Descent into Hell: The fall of Singapore - Pudu and Changi - the Thai Burma railway
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The initial party of about a thousand men of ‘F’ Force arrived back in Changi over five nights: Kappe’s first party of around five hundred arrived by ship and anchored on 15 December. The following day they arrived by truck near Birdwood Camp and were welcomed by Lieutenant-Colonel ‘Black Jack’ Galleghan, a number of other officers and Changi inmates. They were ‘almost unrecognisable shadows of the men who had gone away; many were hatless, bootless and obviously ill on their feet . . .’35 When they alighted from the trucks Galleghan was informed that all were ‘present and correct’. ‘Black Jack’ was dumbfounded.
‘Where are the rest, Major [Major Noel Johnston, 2/30th Battalion]?’ ‘They’re all here, Sir.’36
According to his biographer, Galleghan was silent as he walked along a line of his 2/30th Battalion survivors ‘patting the shoulders of a man here and there, the tears streaming down his face’.37
The POW Thai–Burma Railway experience is a paradox. After the war, Major Bruce Hunt would give a veiled clue to this paradox by stating that: ‘Some of the things I saw with F Force made me very proud to be an Australian.’38 Some. When human beings are thrust into a prolonged environment of starvation, cruelty, slavery and despair, their strengths and weaknesses are exposed. Lieutenant Norm Couch, personal orderly officer to Major Bruce Hunt, has arguably left us with the most succinct and honest summing up of the Railway experience:
No man has the command of words needed for conveying, in comprehensible terms, the courage and cowardness; the loyalty and treachery; the dedication and dereliction; the strengths and frailties; the kindness and brutality; the integrity and depravity; the magnificence and enormities of men, as revealed by and to those who fated to pass through the entrails of hell, in Thailand Burma [sic], during and after the Railway was built in 1943.39
In the end, the ability to survive the Railway experience came down to mateship. When it was abused, and corruption at times became treachery, everyone suffered. But where a dynamic leader or doctor—or both—grasped the reins of responsibility and employed a communal approach for the common good, then the odds of survival dramatically improved.
In some camps it was a near-run thing. If the gods and a number of leaders and individuals didn’t give a damn, there were enough inspirational officers and other ranks who did.
PART V
SINGAPORE
. . . the orphan
Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan
variously attributed
31
RECKONING
This work has offered an analysis of the campaign and drawn its conclusions as to the fall of Singapore. But various postwar perspectives and the fate of a number of the participants are of interest.
Winston Churchill, in The Second World War, Volume IV:
I judged it impossible to hold an inquiry by Royal Commission into the circumstances of the fall of Singapore while the war was raging. We could not spare the men, the time, or the energy. Parliament accepted this view; but I certainly thought that in justice to the officers and men concerned there should be an inquiry into all the circumstances as soon as the fighting stopped. This however has not been instituted by the Government of the day [Attlee’s Labour Government]. Years have passed and many of the witnesses are dead. It may well be that we shall never have a formal pronouncement by a competent court upon the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history.1
Churchill had, on 14 June 1941, directed that ample men, energy and time be found to conduct an official inquiry into the loss of Crete. His real reason for not instigating a wartime Singapore inquiry came down to the contents of his secret speech to Parliament on 23 April 1942, in which he stated—not without substance—that a wartime inquiry would merely open wounds between allies. The Australians had been critical of the Indian performance during the campaign, whilst ‘other credible witnesses reflected badly on the Australians’.2 This last statement will be examined shortly.
