by Peter Brune
The first contact came at around 8.30 am when the destroyer Tenedos, making its way back to Singapore, was sighted by a ‘Babs’ recce plane. Its two 50-kg bombs fell wide of the mark. But not long after, Tenedos was detected again by a much more substantial force—nine 500-kg bomb-laden ‘Nells’—which also missed their prey. Not long after Phillips received the destroyer’s signal that she was under attack, a ‘Nell’, on its return from its reconnaissance limit, saw the much-sought after twin prize. The ‘Nell’ sent two signals, the first identifying a ‘fleet’ and its course, and the second, a change in that course; then came a third signal, bearing the electrifying news the Japanese had sought: ‘Enemy force escorted by three destroyers. Sailing in regular order, the Prince of Wales and Repulse.’15
At 11.00 am Repulse became the first target. Eight ‘Nells’ each dropped a 250-kg bomb from around 11 500 feet, one of which was a direct hit amidships, while two others were ‘straddling near misses’.16 Attacks now began against the Prince of Wales, and consisted of waves of two and three torpedo-carrying ‘Nells’, which managed to score two critical hits. G. Hermon Gill recorded that: ‘Thereafter she was never under complete control. Both port propeller shafts were stopped, reducing her speed considerably; the steering gear was affected; some machinery rooms were flooded; and she took a list to port, with increased trim aft so that the port side of her quarterdeck was soon awash.’17
Meanwhile Repulse had been attacked by eight ‘Bettys’ which came in at wave-top height. But Captain Tennant managed to ‘comb’ the torpedoes. ‘Combing’ was accomplished by steering the ship parallel to the advancing torpedoes and thereby narrowing their target. It was usually done by either running parallel to the sighted wakes of the torpedoes, or, if these were not visible, attempting to run parallel to the attacking enemy vessel. According to Captain Tennant’s report of 11 December 1941, Repulse was able to ‘comb’ around fifteen torpedoes by identifying their wakes. Shortly after this expert effort, Tennant was able to yet again ‘comb’ another torpedo attack—harder this time because six ‘Nells’ approached from the port side, while one came in from starboard.
The final attack on Force Z was undertaken by 26 ‘Bettys’ which arrived late over the confrontation. At this juncture Repulse was still able to maintain 25 knots and was also able to manoeuvre, but Prince of Wales was out of control and handicapped further by over half of her guns being ineffective. Christopher Shores and Brian Cull, in Bloody Shambles, have vividly described Prince of Wales’ next ordeal: ‘Of the first six torpedo-bombers which attacked her, four gained hits; the first torpedo struck well forward and blew a hole which erupted through the other side; the second hit just forward of the bridge, a third alongside the rear 14-inch turret while the fourth damaged the outer propeller shaft.’18 Just before midday Captain Tennant, aware of the damage to Prince of Wales, broke radio silence and contacted Singapore for help.
Repulse was now attacked again. This time, at about 12.20 pm, to inhibit her ability to ‘comb’ their torpedoes, the ‘Bettys’ approached from a number of bearings. Repulse sustained a hit aft which jammed her rudder, and, although still able to make 20 knots, she was now sailing out of control. When she was then hit by a further three torpedoes—one on her starboard side and two on her port—she quickly listed to port and rolled over and sank. The time taken between the onset of the ‘Bettys’ assault and her disappearance beneath the waves was a mere thirteen minutes. After Repulse had capsized, Admiral Phillips ordered HMAS Vampire and HMS Electra to move in and pick up the survivors. Captain Tennant, eight other officers and 213 sailors were taken aboard Vampire, most of whom were suffering from either varying degrees of burns or exposure and shock.19 Electra rescued a further 574 men. This left the final death toll from Repulse at 27 officers and 486 ratings.20
Meanwhile, about eight kilometres from that scene, the Prince of Wales had sustained a further three torpedo hits during the same attack: one aft, another amidships, and the third at the stem (the extension of the keel at the forward end of the ship). But her coup de grace was finally delivered by seventeen ‘Nells’ which, in the face of now reduced anti-aircraft battery fire, dropped their 500-kg bombs from 8500 feet. One hit was taken on the catapult deck, others straddled her, which probably caused further damage, and there were numerous near misses. Although HMS Express came alongside to rescue the wounded, the pride of the Royal Navy rolled over and sank in about 200 feet of water at around 1.15 pm. Admiral Sir Tom Phillips and Captain Jack Leach did not leave their ship, and, when she rolled over and sank, they were taken under with her. Later, their floating corpses were found. The Prince of Wales final casualty count was twenty officers and 307 ratings lost, and 90 and 1195 rescued. The whole operation had cost the Japanese but two ‘Bettys’ and one ‘Nell’ and their crews.
