The retreating Eighth Army now fell back behind the Egyptian frontier. From his tactical headquarters at Sollum, Ritchie hoped to rebuild his army, the remnants of which were limping towards Mersa Matruh. However, his superiors knew that he had lost his hold on the situation. Nor could they overlook the fact that Rommel’s forces were not pausing at the frontier but pursuing the British. On 25 June, Auchinleck took personal command of the Eighth Army. And he ordered a withdrawal to the defences of El Alamein.
8
Collapsing Dominoes
The commander-in-chief of India landed in Calcutta on the morning of 7 December 1941. Later that day Wavell made a speech at the National Defence and Savings Week, calling on ‘the second city of the Empire’ to contribute to the war effort. ‘In view of the threatening Japanese attitude at present’, he told the audience, ‘you may like to know that when I recently visited Burma and Malaya I was impressed by the strength of the defences which any attackers are likely to meet. And these defences by land, sea and air are constantly being reinforced.’ Wavell was not striking a confident note merely to drum up support for the war. He genuinely believed that an attack on Malaya was not on the cards. As he wrote to Auchinleck a month earlier, ‘the Jap has a very poor chance of successfully attacking Malaya and I don’t think myself, that there is much prospect of his trying’.1 Hours after Wavell’s speech in Calcutta, the Japanese struck Malaya, Thailand and Hong Kong as well as Pearl Harbor. India was caught out not so much by Japanese deception as by self-deception.
The fall of France in June 1940 had catalysed the entry of Italy into the war, and so drawn India to the defence of its western bastions. The impact of these events on India’s eastern sphere of interest was similar – albeit slower. The possibility of conquering South-East Asia and upending the European empires was no longer a glint in the eyes of Japan. It was an unprecedented opportunity. In mid-July 1940, a new government led by Prince Konoye Fumimaro took office. Tokyo was keen to attain self-sufficiency by seizing South-East Asia and promoting a new order in East Asia. Konoye’s foreign minister, Matsuoka Yosuke, coined the phrase ‘Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere’ to designate Japan’s own Lebensraum. The core of it would consist of China and Manchuria as well as the European colonies in South-East Asia.2
This was not a new idea. Notions of self-sufficiency had been prominent in Japanese thinking since the end of the Great War. Ironically, it was the advocates of self-sufficiency who sounded a note of caution in the summer of 1940.3 They were acutely cognizant of Japan’s material weakness for a venture in South-East Asia that would not only involve conflict with Britain but possibly the United States. Moreover, the southern expansion would have to be undertaken at a time when Japan was already waging an inconclusive war in China and when the old enemy, the Soviet Union, lurked in the wings. Tokyo was on the horns of this strategic trilemma for almost a year. Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941 galvanized the planners in Tokyo, however, and hastened them along the road to Pearl Harbor.4 If the Germans were able to defeat the Soviet Union and subsequently Britain, as seemed likely in the summer of 1941, then all of Japan’s European enemies would be prostrate and their Asian empires helpless to prevent an enormous accretion of Japan’s power – a moment of destiny comparable to that of Britain itself in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars. This, as it proved, woeful miscalculation was to result in three ruinous years of devastation for much of Asia.
The escalation of Japanese strategic aims from mid-1940 portended a conflict with India. To be sure, Tokyo did not plan an invasion of India. Nor was India regarded as an essential part of the Co-Prosperity Sphere. Nevertheless, numerous blueprints drawn up in Tokyo – including some by the luridly named Total War Research Institute – stretched the conception of the sphere to include India. This was hardly surprising given India’s importance for Japanese trade. For the bulk of the inter-war period, India was the leading supplier of raw cotton to Japan. From 1928 to 1934, India on average accounted for 40 per cent of raw cotton imports into Japan. If we set aside the anomalous years of 1932–33, the figure is almost 46 per cent. Conversely, India emerged as the single largest market for Japanese textile goods – the most important of Japan’s export items. From 1922 to 1935 India took on average 36 per cent of Japan’s total exports of cotton piece-goods.5
The surge in textile imports from Japan not only came at the expense of Britain but threatened to crowd out India’s own fledgling textile industry. In a rare joining of hands, the Indian industry and the Lancashire textile lobby combined to decry Japanese ‘dumping’ into India. Following the Imperial Economic Conference of 1932, India cancelled the trade agreement of 1904 with Japan and raised import duties for non-British goods to 75 per cent, up from 15 per cent in 1930. The Japanese retaliated by slashing imports of raw cotton from India. An attempt was made to settle the so-called Indo-Japanese ‘cotton war’ by a fresh agreement in 1934, which set the ceiling of Indian import duties on Japanese cotton piece-goods at 50 per cent and fixed quotas of Indian exports and Japanese imports to protect both sides’ interests. When the agreement came up for renewal three years later, the Indian government remained dissatisfied with its working. It believed that a weak yen was allowing Japanese exports to flourish. In fact, Japanese industry on the whole was rather competitive – as evidenced by the rise in exports to India of articles ranging from bicycles and paints to chemicals and electrical appliances.6 The Indian government sought to wriggle out of the agreement, but the Japanese stood firm. So the agreement was renewed for another three years. The friction with India over cotton was important in shaping Japanese thinking about self-sufficiency.
