The big bluff that worked

Source: "Lifestyle"-The Star- 19 June 2005

BY: MENG YEW CHOONG

“My attack on Singapore was a bluff – a bluff that worked. I had 30,000 men and was outnumbered more than three to one. I knew if I had to fight long for Singapore I would be beaten. That is why the surrender had to be at once. I was frightened all the time that the British would discover our numerical weakness and lack of supplies and force me into disastrous street fighting.”– excerpt from Lt-Gen Tomoyuki Yamashita’s diary

YAMASHITA faced a dilemma. He was down to only 18 tanks and his troops were limited to 100 rounds of ammunition per man per day. Fuel stocks were held up by transportation breakdowns and traffics jams caused by the appalling infrastructure (a consequence, no doubt, of the retreating force’s “scorched earth” tactics).

Starvation loomed, apparently because the Tiger of Malaya had taken pride in the fact that his troops could keep winning on merely two bowls of rice daily.

Japanese troops moving their tanks across the Johor Straits into Singapore by floating them on rafts before the damaged causeway was repaired.

If he waited for reinforcements and supplies, the besieged Allied forces in Singapore could also receive fresh troops and equipment.

If there was a protracted battle for Singapore, Yamashita reckoned, the odds were against him.

The Japanese had sustained 4,515 casualties (1,793 killed and the rest wounded) since they started their Malayan campaign.

Yamashita could only muster 30,000 infantrymen. Fortunately for him, Japanese intelligence provided inaccurate information about the strength of the Allied forces preparing to confront him. He thought they numbered around 40,000 when, in fact, nearly 120,000 of them were holed up in Singapore. Had he known the truth, even so bold a general as Yamashita might have balked at taking on such overwhelming opposition.

Yamashita also had a personal goal to achieve: he had wanted to capture Singapore by Feb 11, the anniversary of the coronation of Jimmu (660-585BCE), the first emperor of Japan who was also revered as the founder of the country.

On Feb 10, a deeply troubled General Archibald Wavell, Allied Supreme Commander for the Far East, confessed to the Governor, Sir Shenton Thomas, that whatever misfortune that besieged them at the moment “shouldn’t have happened”, to which the Thomas replied, “we lacked leaders”.

On the same night, the elite Japanese Imperial Guards crossed the Johor Straits to battle the Australian 27th Brigade at the spot between the causeway and Kranji river. However, many of the assault crafts became bogged down by low tide when attempting to sail up the Kranji rivermouth. Some boats entered the wrong tributaries, and many soldiers died as a result of a freak incident when flaming oil gushed down the Kranji river from fuel tanks that the Allieds had destroyed.

About 30 minutes later, through a series of misunderstandings and miscommunication between the Australian forces and the Malaya Command, the former started to withdraw from the area, much to the amazement of the Imperial Guards. The initiative to hold off the Japanese was lost from this point onwards, and large numbers of Japanese started to land here and went on to pursue the retreating Australians.

The evacuation from the north also gave the Japanese a free hand in repairing the causeway which had been blown up earlier.

On, Feb 11, the Tengah airfield was captured. With ammunition supplies dangerously low, Yamashita decided to prod Percival to give up early.

Japanese tanks crossing the causeway after their engineers bridged the 20m gap blasted by the retreating defenders.

He dropped 20 copies of a personal letter over the Malaya Command HQ area. In the letter, Yamashita implored Percival to give up what he called a “meaningless and desperate resistance”.

The next day, fierce fighting took place at four spots surrounding the city area: Bukit Timah, Nee Soon Village in the north, Mandai Road and at Pasir Panjang.

Of interest today is the Pasir Panjang battle, where the 1st Malay Regiment and the 44th Indian Brigade really showed what they were made of when they held the 18th Division that was determined to capture the Alexandra military complex.

The Pasir Panjang ridge was staunchly defended because it was a strategic location, overlooking Singapore to the north and giving easy access to the vital Alexandra area which consisted of ammunition dumps and the Alexandra military hospital.

The 1st and 2nd battalions of the Malay Regiment were first bombarded from the air, artillery and mortar fire on the morning of Feb 13. The Malay Regiment’s stubborn resistance caused substantial losses on the Japanese side, and the invaders withdrew for the night.

That midnight, the C Company of the Regiment was assigned to defend an area known as Bukit Chandu, a site near a government opium factory (opium consumption was legal at that time).