With Admiral Phillips gone, Admiral Layton regained his post as senior naval commander at Singapore. His response to the tragedy was ungenerous: ‘I don’t know exactly what’s happened. But I always said he would make a balls of it, and he has.’21 Serving in Gibraltar, Admiral Somerville caustically stated that the man he had previously referred to as ‘the pocket Napoleon’ had put up a ‘thoroughly bad show . . . why the hell don’t they send someone out there who has been through the mill and knows his stuff?’22 But such sentiments were not universal. In a letter to Admiral Phillips’s widow, the First Sea Lord, Sir Dudley Pound, wrote that: ‘His death is one of the tragedies of the war—much more so, infinitely more so, than the loss of those two ships. In time we can replace the ships—we can never get another Tom.’23 When Captain Tennant returned to Singapore he was met by Air Vice-Marshal Pulford who stated: ‘My God, I hope you don’t blame me for this. I had no idea where you were.’24 The critical question is, to what extent did Admiral Phillips make ‘a balls of it’?
In the tactical sense Force Z embarked on a mission against the odds. But the significance of the meeting at the Singapore Naval Base described by Lieutenant Commander J. McClelland, is important. If the meeting did in fact start at 2.30 am on 8 December, by this time the intelligence that had reached Singapore during 6 December and particularly only hours before on the 7th, was critical. On the 6th, Brooke-Popham learned of the existence of a Japanese fleet—significantly made up of transports and a cruiser—heading towards the Gulf of Siam. But by the time the meeting occurred, Brooke-Popham knew that Singora, Patani and probably Kota Bharu were enemy destinations. The significance of transports and one sighted ‘with a large number of men on deck in khaki’ would certainly have confirmed that this was no ruse. Appreciation after appreciation from many years previous had identified Singora, Patani and Kota Bharu as probable Japanese objectives. Brooke-Popham had been a strong advocate of the RAF’s ability to either destroy a great portion of the enemy fleet at sea, or cause it great grief at its landing points. And now, when he must have been very aware that the present RAF strength was way below what was required, and also, having made the decision to not employ Matador, Phillips’s operation was all that lay in the offensive cupboard. His comment, ‘Do you know, Admiral, that I am beginning to believe that if the Japanese intend to attack, your intervention is the only thing that can prevent the invasion succeeding,’ would seem to prove the point.
Given this situation, there were two obvious choices: rely immediately on an army defence of Malaya and Singapore, or initiate some sort of offensive action. No one at that meeting—other than Shenton Thomas—spoke against the operation. If, therefore, Brooke-Popham and the RAF were committed to it, their cooperation was to be critical. The days of capital ship-dominated battles at sea were over—any fleet without aircraft carrier or land-based bomber and fighter support was doomed if the enemy possessed such a capacity.
