by Peter Brune
. . . Heath visited Mersing and told Taylor that as from 6 a.m. on the 19th a new force, named ‘Eastforce’, would be formed under his command and that his task had been changed to that of protecting the Jemaluang–Kota Tinggi road instead of holding Mersing. ‘Eastforce’ would consist of 22nd Australian Brigade (less one battalion), 5th Norfolk and all other troops in the area.2
Early on 19 January—while Lieutenant-Colonel Anderson’s 2/19th Battalion was under attack at the Bakri crossroads—General Key reacted to two threats: one at Batu Pahat and the other at the critical defile at Bukit Pelandok. To hold the former, he deployed the 15th Brigade to occupy the town and the British Battalion as a reinforcement. Because he had already sent the 2nd Cambridgeshire to Batu Pahat and the 5th Norfolk to Jemaluang, Key found that he was now holding the critical Bukit Pelandok defile with only the 6th Norfolks. He now sent the 3/16th Punjab to reinforce it. At a conference on the afternoon of 19 January—attended by Generals Percival, Key, Bennett and Brigadier Duke—Percival decided to further reinforce the 53rd Brigade with the 2nd Loyals from the 9th Indian Division; and he ordered that Brigadier Duncan’s embattled 45th Brigade (and the Australian 2/29th and 2/19th Battalions) should be withdrawn through the 53rd Brigade west of Yong Peng and Bennett’s ‘Westforce’ to the Trunk Road town of Labis. This was typical of Percival’s recurring habit of splitting brigades and often selecting the most inexperienced formations to undertake the most demanding tasks. While his best trained 22nd Brigade AIF was, as late as 19 January, engaged in spasmodic patrol contact with the enemy outside of Endau before a movement back to ‘protect’ the line Jemaluang–Kota Tinggi, Percival had—against Wavell’s orders—left it there and then despatched its 2/19th Battalion to Bakri. He could have, and indeed should have, sent the 53rd Brigade to conduct this static task, thereby releasing the whole of General Bennett’s two-brigade 8th Division for operations on the Trunk Road and the west coast. Months before, Bennett had been allotted the defence of Johore, and when that task had become a reality, the two best trained brigades in Malaya were split and either thrown into piecemeal tasks or left virtually idle—and all because of ‘administrative’ difficulties. An administrative difficulty is surely a much more palatable problem to deal with than the recurring slaughter of untrained troops. The 53rd Brigade had been, until literally five days previous, completing an eleven-week journey by sea to Singapore, and was therefore unfit and not acclimatised for immediate operations in Malaya.
During the afternoon of 19 January, a company of the 6th Norfolks occupying the Bukit Pelandok defile was attacked by elements of the Japanese 1/5th Battalion, and evicted from its position. After having crossed the road, the enemy occupied the slopes of Bukit Belah, which cut off access to the road to Bakri. Late that same day Brigadier Duke made plans to recapture the defile. He ordered Lieutenant-Colonel Moorhead’s 3/16th Punjabis to reinforce a company of the 6th Norfolk, which was still in occupation of a location on the northern slopes of Bukit Belah, overlooking the Parit Sulong Road. He further ordered Moorhead to send a second company to a position about 450 metres further north. Once the two 3/16th Punjab companies were in position, Duke planned that the Norfolks, under covering fire from the Punjabis, were to attack and recapture Bukit Pelandok.
The operation was a disaster. Moorhead’s first company set out at 4.00 am on 20 January to reinforce the Norfolks. In the darkness the approaching Punjabis were mistaken for Japanese and fired upon. Although this ‘friendly’ fire was soon halted, the well-concealed Japanese then proceeded to riddle the defenders with close-quarter fire which drove all and sundry off the feature. In the process, the brave Moorhead, who had voluntarily relinquished his brigade command to return to his 3/16th Punjab Battalion, was killed and his unit took heavy casualties. The Japanese remained in possession of the defile. Lionel Wigmore:
So serious were the losses that despite the urgent need to clear the road to Bakri, Brigadier Duke decided that he would have to await the arrival of the Loyals before making a further endeavour. It later transpired that a Norfolk detachment which had relieved Lieutenant Varley’s platoon at the Parit Sulong bridge, having been without rations since the 18th, and thinking that it had been cut off, had left its vital post during the morning of the 20th and set off across country to Batu Pahat.3
Lieutenant-Colonel Anderson’s escape route via the bridge at Parit Sulong would soon lay in enemy hands.