Greatly outnumbered and outgunned, they held on with no thought of surrender or retreat, supported by artillery fire from the big guns of the Faber Fire Command that were still serviceable. And this was under severe conditions like the absence of trenches, no food and water, and limited ammunition.

On the afternoon of Feb 14, the Japanese began to show their impatience, and resorted to impersonating soldiers under the British command. A group of 20 Japanese soldiers dressed up to look like Punjabi troops and approached the hilltop from the north, all the time displaying friendly gestures.

Lt Adnan Saidi, who was in command of that sector, did not fall for the deception and ordered his men to open fire on the impostors, killing almost all of them.

Pasir Panjang today. It was on this hill in 1942 that the Malay Regiment displayed true grit, fighting until the last man fell.

Japanese soldiers then stormed the hill en masse, and overwhelmed the tiny fighting force. Lt Adnan was shot, bayoneted, and his body was hung on a tree. Six of his men were tied and bayoneted along with him. Only a few men managed to escape.

This near-total destruction of an entire regiment was to become the inspiration for the recent Malaysian movie, Leftenan Adnan. Today, the bravery of the Malay Regiment is commemorated at a WWII interpretative centre called Reflections at Bukit Chandu, next to the Kent Ridge Park.

The fall of the Pasir Panjang ridge meant the Japanese could charge down Alexandra area and they soon stormed the Alexandra Hospital.

Enraged by the substantial losses they suffered while battling the defenders of Pasir Panjang, the Japanese soldiers went on a frenzied killing spree, bayoneting everyone in sight, regardless of whether they were medical personnel or patients. Around 200 people were killed, including a young corporal who was being operated on.

Later accounts showed that Yamashita was not aware of the massacre. The following day, a general who toured the area tried to limit the damage to the Japanese army's image control by distributing some food to the survivors, in addition to executing some of the culprits right there in the hospital grounds. That was Sunday, which also marked the end of the Fortress of the East.

On that morning, Percival conferred with his staff in his underground bunker at Fort Canning, and actually contemplated a last-minute counterattack to retake vital food and fuel depots at MacRitchie reservoir and Bukit Timah. Every general there disagreed with him, and Percival had no choice but to capitulate.

Percival signed the surrender document at Bukit Timah at 6pm that day.

Then British Prime Minister Winston Churchill called the surrender of Singapore “the largest capitulation in British history”.

On this, Cornelli Barnett, former keeper of the Churchill archives, said: “Winston had a remarkable capacity for distancing himself from mistakes and disasters that had his name all over them.”

In his letters to the forum pages of The Straits Times in 1997/8, Singapore historian Dr Ong Chit Chung argued that Churchill consistently underestimated the Japanese threat.

“In retrospect, the battle for Malaya was lost – even before the first shot was fired – in Downing Street.

“The commanders in Malaya were not without fault. They were weak and indecisive. But the fact remains that Malaya and Singapore were starved of the necessary reinforcements, in particular, left without a fleet and without air power.

“The commanders were expected to make bricks without straw. The main responsibility must, therefore, rest squarely on the shoulders of Churchill. It was Churchill who placed Malaya below Europe, the Middle East and Russia in terms of priorities and the allocation of resources. Reading Churchill’s telegram (as published in his memoirs), one wonders why he was so gung-ho about defending Singapore, only at the 11th hour. It was too little, too late.”

Percival was sent to a camp in Manchuria, where he survived the war. The rest of his officers were incarcerated in various parts of the island, and some were eventually sent to work on the Death Railway project in northern Thailand.

The first day of surrender marked widespread chaos throughout the island, with widespread looting.

The surrender also marked the beginning of systematic efforts to root out anti-Japanese elements within the Chinese population, though by this time, it was a wonder if there was any Chinese who would be pro-Japanese or felt ambivalent about them.

Chinese men between 18 and 50 were forced to register themselves, and were then “interviewed”. Those who did not satisfy the interrogators were sent by the truckloads to the Punggol and Changi beaches where they were shot in a tragic massacre known as Sook Ching (which also took place in Penang).

Official estimates of the massacre put the figure at 6,000, though local felt that the death toll ranged from 25,000 to 50,000.

Shortly after the shock of Sook Ching, the Chinese community in Malaya was told to cough up S$50mil as a “gift”, a token of “appreciation for being left alive”. The money was badly needed to finance Japan's war effort, which by then had extended to India, Burma, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, and New Guinea.