|
1995
Eastern Daily Press
Part One
Dying for a lost cause
Victors and vanquished: Defeat on the Malayan mainland paved the way to the inglorious battle for Singapore Island in February 1942.
The fall of Singapore was the worst defeat in British military history and it was to have appalling consequences for the 20,000 men of the 18th Division. Almost a third of them were to die in squalid Japanese prison camps, victims of disease, exhaustion and starvation. Today, in the build-up to the 53rd anniversary of the Singapore surrender, STEVE SNELLING launches a three-part investigation into the tragedy of the 18th Division with a harrowing account of the experiences of the 53rd Brigade, the first members of the division to go into action ...
Rain fell in torrents from a slate-grey sky, pelting the giant troopship as it sailed majestically into Singapore’s naval dockyard.
For many of the young soldiers aboard the USS Mount Vernon it was the first experience os a tropical storm. In years to come, it would be remembered as a grim portent of the tragedy about to befall them.
Even more disconcerting to troops untested in combat was the steady drone of bombers prowling above the clouds.
Disembarkation amid the drenching downpour was a cheerless affair for the 53rd Infantry Brigade, advance guard of the British 18th Division, a force largely made up of East Anglian territorial units which had spent months training for operations widely expected to be in the North African desert.
For much of the previous weeks they had been cooped up aboard ship, unable to train as cohesive fighting units. They had lost their edge and, in the military jargon of the time, grown “soft.”
Then in the midst of their voyage to the Middle East, news of the Japanese attack on Malaya reached them. Shortly afterwards came new orders. They were to be diverted to reinforce the embattled British, Indian and Australian units struggling to stem the Japanese advance on Singapore.
By the time they arrived on January 12, 1942, the situation had grown more desperate. the loss of the battleships Prince of Wales and Repulse and the destruction of the bulk of the RAF bombers and fighters had given the Japanese mastery of the sea and the skies. Meanwhile, their army, pre-war western observers as inferior to their European counterparts, had advanced more than 300 miles in less than five weeks.
What the men of the 53rd Brigade did not know was that before they had even set foot in Singapore their political and military leaders in London had all but written off Malaya as a lost cause.
The bedraggled troops were transported to camps on the island, where preparations for their arrival were found to be inadequate . Most apparent was the shortage of sheltered accommodation. Ken Smithdale, a private in the 6th Royal Norfolks, summed uo the mood: “Everyone was wet and miserable. No one seemed to know what was going on.”
Morale was scarcely helped by the presence in the camps of the remnants of a unit which had been badly cut up in the fighting on the mainland. According to one report, they gave a “graphic description of their rapid encirclement by the Japanese.”
Such unsettling comments made a profound impact on men yet to undergo their baptism of fire in an alien terrain against an enemy about which little was known other than their growing reputation of invincibility.
Lectures were hastily arranged and assurances given that the troops would not be pitched into battle before they had become acclimatised to waging war in the tropics.
Unit commanders from the newly-arrived 53rd Brigade were also informed that “the situation in Malaya was much healthier with “a series of defences being prepared. Events would shortly expose these assertions to be a shameful fiction with dreadful consequences for morale.
At an officer’s briefing, Major Arthur Stacy, a company commander on the 6th Royal Norfolks, remembered being told: “It was uncertain whether our battalion would be required to go to Malaya. but if it was we should receive seven days notice at least.”
Two days later, the 6th Royal Norfolks received orders to move forward to the mainland!
The sudden change of plan meant that officers had no time to wade through the deluge of intelligence reports and still less to bring their men to the state of combat readiness expected of units heading into a battle zone, especially one for which they had not been trained. Such shortcomings were compounded by a shortage of maps which meant that in at least one battalion there were none to issue to platoon commanders.
As the East Anglian units headed northwards there was a growing sense of unease. Despite the speed of the Japanese thrust to within 200 miles of Singapore, there appeared to the new arrivals to be an unwillingness to face up to reality.
Major Robert Hamond, a company commander in the 5th Royal Norfolks recalled: “We felt there was an air of ‘it cannot happen here, the war is something unpleasant away up-country which the soldiers are dealing with. Let’s have a party.” They were astonished also to discover that there was no blackout in operation, despite the enemy’s aerial supremacy, and even more surprised by the lack of defences on the island.