There is much controversy surrounding the events that were to ensue. On the late morning of 20 January, General Key visited General Bennett’s headquarters. It is critical to realise that at this juncture the 53rd Brigade was under the command of General Key. Colonel Thyer (Bennett’s GSO1) has stated that Bennett ‘requested’4 that Key send his 53rd Brigade to capture the defile and push on to occupy the bridge at Parit Sulong (and thereby facilitate Anderson column’s escape). Wigmore, using Thyer’s account of the campaign and the 8th Division War Diary, has carefully stated that Key ‘feared’5 that ‘the brigade [the 53rd], or a substantial part of it, might find itself cut off in attempting such an operation, thus adding to the already heavy losses and further endangering Yong Peng.’6 But the 8th Division Diary states that: ‘The commander 11 Div [Key] replied that although he would like to do this by so doing he would uncover the approaches to the main north road and Yong Peng, and the general safety of the force must take priority.’7 There is a significant difference between a ‘fear’ or concern, and an outright refusal. Bennett was ‘far from satisfied’8 and referred the matter to Percival.
In his book The War In Malaya, Percival claimed that he reacted to Bennett’s request ‘early on the morning of the twenty-first’.9 It was very early, as Thyer would later record that:
Gen Percival agreed and ordered 11 Div to place 53 Inf Bde at the disposal of Westforce forthwith. He instructed GOC Westforce to withdraw 27 Aust Inf Bde (less 2/29 Bn) straight back to Yong Peng cross roads instead of halting them South of Labis as was originally intended. This would ensure the protection of the withdrawal of 9 Ind Div and free 53rd Inf Bde from its role of protection of Yong Peng.10
The 8th Division Diary records that the order to move the 27th Brigade AIF to Yong Peng was received at 1.00 am.11
At 9.00 am on 21 January, General Key arrived at Westforce HQ and now told Bennett that if the 53rd Brigade was ordered to attack Bukit Payong ‘he would personally assist in the issue of the orders’.12 Bennett told him that he ‘intended to employ the 53rd Brigade ‘in the manner he had already suggested, and that the attack should be launched at 1400 hours’.13 Key now sent his GSO2 (Major Parker) to inform Brigadier Duke that the Loyals were to stage the attack. On his way to Duke, Parker called in at the HQ of the Loyals and gave a warning order for the attack and made arrangements for transport. To save further time, he also instructed the Loyals to send forward a reconnaissance group at once.14 The train of events that now ensued are extraordinary.
Parker and Thyer met the Loyals’ CO, Lieutenant-Colonel Elrington, and the three officers then went forward at noon to join Brigadier Duke at the far end of the causeway. An amazed Thyer witnessed:
. . . the reconnaissance for the attack and the issue of the plan being made completely in the open, in full view of the defile only a thousand yards away. When it was suggested that this was an unsound and risky manner in which to conduct the preparations for an attack, GSO1 Westforce [Thyer] was informed by the Bde Comd [Duke] that he was convinced that there were no troops on the hill feature. It was then suggested that if this were the case, the forward Bn, the Punjabs, should be sent forward to occupy the hill immediately instead of waiting for a set-piece attack by the Loyals. Failing this, at least, fighting patrols should be sent forward to probe the position and locate enemy localities.15
An anxious Thyer then journeyed to Bennett’s HQ to inform him of these events. He returned to Duke at around 4.30 pm with orders from Bennett that the attack was to go in immediately. Duke informed Thyer that the artillery was not yet in a position
to give accurate fire support and that the Loyals had not been able to conduct a proper reconnaissance. The truth was that the Loyals had not even arrived.16
Despite the fact that the 53rd Brigade had had six hours’ warning for the attack, and, according to Thyer, the Loyals only slightly less time, the operation was rescheduled for 5.00 pm. Further delays now occurred. Although the artillery registration had begun at 2.00 pm it was slow and its results were ‘unsatisfactory’, and when a company of the Loyals took over an hour to embus, it became apparent that the Battalion would not be concentrated in the area before 6.00 pm at the earliest. Duke now cancelled the attack until 6.00 am the next morning (22 January). Thyer would later write that: ‘53rd Inf Bde claim that the 11 Div [Key] had stated that arty support was a pre-requisite for any attack on this defile, and since the support available was limited, it was necessary that it should be accurate.’17 Fair point. But