Indian influence was also prominent in the ideology underpinning the notion of a Co-Prosperity Sphere. Since the turn of the century, Japanese ideas of pan-Asianism had accorded a central place to India. The extended engagement between the Indian poet and Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore and the Japanese aesthete and curator Okakura Tenshin nurtured one strand of pan-Asianism in Japan. Another strand stemmed from Indian nationalists’ fascination with Japan in the wake of its military triumph over Russia in 1905. Thereafter, Tokyo became a refuge for revolutionaries against the Raj. Japanese ideologues unsurprisingly saw themselves as the leaders of an Asia released from the European harness.7 The ruthlessness of the policy that sprang from the ideology of pan-Asianism should not obscure its importance. Indeed, ideological and economic considerations fused together in shaping Japanese attitudes and policy. India was no exception to this. A Japanese play staged at the height of the ‘cotton war’ closes with the leader of the trade delegation from Tokyo saying: ‘Behold, the sun is setting: it will rise again. Fare-well people of India. We await the time when we can join hands for the peace of the world.’8 These attitudes would shape Japan’s policy towards India after December 1941.
Irrespective of India’s location in Japanese ideas of a Co-Prosperity Sphere, Tokyo’s strategic moves in South-East Asia were bound to collide with India’s conception of its own security. Prior to the outbreak of war in Europe, India had drawn up no plans at all for the defence of its eastern land and maritime borders. It was assumed that any potential threat would develop from the north-west frontier of India. Nevertheless, Indian military planners regarded Singapore, Hong Kong and Rangoon as the outer ramparts to the east – on the defence of which rested India’s own security. And the Indian army stood ready to send troops to secure these places.
This appeared to fit well with the wider imperial strategy for the Far East. In the aftermath of the First World War, policy-makers in London had planned for a major naval base at Singapore to which the main fleet of the Royal Navy would be sent in the event of a conflagration in the Far East. Both the assumptions underpinning the Singapore strategy – the availability of the base and the main fleet – were flaky. Financial constraints ensured that the Singapore base was a papier-mâché fortress, capable at best of berthing a peacetime fleet. This was perhaps just as well; for by the mi
d-1930s it was obvious to British planners that the international context would not permit sending the main fleet to Singapore.
The fragility of the situation in the Far East was driven home to the British government soon after the surrender of France. Tokyo demanded the closure of the Burma–China border and the Hong Kong frontier, as well as the withdrawal of British forces from mainland China. The Japanese interest in the Burma–China border was centred on the road connecting Lashio in northern Burma with Kunming in south-west China – a major supply artery for Chiang Kai-shek’s forces battling the Japanese in China.