Air Vice-Marshal Pulford’s commitment to the operation proved both vague and ever-changing. At the meeting he pledged his support for the operation ‘whatever that might be’. As stated, Phillips asked for reconnaissance ahead of the fleet during daylight on 9 December; reco
nnaissance from Kota Bharu along the coast north of Singora from dawn on the 10th; and fighter cover over his fleet during daylight on that day. He was advised that his first request was granted, as to his second ‘there was some doubt’ and about his third there was ‘greater doubt’. The fact that Phillips sent a hand-written letter to Pulford has been mentioned, and as Force Z sailed past the Changi signal centre Phillips was told, ‘Regret fighter protection not possible.’ The circumstances of this train of events were, to say the least, amateurish. Force Z should have known exactly what the RAF commitment was; Phillips should never have resorted to a hand-written letter and then sailed before a favourable reply; and Brooke-Popham’s later decision that the air defence of Malayan airfields and of Singapore itself would, in the end, be more important than air cover for Force Z should have halted the operation. Once Brooke-Popham and Pulford had endorsed the mission, their commitment to providing air cover should have been unqualified. Alan Warren, in his Singapore 1942, raises a fascinating point concerning Brooke-Popham’s decision to safeguard Malayan airfields and Singapore over air cover for Force Z. For 10 December he states that:
Early in the afternoon all four of Pulford’s Buffalo squadrons were still at Singapore, but only eleven Buffaloes from No. 453 Squadron were ordered to take off. There had not been any serious air attack on the island over the previous two days, nor were there any of the squadrons on the immediate verge of being transferred northwards. Apart from patrolling around Singapore, the pilots of the forty to fifty Buffaloes stationed on the island had little to do since the outbreak of war.25
This invites a simple question. Given their inactivity, why weren’t these aircraft allotted by Pulford and Brooke-Popham to the Force Z operation as a matter of top priority? And given the previous propensity of the RAF to construct airfields over much of the Malay Peninsula, why was it not possible to have moved some of them north to maintain cover for Force Z despite enemy activity at this time?
In the end Phillips was hasty and embarked on an enormous risk without unqualified RAF support, while Brooke-Popham and Pulford had little to be proud of. They were vague and indecisive.
In simple terms, the Kuantan episode amounted to ‘the fog of war’. Had it not occurred Phillips might possibly have got out of the area. But his failure to break radio silence—a costly idiosyncrasy—ruined his chances for the belated air cover he had ardently craved. Pulford’s comment to Captain Tennant on his return, ‘My God, I hope you don’t blame me for this. I had no idea where you were’, is strictly fair for the Kuantan venture, but the point is that for much of the time Force Z was at sea, he did know where it was, where it was going and what it was trying to achieve—and had endorsed the operation at the meeting. To therefore ‘blame him’ for the episode would be grossly unfair, but his hesitancy did not help.
In the end, had the Force Z mission been meticulously planned and implemented, and had there been a high degree of cooperation and coordination between the services, and had the ‘fog of war’ descended upon the Japanese rather than Phillips, the chances of its success would still have been slim. The Japanese air arm had proven itself thoroughly professional and far superior in terms of its training and equipment. And these factors told.
At the political and strategic level the British lost heavily. The First Sea Lord received the information at around 8.30 am on 10 December. A few minutes later, after composing himself, he rang the Prime Minister. Winston Churchill would later write that:
I was opening my boxes . . . when the telephone at my bedside rang. It was the First Sea Lord. His voice sounded odd. He gave a sort of cough and gulp, and at first I could not hear quite clearly. ‘Prime Minister, I have to report to you that the Prince of Wales and the Repulse have both been sunk by the Japanese—we think by aircraft. Tom Phillips is drowned.’ ‘Are you sure it’s true?’ ‘There is no doubt at all.’ So I put the telephone down. I was thankful to be alone. In all the war I never received a more direct shock . . .
As I turned over and twisted in bed the full horror of the news sank in upon me. There were no British or American capital ships in the Indian Ocean or the Pacific except the American survivors of Pearl Harbour [sic], who were hastening back to California. Over all this expanse of waters Japan was supreme, and we everywhere were weak and naked.26
At 11.00 am that morning, Churchill faced the House of Commons and began his speech with ‘I have bad news for the House . . .’ When he returned to make a full statement the next day, in part he said: ‘It may well be that we shall have to suffer considerable punishment, but we shall defend ourselves everywhere with the utmost vigour in close cooperation with the United States and the Netherlands.’27 Britain and the US had already suffered considerable punishment—within a period of some six hours and 35 minutes on 7 December—Greenwich Time—the Japanese had landed in Malaya, bombed Pearl Harbor, the Philippines and Hong Kong. And now, three days later, the Prime Minister had announced the destruction of two of the nation’s premier capital ships.