despite the fact that the artillery had had nearly all of the afternoon in which to register its guns, Duke ordered that ‘it would be necessary to fire testing rounds at dawn to ensure the accuracy of the supporting fire’.18 It is therefore critical to record that at around 9.00 pm on the night of 21 January 1942, the Australians offered Duke additional artillery support, which was refused. Despite the abject failure of the support both in terms of time and accuracy, Duke believed that the existing battery ‘could adequately fulfill the task’.19 On the morning of 22 January, Duke yet again postponed the attack until 9.00 am because once again the artillery registration took too long. And when at daylight the Loyals were found by Japanese aircraft and bombed, Duke cancelled the attack altogether, and resumed his former defensive positions. The Loyals sustained six soldiers killed and another six wounded—hardly crushing casualties that might cause an attack to be cancelled. Anderson column’s already slim chances of rescue were now dashed.
After the war, Percival made two insipid attempts to both explain away and avoid any form of accountability for 53rd Brigade’s failure to even attempt to recapture the defile and occupy the bridge at Parit Sulong. In 1949 in The War In Malaya, he stated that: ‘For various reasons, in no way due to any lack of effort, this attack never got going.’20 And a few sentences later he stated that: ‘It should be remembered that at this time the 53rd Brigade was under orders of Westforce.’21 And in 1954 he made an equally poor attempt to lay the blame on General Bennett’s shoulders. Lodge has recorded that Percival wrote:
I have recently had an opportunity of discussing this with Col. Elrington. He was very upset by what I told him. He has documentary evidence to prove, as I suspected, that the timing of the counter-attack as ordered by Gordon Bennett was quite impracticable from the start. In fact, I gather that some of the Loyals, who at that time were very scattered, did not get any warning of the counter-attack until a few minutes before zero hour.22
The above passage was constructed as a response to an early draft of the British Official History, which caused Kirby to alter his narrative. And alter it he did. After a brief and shallow explaining away of Duke’s dithering, Kirby simply ended his passage with ‘Duke, owing to the difficulties already described, was unable to comply.’23
Percival’s 1949 statement ‘for various reasons, in no way due to any lack of effort, this attack never got going’, is shameful. When a company of troops takes an hour to embus, one is entitled to question their commander’s level of effort; when the circumstances of Duke’s reconnaissance are recalled, both his competency and endeavour should be questioned; and when the ‘effort’ of the supporting artillery—and the refusal of the Australians’ offer of assistance—is assessed, Percival’s point lacks credibility. His 1954 utterance to Kirby regarding Elrington’s ‘documentary evidence’ was nothing more than a thin smokescreen which has never seen the light of day. Surely, given the gravity of the failure, if Elrington had had such ‘documentary evidence’ it would have been publicly disclosed. It has not been.
But while historians have rightly identified the poor training and lack of acclimatisation of the three battalions of the 53rd Brigade, no such scrutiny has been given the 2nd Loyals. The Battalion had arrived in Singapore in April 1938 under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel G. Williams. Its second-in-command was Major Elrington, who assumed command of the unit in September 1940. Wigmore has claimed that the Loyals had not left Singapore Island during their service.24 But the unit historian has recorded that after having served in a number of roles in the defence of Singapore Island, the Battalion became a part of Malaya Command’s mobile reserve. As such, in March 1941, it had a week’s training at Kluang, and most significantly, at Yong Peng; during late April it moved to Mersing, where it was in training until August when relieved by the 22nd Brigade AIF; and, from then on, it had been part of the Singapore ‘Fortress’ under the command of Major-General Simmons.25 The 2nd Loyals, therefore, did not suffer from a lack of acclimatisation; they—and Elrington—were surely well versed with Yong Peng and Mersing, and could therefore have rendered valuable service with the 53rd Brigade at Mersing which would have allowed Brigadier Taylor’s 22nd Brigade AIF to have served with Bennett on the Trunk Road and/or at Muar. Further, given that the Battalion had seen service in Singapore and Malaya since April 1938, there can be absolutely no excuse for its slack efforts in movement and its poor reconnaissance procedures.