The war cabinet initially thought that the Japanese were bluffing. The chiefs of staff took a different view. The British garrisons in China, they held, were strategically useless and tactically unviable. Nor was Hong Kong a vital interest: the garrison could not stave off a Japanese attack, in any case. Most importantly, given the threat posed by the German and Italian navies, there was now no question of sending the main fleet to Singapore. In this situation, the defence of Singapore would turn on the defence of the Malayan Peninsula from an attack via Thailand or Indo-China. Since neither India nor Britain could spare additional troops for Malaya, the chiefs advised beefing-up the air force in Malaya, ultimately from 8 obsolescent squadrons to 22 squadrons with 336 first-line aircraft. To begin with, two fighter squadrons would be sent to Malaya by the end of 1940. Meanwhile, it was imperative to avoid a war with Japan. The chiefs advocated the immediate closure of the Burma Road and a general settlement with the Japanese. The cabinet agreed that the military situation did not warrant risking war with Japan. Accordingly, it was decided to close the road for three months.9
Soon after, Konoye came to power in Tokyo and Japan’s relations with Britain deteriorated further. A number of British nationals were imprisoned in Japan, leading to retaliatory measures. On 23 September 1941, Japanese forces entered northern Indo-China. Churchill was confident, however, that Japan would not go to war unless Germany successfully invaded Britain. He told the chiefs of staff that the Japanese threat to Singapore was remote. Nor did he agree with their views on Malaya. ‘The defence of whole of Malaya’, he wrote, ‘cannot be entertained.’ The defence of Singapore should be based on a strong local garrison and the ‘general potentialities of sea power’. He also opposed the build-up of a large air force in the Far East. Instead Churchill urged the United States to take a tough line against Japanese encroachments on French and Dutch possessions in South-East Asia. He wrote to President Roosevelt: ‘Everything that you can do to inspire the Japanese with the fear of a double war may avert the danger.’ Following Germany’s attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, Churchill’s reading of the situation turned upbeat. ‘I cannot believe’, he wrote, ‘the Japanese will face the combination now developing around them. We may therefore regard the situation not only as more favourable but as less tense.’10
The government of India was only a bit more responsive to reality. Following Tokyo’s demand for the closure of the Burma Road, the general staff argued that even if Japan did not embark on aggression it might make unreasonable demands that would ultimately force it into a war with the British Empire. French Indo-China seemed a low-hanging fruit for the Japanese to pluck.
Should Japan take this step our strategic position not only in Malaya and Singapore but also Burma and India will have to be reconsidered … it is perfectly obvious that Japanese control of Indo-China may be a first and very large step towards extending her influence to India in furtherance of the aims of her ultimate Asiatic policy.11
While the general staff were prepared to contemplate Japanese attacks on Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaya and even Thailand, a land attack on Burma was not deemed likely or feasible. They did allow, though, for the possibility of air attacks on Burma, Assam and eastern Bengal, as well as a naval thrust into the Indian Ocean. Accordingly, the defence plan of 1941 called for no more than the location of fighter squadrons near the industrial areas of Bengal and Assam.
Until Japan’s entry into the war, writes the Indian official historian, ‘the General Staff in India were suffering from a peculiar complacency, which prevented them from adopting effective measures to counteract any possible Japanese threat against Eastern India or her coastline’.12 This was partly because of their preoccupation with the Middle East and North Africa, and partly because Japan did seem a distant threat, with no twentieth-century precedent for such a colossal strategic leap. But it also reflected the fact that India shared London’s faith in bluff and bluster as substitutes for ends and means in strategy.
In mid-February 1941, Leo Amery – secretary of state for India – wrote to General Auchinleck – the newly appointed commander-in-chief of India – that ‘the Japanese definitely mean mischief … I have a feeling things may well come to a head between them and us by May.’ However weak the British position in the Far East, they must demonstrate resolve in the face of Japanese moves. ‘As long as a cat arches her back, spits and faces the dog in front of her, he will hesitate and sometimes go away: the moment she turns tail she is done for.’13 Such were the zoological assumptions on which the defence of the Far East rested. Little wonder, it failed to survive contact with the enemy.
When Tokyo finally struck in December 1941, the first domino to fall was Hong Kong. No one expected to hold Hong Kong. Back in 1937 it was decided that the colony was an important but not vital outpost; it should be defended for as long as possible without being unnecessarily fortified with troops. These views were reiterated by the chiefs in the summer of 1940. Indeed, they held that the British position in the Far East would have been stronger without the unsatisfactory commitment to Hong Kong.14 Churchill agreed with them. When the commander-in-chief of the Far East, Air Marshal Robert Brooke-Popham, suggested reinforcing Hong Kong with two more battalions, the prime minister wrote: ‘We must avoid frittering away our resources on untenable positions … I wish we had fewer troops there, but to move any would be noticeable and dangerous.’15
There was more at stake in Hong Kong than the reputation of the British Empire. The island was valuable to the Chinese forces as a port of access. An estimated 60 per cent of China’s arms were imported through Hong Kong. Chiang Kai-shek was naturally anxious about its fate. At one point, he even offered ten divisions of trained soldiers to defend Hong Kong – if the British could equip them. London understandably turned down the proposal.16 By the end of 1940, Hong Kong was defended by two battalions each from Britain, Canada and India. There was limited artillery and practically no air power available to the defenders.
