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Copyright © and Moral Rights for This Thesis Are Retained by the Author And/Or Other Copyright Owners. a Copy Can Be Downloa McCrum, Ronald. (2014) The role and consequences of the part played by the civilian authorities in the fall of Singapore, February 1942. PhD thesis. SOAS University of London. http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/20319/ Copyright © and Moral Rights for this thesis are retained by the author and/or other copyright owners. A copy can be downloaded for personal non‐commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder/s. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. When referring to this thesis, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given e.g. AUTHOR (year of submission) "Full thesis title", name of the School or Department, PhD Thesis, pagination. THE ROLE AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE PART PLAYED BY THE CIVILIAN AUTHORITIES IN THE FALL OF SINGAPORE, FEBRUARY 1942. Ronald McCrum Thesis submitted for the degree MPhil in History 2014 Department of History SOAS, University of London 1 CONTENTS PAGE ABSTRACT 3 ABBREVIATIONS 4 INTRODUCTION 6 CHAPTER ONE. BACKGROUND. 18 CHAPTER TWO. A COLONIAL ADMINISTRATION. 44 CHAPTER THREE. THE IMPRECISE BATTLE PLAN. 70 CHAPTER FOUR. CIVIL DEFENCE IN DISARRAY. 95 CHAPTER FIVE. RESPONDING TO THE CAMPAIGN. 117 CHAPTER SIX. THE CIVIL AUTHORITIES DURING THE SEIGE OF SINGAPORE. 150 CHAPTER SEVEN. THE CONSEQUENCES. 176 CHAPTER EIGHT. CONCLUSION. 192 ANNEX A. MAP OF SINGAPORE. ANNEX. B. MAP OF MALAYA. ANNEX C. BIBLIOGRAPHY. 2 ABSTRACT The Japanese invasion of Malaya, and their later conquest of Singapore, was an event of significantly more political importance than was its strategic impact on the course of the war in the Far East. The defeat of a sizeable British Imperial Military Force and the speed and humiliation with which it was inflicted, destroyed forever the icon of British invincibility and prestige. Some historians claim that this momentous affair was the catalyst that presaged the end of the British Empire. Following the costly First World War, Britain was stretched beyond its means, economically and militarily. Its diminishing ability to meet the diverse demands of a worldwide Empire were glaringly exposed. The failure to prepare Singapore for invasion was one manifestation of this bankruptcy. Moreover, when the Second World War erupted in Europe, the paucity of military support from London for the Far East theatre shrunk even more. The resultant loss of the „Island Fortress‟ to an Asian military invader destroyed forever the cultivated, centuries old image of British infallibility. The military failure of this campaign is a well-documented and closely examined episode. And while attention is often drawn to the role of the Colonial Governor and his staff during this period, the civil authorities participation has not been subjected to the same rigorous scrutiny. Quite evidently, they had a vital role to play in conjunction with the military to prepare the people and the country for a possible war. Their contribution to this task however, bordered on negligence. In this dissertation I undertake a close examination of the role and the responsibilities of the colonial government both in the lead-up to the war and during it. I contend that the colonial government by pursuing different priorities, often demanded by Whitehall, needlessly created distraction and confusion. Moreover, the shamefully poor, even hostile, relations that developed between the local government and the British military hierarchy impeded a joint approach to the growing threat and affected the course of this campaign. Additionally, the tawdry management of civil defence matters led to unnecessary loss of civilian life. 3 ABBREVIATIONS ABDA American-British-Dutch-Australia Command ADM Admiralty [British] AFHQ Allied Forces Headquarters AIR Air Ministry [British] AOC Air Officer Commanding AWM Australian War Memorial BAM British Association of Malaya BP Bletchley Park CAS Chief of Air Staff CIBM Combined Intelligence Bureau, Malaya CID Committee of Imperial Defence C in C Commander in Chief CIGS Chief of Imperial General Staff CO Colonial Office COS Chief of Staff COIS Chief of Intelligence Staff CU Cambridge University DMI Director of Military