Given the background of the Loyals, the training and condition of the 53rd Brigade, and the command decisions of Brigadier Duke, it becomes apparent that probably General Key, but most definitely Duke and Elrington, never had any real intention of staging their ordered attack to recapture the Bukit Pelandok defile or to subsequently secure the bridge at Parit Sulong. For Percival to therefore state that every effort had been made, and that because Bennett was in overall command, that he was therefore culpable for the failure to attack and secure the bridge at Parit Sulong, holds absolutely no credibility—in fact the whole episode is a sad reflection upon his own poor handling of his resources. General Bennett’s diary, 22 January 1942:
W/T signals from party v. [very] faint. Loyals attack timed for 1400 yesterday postponed till 1730, then f [first] light today, then 0930, then abandoned. Sent message to Anderson to escape. Very very sad & upset. Told press story. Then 53 Bde was told to hold on 48 hours to enable escape. Later 53 Bde decided to withdraw & thus abandon these men. Ordered them to stay put till ordered to move & told Percival.26
Given Anderson’s determination to recover the 45th Brigade soldiers into his Bakri perimeter and the dogged fighting of the Australians at that location, and then along the perilous escape route to the bridge at Parit Sulong, Bennett’s angst is entirely fair and reasonable. The dithering performance of Key, Duke and Elrington deserve strong condemnation.
Whilst the desperate fighting at and around Bakri was unfolding, General Wavell had become increasingly uneasy about the defence of Singapore Island. On 19 January 1942, Wavell signalled Percival. It was an extraordinary communication, and, while both the Australian and British Official Historians later quoted it, they both omitted the first paragraph:
A. P. Wavell to General Percival 19 January 1942
Have seen Dobbin [Wavell’s Liaison Officer to Percival] and learnt that no detailed scheme exists for withdrawal to island and defence of it if Johore is lost. Sincerely trust it will never come to this but you must have scheme prepared. You are in better position than I am to judge what troops are likely to be available at any given time, if I can give you none except those arriving by convoys of which you are aware.27
The fact that the GOC Malaya Command was, at that time, becoming aware of a major battle unfolding in the Muar area, and, given that his III Corps had been evicted from northern Malaya in such a short and costly campaign, would seem to constitute more than enough motivation for a contingency withdrawal plan to Singapore Island—and for a rapid digging and wiring and mining of all of its possible approaches. After the first paragraph cited above, and not quoted by Kirby and Wigmore, Wavell’s signal of 19 January continue
d with:
You must think out problem of how to withdraw from mainland should withdrawal become necessary and how to prolong resistance on the island . . .
Will it be any use holding troops on southern beaches if attack is coming from north? Let me have your plans as soon as possible.
Your preparations must of course be entirely secret. Battle is to be fought out in Johore till reinforcements arrive and troops must not be allowed to look over shoulders. Under cover of selecting positions for garrison of island to prevent infiltration of small parties you can work out scheme for larger force and undertake some preparation such as obstacles or clearances but make it clear to everyone that battle is to be fought out in Johore without thought of retreat. Keep going and make everyone fight the Jap hard, every day brings reinforcements closer.28
On the same day Wavell signalled Churchill:
Officer whom I had sent to Singapore for plans of defence of island has now returned. Schemes are now being prepared for defence of northern part of island. Number of troops required to hold island effectively probably as great or greater than numbers required to hold up enemy in Johore. I have ordered Percival to fight out the battle in Johore but to work out plans to prolong resistance on island as long as possible should he lose Johore battle. I must warn you however that I doubt whether island can be held for long once Johore is lost . . .
Part of garrison has already been sent into Johore and many of troops remaining are of doubtful value. I am sorry to give you depressing picture but do not want you to have false picture of island fortress. Singapore defences were constructed entirely to meet seaward attack. I still hope Johore may be held until next convoy arrives.29