Technically a British Dependent Territory, Hong Kong had long been regarded as an outpost of the Raj. It had been conquered by Indian troops and had done rather well out of the Indian opium trade. Hong Kong also housed a large community of expatriate Indians, who ‘ate tiffin at midday and stored their merchandise in godowns and drained away their rainwater through nullahs; and the ladies did their light shopping at Kayamally’s dry goods emporium and similar enterprises run by the small but prosperous band of Sindhi and Parsee merchants’.17 Sikhs and Punjabi Muslims were sent from India to serve as auxiliaries in Hong Kong’s police force. By a special arrangement with the Indian army headquarters, they were also recruited for the Hong Kong and Singapore Royal Artillery (HKSRA).
In the run up to the Japanese invasion, Indian troops in Hong Kong were rumbling with discontent. The source of disaffection seemed innocuous. Sikh soldiers in the HKSRA refused to wear the recently issued steel helmets. To use the helmets they would have to cut their hair – an act that would violate their ritual vows as baptized members of the Sikh community. The problem had also touched other Sikh units of the Indian army and was a source of consternation in the Punjab.18 The authorities later attributed the problem to anti-British propaganda by Japanese fifth-columnists. The Sikhs, being the best educated of the martial races, were held to be more politically aware, and susceptible to seditious propaganda. However, the political problem that was of foremost concern to the Si
khs was the Muslim League’s ‘Pakistan’ Resolution of March 1940. This sowed doubts in the minds of the Sikhs about the Raj’s continued reliability in securing their interests. Such concerns had also led to the mutiny in the Central India Horse. Moreover, it led to a discernible fall in Jat Sikh enlistment in the Indian army.
The unhappy mood of the Sikhs in the HKSRA also influenced the Sikh company of 2/14th Punjab. By the end of 1940, there was a marked reluctance on the part of Sikh soldiers to moving crates of army stores – owing to the fear that these might contain steel helmets. This prompted the commander in Hong Kong, Major General Arthur Grasett, to issue an order that steel helmets would be worn by all ranks – British, Chinese or Indian. The Sikh battery of the 12th HKSRA bluntly refused to obey the instruction. Blandishments by the commanding officer and exhortations to their izzat or honour did not work either. In consequence, eighty-five Sikh soldiers were detained under guard. This triggered a rash of insubordinate acts in other Sikh units in Hong Kong, leading Grasett to fear a mutiny by the 800 Sikhs under his command. In the event, his fears proved unfounded. The arrested soldiers were court-martialled in January 1941. Stiff sentences were handed out – only to be remitted for all but eleven men. Grasett could hardly afford to lose an entire battery from the meagre defences of Hong Kong.19
The morale of the Indian troops, then, was at best middling. Even if it had been high, it was unlikely to have made much of a difference to the doomed defence of Hong Kong. Japanese planes attacked early on the morning of 8 December. Ten days later, their troops were assaulting the island. Hong Kong held out until Christmas evening, when the governor formally surrendered to the Japanese commander. Both the Indian battalions, the 2/14th Punjab and 5/7th Rajput, faced the brunt of the initial Japanese attack on the mainland and were the last units to pull back into the island. The fighting withdrawal took a heavy toll. The Rajputs suffered more casualties than any other unit in Hong Kong – one of its companies lost all its officers and 65 per cent of its men. The battalion practically disintegrated before the surrender. Some soldiers abandoned the front and armed deserters sought refuge in air-raid shelters. Others went across to the Japanese holding aloft propaganda leaflets that had been dropped on them by the Japanese air force.20 The defence of Hong Kong was a gallant affair, but it also prefigured the problems that would confront the Indian army in South-East Asia.
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