to confront them, might have pulled together for the common good. There was not a bit of it. A number of these issues were new, but others were ongoing, and together they constituted a tragic catalogue of recalcitrant, self-serving and narrow-minded decision making and behaviour that
brought little credit to the committee’s members.

  Manpower allocation was the first. At the outbreak of the European war, the Governor was instructed to increase the supply of rubber and tin from Malaya to help fund, and therefore offset, Britain’s deficiencies in raw materials, military hardware and food. Naturally, this meant that the civil administration was now under great pressure. The initial confrontation between the members of the committee came in September 1939 when Major-General Bond advocated conscription to expand and train the Volunteer Forces, which comprised an important portion of his meagre garrison. Thomas at first agreed but withdrew his approval when Vlieland protested. The Governor, finding himself in the middle of an argument between Vlieland and Bond, lacked the resolve to make a decision, and therefore referred the issue to the Colonial Office in February 1940.

  It is at this time that ample evidence of the ongoing conflict between the members of the War Committee is clear. Thomas sent his views on the defence of Singapore with his despatch concerning the conscription of manpower. Babington in turn sent his appreciation to the Air Ministry at around the same time. Bond, not to be outdone, later sent a memorandum of his own. The Governor’s stance was little more than an endorsement of the views held by Vlieland and Babington: that in the absence of a British naval presence, Malaya must be held by the RAF, supported by ‘any submarines and other naval vessels on the station’.51 Thomas therefore called for a large increase in the RAF garrison—if need be, at the expense of the army. Major-General Woodburn Kirby, in his The Chain of Disaster, provides a near perfect summary of the Governor’s stance:

  There is no doubt that in the absence of a fleet the strengthening of the RAF was essential for the security of Malaya. The view that the RAF alone could secure Malaya and that the role of the army was purely that of guarding the airfields from which the RAF would operate was, however, fallacious.52