In Australia the news was received with dismay. The government and its people had embraced the arrival of the Eastern Fleet as a significant measure of Britain’s commitment to Empire defence. Few, if any, understood the structural deficiences of that fleet, but were lost in the sheer symbolism of its arrival—and the resultant elation and propaganda. The loss of the two ships questioned the faith in, and the ability of, Britain to protect her empire. Events in ‘the near north’ were becoming uncomfortably ‘near’.
The sinking of the Prince of Wales and Repulse sent shock waves through the English civil community in Singapore and Malaya. It was incomprehensible that such all-powerful symbols of the very pride of the Royal Navy, which had majestically glided into Singapore with their decks lined with the pomp and ceremony of white uniforms and stirring brass band anthems, could meet their doom within a paltry six days. It was not, therefore, merely a matter of two ships going to the bottom, but rather the cruel, sudden intimation that the old and privileged world was under immediate threat. The Governor, Sir Shenton Thomas, on hearing of the Japanese arrival at Kota Bharu, had simply stated: ‘Well, I suppose you’ll shove the little men off.’ The ‘little men’ bombed Singapore, and on 8 December 1941, when the pride of the British Navy had gone to deal with these upstarts, disaster had ensued. If the magnitiude of these events was catastrophic, then the sheer speed of their unfolding seemed unreal. A sense of bewilderment now began to take seed in the British consciousness—one which would flourish, not fade.
For most Chinese the news was particularly frightening. There was a cold realisation of the consequences of a possible Japanese victory. Years of suffering and torment in the home country, such as had occurred in Nanking, might now await them. The Malay and Tamil workers, while apprehensive, saw the whole episode more in terms of a struggle between their present masters and fellow Asians, which might constitute a changing of the guard.
Within 48 hours of the outbreak of hostilities, the Japanese had rendered the British naval and air forces’ ability to defend Malaya and Singapore utterly impotent. The army had always been their poor relation. For years it had been seen as a mere garrison force deployed to protect a £60 000 000 naval base, which was built to accommodate a fleet that would arrive when needed. In the end, Churchill’s ‘deterrent’ became engaged in an operation for which it was not structured or intended. The very ship in which he had sailed to the Atlantic conference now lay at the bottom of the South China Sea with Repulse. And when the RAF had boldly asserted that it could destroy 40 per cent of a potential enemy invasion force at sea, or significantly maul it on its invasion beaches, airfields had sprung up over the Malay Peninsula like mushrooms after a spring rain. The army, not consulted as to the location of these airfields, could do nothing but disperse and therefore dilute its strength guarding them. Poorly trained, ill-equipped and under-resourced, General Percival’s army was now Singapore’s last hope.
10
THE JITRA LINE
&nbs
p; The failure to immediately implement Matador when the Japanese appeared in the Gulf of Siam caused a strained relationship between General Percival and his III Corps Commander, General Heath. After the war, when interviewed by the British Official Historians, Heath rightly asserted that Matador’s only chance for success lay with a decision on 6 December. When Matador was not enacted, he further claimed that General Percival ought to have occupied the Jitra Line earlier. In Heath’s eyes Brooke-Popham ‘couldn’t make up his mind’ and Percival ‘was no commander’.1
There would seem some basis for Heath’s views. His III Corps HQ was told that Percival—a keen supporter of Matador—hoped to have a decision by 11.00 pm on 7 December; at 11.30 pm Heath was told that the issue was still undecided, and that he should stand by in case the order was given in the morning; and, finally, during the early morning of the 8th Percival’s staff contacted Brooke-Popham for a decision and were told ‘Do not act’, which was passed on at 8.20 am. But worse was to follow. Percival’s biographer, Clifford Kinvig, has claimed that Percival contacted III Corps at 9.30 am on 8 December and:
. . . told them of the reports indicating that the Japanese were already at Singora and Patani and authorised Heath to operate the prearranged harassing and demolition activities and to ‘watch northern frontier’. This was the clearest message that MATADOR [sic] was not to take place. The cancellation decision by Far East Command appears to have been passed to Percival’s headquarters shortly before 10 am. By this time the GOC had gone off to report the outbreak of hostilities and the emergency measures taken to the Straits Settlements Legislative Council which met that morning.2