At the end of the war, Prime Minister Attlee sought guidance from his senior military advisors. Hack and Blackburn in their Did Singapore Have To Fall? have stated that the Vice Chiefs of Staff and the Joint Planning Staff told Attlee that an inquiry would only serve to further increase tension between Australia and India over the ‘collapse of morale in Singapore and their troops’ part in this’. Moreover, they pointed out that the colonial administration, the local commanders and Britain’s interwar defence policies would also be placed under intense scrutiny. Further, such an inquiry ‘would necessitate calling people of the highest rank, including Churchill himself ’.3 In short, any inquiry would prove an unsavoury business. But the final recommendation given Attlee deserves the strongest condemnation. His military advisors suggested that no action should be taken until the commanders had had their despatches published, and that if a full inquiry was instigated, its terms of reference should be confined to only ‘the period in February 1942 when Singapore was besieged’.4 By any standard, this was an appalling attempt to whitewash the causes of Singapore’s demise to a mere month in time, and would have most assuredly caused an outcry, particularly from the Australians and Indians, who would have featured predominantly in such a limited investigation. The Labour Government decided against a Royal Commission.
Churchill’s assertion that ‘years have passed and many of the witnesses are dead’ is a feeble statement. He returned to power in 1951, only six years after war’s end, and there was still no shortage of senior political and military leaders—including himself—available to give evidence. Further, such was his influence, even after he left office, that had he really desired an inquiry, it would most likely have occurred. The truth is that a properly constituted inquiry into the fall of Singapore would have reflected poorly upon British prewar policy, the politicians, the Colonial Office and the conduct of the campaign. The fact is that Churchill declined the opportunity for a Royal Commission for the very same reasons as had Attlee.
The reality is that Singapore had to fall. In fact, one is tempted to ask, with equal authenticity, as to why France fell, or why the Low Countries fell, or indeed Greece or Crete, or why reverses were suffered in the Middle East. The answer is that the western democracies were unprepared for war, and when a world conflict emerged their limited resources had to be spread globally. Two years would pass before the full measure of the Allies’ potential industrialisation would materialise, their massive reserves of manpower employed and trained, and their services’ doctrines developed. Few historians have questioned the wisdom of allotting most of the men and equipment to the defeat of Nazi Germany—the Allies adopted a ‘beat Hitler first’ policy and it was right. The question asked of Churchill, therefore, is not as to whether he should have prioritised his limited resources to the Middle East and Russia, but whether or not he might have decisively influenced events in Malaya and Singapore with resources that he could spare. This work has recorded that even a small number of the available fighters, limited air crews, tanks and trained reinforcements would have dramatically helped the cause, and would hardly have been responsible for a reverse of Russian fortunes. The fact that Percival was denied those few priceless resources would certainly have resulted in acute condemnation during any fair inquiry. But in the end such assistance would have merely delayed the inevitable: Singapore had to fall.
From an Australian perspective, there are three issues regarding our account of the fall of Singapore that demand examination: General Gordon Bennett’s escape and his subsequent fate; the behaviour of Australian troops in Singapore Town during the last days before the capitulation; and the 8th Australian Division’s performance during the campaign.
The reasons behind Major-General Gordon Bennett’s escape from Singapore are the subject of great debate and controversy. In Why Singapore Fell, Bennett would write that:
I, personally, had made this decision [to escape] some time previously, having decided that I would not fall into Japanese hands. My decision was fortified by the resolve
that I must at all costs return to Australia to tell our people the story of our conflict with the Japanese, to warn them of the danger to Australia, and to advise them of the best means of defeating the Japanese tactics.5
There can be no doubt that Bennett did indeed act out of a sense of patriotism and the desire to pass on his knowledge of fighting against the Japanese. However, there is also strong evidence that he still believed his destiny was to command the Australian Military Forces, or at worst, lead a corps or division in the avenging battles in the Pacific War. Rowell would record that: ‘I’m sure that Bennett’s motives were a mixture of ambition and patriotism. Setting aside his antipathy for Blamey, which was very much reciprocated, he felt that he, and he alone, could save Australia.’6 Gavin Long, the Official Historian, was more blunt: ‘I believe he thought he was such a great man that we couldn’t possibly win the war without him.’7