On his journey on to the mainland, Major Hamond was perturbed to see a few Indian troops putting a line of wire at the south of the Causeway. Years later he wrote: “My thoughts at this time were that if this is all they have done at this most vital spot, the rest of the coast of the island must be open. It was a disquieting thought.”
The men of the 53rd Brigade were intended to guard the lines of communication, behind the front line units where a combine force, largely consisting of Australian and Indian troops, was intended to halt the Japanese offensive. According to Major Stacy, the East Anglians required about six weeks to become properly acclimatised. In the event, they were embroiled in a desperate struggle against a battle-hardened enemy within 48 hours of their move north.
Pte Charlie Marr, of the 6th Royal Norfolks, recalled: “We were told there were no Japs for miles. But they were just in front of us, and it wasn’t long before they were behind us.”
It was a bewildering and unnerving experience. Ken Smithdale remembered: “When we debussed we could hear rifle fire. This was because the Japs were already here. What a baptism we all got. I was scared stiff.”
According to Major Hamond, what followed was almost inevitable. Of his own unit: “Only the CO had been to Malaya before. About 20 officers and NCOs had been East, mainly to India. The remainder, averaging 21 years old and mainly from villages in Norfolk, had never been abroad and did not know a Jap from a Malay, Tamil or Chinese, had not been in close country before and had never been subjected to intense activity in a hot climate .... Small wonder that their fighting was rendered lass effective than it should have been as they struggled to adapt themselves to their strange surroundings and circumstances while they themselves were quite physically exhausted.”
During the nine days of confused and sanguinary fighting which followed in northern Jahore disaster was heaped upon disaster. Of the 53rd Brigades three battalions, the 6th Royal Norfols and 2nd Cambridgeshires were decimated.
Amid the chaos of relentless and shattering combat, in which the lack of adequate training was cruelly exposed, there were instances of Royal Norfolks engaging Indian troops and of entire companies beingcut off before being overwhelmed.
At the height of the battle, in an attempt to retrieve the situation, more than 100 reinforcements from the 6th Royal Norfolks were ordered up from Singapore. According to Major Stacy. “either the message was at fault or it was misconstrued, for everyone of our reinforcements included all specialists ... were sent up, hastily organised into a company. Very few of them were ever seen again!”
In fact the convoy carrying them forward had blundered into a Japanese ambush and in Major Hamond’s words, was “virtually exterminated” by grenades hurled into the trucks.
Attacks were ordered and then countermanded, often because of faulty intelligence. Charlie Marr recalled on such attack on a hill held by the Japanese: “It was thick with trees. You couldn’t see their positions, but they opened fire on us and we couldn’t see where it was coming from. We stuck it for about 20 minutes and then our corporal told us to get back out of it.”
By January 26, successive withdrawals had dissolved into a full-scale rout with air attack an aver-present threat. “Their planes were just bombing us whenever they liked, and we had nothing to stop them,” recalled Charlie Marr.
In Major Stacy’s estimation, “air inferiority contributed to the greatest degree for the sapping of morale.”
With the Japanese astride their line of retreat, orders were given to destroy all transport and attempt to break through the Japanese encirclement. The most seriously wounded had to be left behind. Incredibly, the majority of the 53rd Brigade were able to reach safety, either by heading west through the swamps to the coast where they were evacuated by the Royal Navy or by cutting through the jungle to the east.
Some men like Ken Smithdale, became separated and spent weeks wandering aimlessly through the jungle until captured. A few, including some Royal Norfolks, managed to evade the Japanese for years. Others simply disappeared without trace.
Those who succeeded in breaking out were exhausted. One man in Major Hamond’s party actually died from exhaustion - a result of being compelled to “fight or move for 24 hours in every day, without proper food or sleep.”
He believed the state of exhaustion brought on by a lack of physical fitness following the prolonged spell at sea, without adequate time to acclimatise was a major factor in the conduct of operations. He noted: “I found parties of men bunched together, all fast asleep in the jungle even when we were in constant contact with the Japs, their fears being completely overcome by their need for sleep.”
Most of those who got back had only their rifles and the clothes in which they stood.
As they returned to Singapore, a little over two weeks after stepping ashore from the Mount Vernon, the remainder of the 18th Division were arriving. The debacle on the mainland was over. The full tragedy was about to unfold.
Tomorrow: Disaster on Singapore Island
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Previous Page
|
Next Page
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