Bennett arrived by plane at Broome, Western Australia, at 5.00 pm on 27 February 1942. His escape to Australia had taken twelve days. After flying from Broome to Alice Springs, then Charleville in Queensland to Sydney, Bennett finally flew to Melbourne and arrived there on 2 March. His first meeting was at the Victoria Barracks with the Chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant-General Vernon Sturdee. General Bennett:
To my dismay, my reception was cold and hostile. No other member of the Military Board called in to see me. After a few minutes’ formal conversation, Sturdee told me that my escape was ill-advised, or words to that effect. I was too shocked to say much. He then went on with his work, leaving me to stand aside in his room.8
It was a different story at a meeting with the War Cabinet that same day. Sturdee was also present. Bennett would later record that:
. . . I gave the story of the fall of Singapore. The Prime Minister was friendly and made a short but kind speech thanking me for my work in Malaya and assuring me of the confidence of the Government in me. I then broached the subject of the escape and the criticism from a certain quarter. I told the Cabinet that I left my headquarters in Singapore well after the surrender was signed, sealed and delivered, and after I had organized units in rest areas and collected arms and equipment. The Prime Minister and other ministers assured me that they were quite satisfied that I had taken the right step.9
Clearly the Government and the Chief of the General Staff were ‘out of step’. After the Cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Curtin approved the following press release:
War Cabinet and the Chiefs of Staff today met Major-General Gordon Bennett. He reported fully on the Malayan Campaign, including the battle for and the surrender of Singapore.
I desire to inform the nation that we [author’s italics] are proud to pay tribute to the efficiency, gallantry and devotion of our forces throughout the struggle.
We have expressed to Major-General Gordon Bennett our confidence in him. His leadership and conduct were in complete conformity with his duty to the men under his command and to his country. He remained with his men until the end, completed all formalities in connection with the surrender and then took the opportunity and risk of escaping.10
Sturdee was shocked when he read the release: ‘They never at any time asked me for my opinion as to the ethics etc. of his actions, and never gave me an opportunity of giving them.’11
While Bennett would have taken great heart from his political and public reception upon his return to Australia, the reaction of the Military Board and the majority of his peers shocked him. But worse was to follow. Any hopes Major-General Gordon Bennett had of a fighting command, let alone a senior one, were dashed a mere 21 days after his meeting with the War Cabinet when General Blamey arrived in Perth by ship to be informed that he (Blamey) had been appointed C-in-C Australian Military Forces. From the moment that appointment was made, Bennett’s fate was sealed. We have discussed the longstanding and bitter rivalry between Bennett and Blamey.
When Blamey saw Major-General Rowell (Deputy Chief of the General Staff ) in Melbourne upon his arrival, he was ‘very angry’, and told Rowell that ‘Bennett should be tried by his peers’. Rowell:
I urged him to move with caution as he had yet to consolidate his position . . . I reminded him that Bennett had a good deal of political sympathy in Sydney, that the Cabinet had seen him and made a statement about his future, and that he (Blamey) would be unwise to challenge the Government so soon unless he was quite sure of success. So he bided his time.12
Blamey was no fool. He promoted Bennett to Lieutenant-General and posted him as GOC III Australian Corps in Western Australia. For all intents and purposes, while Bennett’s supporters had at least been partly appeased by his promotion and posting, Bennett was now out of the way. Despite his repeated requests for a fighting command, this was denied him. Near the end of 1943, after some twenty months spent languishing in Western Australia, during which the receding tide of the Pacific War had reduced both the size of his command and the relevance of his posting, Bennett made a final desperate effort to secure a South-West Pacific command: he requested a meeting with Blamey in Melbourne. The ‘meeting’ was nothing more than a stormy and futile confrontation.
Bennett asked ‘why he should be held back’. Blamey replied that he had been ‘associated with a failure’, that he had ‘wrongly escaped from Singapore’, and, most cutting of all, that he ‘had no confidence in me as a commander’.13 And then, according to Bennett, he (Bennett) inquired as to whether Blamey had been right in escaping from Greece but it had been wrong for him to have escaped from Singapore, and whether Greece had been a success or a failure. ‘Blamey hit the roof and shouted loudly his resentment at my insolence. In such circumstances, I kept my head and said no more.’14
There was nothing more to say. The truth is that Blamey was ordered out of Greece—Bennett was not ordered out of Singapore. In the end, the sheer hatred between Blamey and Bennett meant that once Blamey was appointed C-in-C Australian Military Forces, Bennett’s career was ruined. And it is highly probable that had Bennett ever assumed such power, Blamey would have been similarly sidelined.
The controversy did not end with Bennett’s retirement on 15 April 1944. Blamey was not finished with Bennett and had indeed ‘bided his time’.
On 31 August 1945, General Blamey flew to Yokohama in preparation for his part in the Japanese surrender, which was to be conducted on 2 September in Tokyo Bay aboard the American battleship Missouri. While in Yokohama, Blamey met General Percival and requested that he write a letter confirming the contents of one he had written on 8 March 1943 whilst in captivity, explaining his promotion of Brigadier Callaghan to command the AIF in Singapore in Bennett’s absence. Part of Percival’s March 1943 letter stated that:
I have to report that Major-General H. Gordon Bennett, G.O.C., A.I.F., Malaya, voluntarily and without permission relinquished command of the A.I.F on 15 Feb. 1942—the date on which the capitulation of the British Forces in Malaya took place. The command passed to Brigadier C. A. Callaghan.15
Having now created a means of destroying Bennett, Blamey then sent a letter to the Minister for the Army in support of Callaghan’s promotion, but accusing Bennett of desertion.16 Blamey now convened a military court of inquiry into Bennett’s escape, which met at Victoria Barracks in Sydney on 26 October 1945. The composition of the court deserves examination. It consisted of three members: the president was Lieutenant-General Sir Leslie Morshead, and the other two were Major-General George Wootten and Major-General Victor Stantke. While there is no evidence that Morshead or Wootten were biased in any way towards Bennett, Stantke’s participation was entirely unfair, and an example of Blamey’s unqualified hatred and determination to ruin Bennett—by any means.
It is extraordinary to note that Lodge, in The Fall of General Gordon Bennett, points out that when Bennett had wanted his HQ to be deployed in Malaya in early 1941 ‘it was rumoured that a senior officer of the Staff Corps had threatened that the 8th Division would never function as a complete formation under Bennett’s command’, and that Bennett bel
ieved the officer to be Stantke;17 Lodge has further recorded that during early 1941, when Bennett wanted to report directly to the Minister for the Army and chafed under the control of the Military Board, he was confronted by ‘the apparent obstruction of the Adjutant-General, Stantke’;18 and, further, that Bennett’s suspicions were ‘not unreasonable for there is evidence that Stantke was trying to place Bennett in a poor light in Australia’, and that ‘Bennett’s assessment of Stantke was probably correct’.19 In the interests of common justice therefore, Major-General Victor Stantke should not have been a member of the court of inquiry.
Shortly after the court assembled, Bennett’s counsel, Mr B. Clancy, KC submitted that the inquiry should be made public; that a military court was not appropriate on the grounds that its three-man tribunal was not under oath; and, when these submissions were rejected by the tribunal, that finally, and with great substance, Stantke was a biased member and should not be involved in the inquiry. Clancy then tabled a statutory declaration. Lodge simply cites the author of the declaration as ‘Mr C R McKerihan’, while Bennett’s biographer described him as ‘one of Australia’s best known and most highly respected bankers’.20 In essence, the declaration cited a luncheon held on 2 March 1945—the very day of Bennett’s arrival in Melbourne—in which McKerihan was told by Stantke that he (Stantke), after being asked to do so, had not invited Bennett to the luncheon because ‘he had not met him on arrival’ and ‘was not interested in him’. McKerihan concluded by stating that it was apparent to him ‘from his [Stantke’s] manner of speech that he was hostile to Major-General Bennett’.21 There was a short adjournment which was followed by Stantke’s denial of bias and the court’s rejection of Clancy’s submission, whereupon Bennett and Clancy left the proceedings in protest.