Intelligence DMO Directorate of Military Operations Enigma German rotor cryptograph FE Far East FECB Far Eastern Combined Bureau, Singapore FESS Far Eastern Security Service, Singapore FEW Far East Weekly [Intelligence Summary] FMS Federated Malaya States FO Foreign Office FORCE 136 SOE in the Far East GHQ General Headquarters GOC General Officer Commanding HK Hong Kong ICS Indian Civil Service IISS International Institute of Strategic Studies IJA Imperial Japanese Army IIL Indian Independence League INA Indian National Army JIC Joint Intelligence Committee JPS Joint Planning Staff KL Kuala Lumpur [capital of FMS] KMM Kesatuan Muda Melayu [League of Malay Youth] KMT Kuomintang [Chinese Nationalist Party] Magic Decrypts of Japanese diplomatic material MCP Malayan Communist Party MCS Malayan Civil Service MPAJA Malayan People‟s Anti-Japanese Army NUS National University of Singapore OAG Officer Administering the Government 4 Purple American name for the Japanese Type B cryptograph RAF Royal Air Force RCS Royal Commonwealth Society RN Royal Navy SAC Strategical Appreciation Committee S E ASIA South East Asia SEAC South East Asia Command SOE Special Operations Executive S of S Secretary of State SS Straits Settlements Ultra British classification for signals intelligence UMS Unfederated Malaya States WO War Office 5 INTRODUCTION At 5.15 p.m. on 15 February 1942, at the Ford Motor Car Factory, sited on a prominent hill (Bukit Timah) in the centre of Singapore Island, the British and Japanese delegations met. They assembled in the relatively undamaged, bare and austere factory offices, to agree the terms of surrender of the British Forces. The tall, spare and unprepossessing figure of the British Commander, Lieutenant General Arthur Percival, led the delegation of senior staff officers, all looking disconsolate. The iconic photograph recording this event shows the group arriving, looking incongruous in steel helmets and shorts, towering over their Japanese captors. The triumphant, short, pugnacious Japanese army commander, Lieutenant General Yamashita, was waiting for them. The Governor, Sir Shenton Thomas, refused to attend this ceremony. He regarded the loss of Singapore as an ignominious military disaster and the military alone, therefore, should face the indignity of laying down their arms. He was not surrendering the Crown Colony.1 His resolve, to disassociate his government from the military failure was symptomatic of the poor civil- military relationship, which had so dominated the campaign and inhibited a united war effort. His pretentious stand however, was a mere technical statement of no political significance. Thomas was a colonial officer of the old school and of limited ability. He was on his final posting before retirement and had wanted a quiet and uneventful conclusion. His bailiwick included Peninsula Malaya as well as Singapore and some outlying islands. Throughout the campaign, he sought the least contentious solutions to serious issues of war preparations. He frequently ignored military advice, lacked resolve and equivocated. The demands of his colonial masters for ever-increasing production of the vital war commodities, rubber and tin, fixated him. He never seems to have thought to warn them of his quandary - that he could not simultaneously prepare the country for invasion and increase production. The fall of Singapore was the end of an era; British authority would never be the same again. The effect on world opinion of the loss of Singapore however, proved to be more serious than its effect upon the course of the war.2 Western power and authority was no longer secure and the relationship between the European and Asian peoples changed forever. 1 Montgomery, Brian. Shenton of Singapore. Leo Cooper (in association with Secker & Warburg Ltd.) London.1984, p138. It is interesting to contrast this standpoint with that taken by the Governor of Hong Kong, Sir Mark Young, who resisted military advice to surrender the Colony to the Japanese until it was clearly impossible to carry on and then insisted that he as Governor would surrender the Colony. 2 Thompson, Virginia. Postmortem on Malay. Macmillan NY, 1943. p vii. 6 In the minds of the indigenous peoples of Malaya and Singapore, for whose protection Britain was responsible, doubts arose. The first flaws appeared as early as ten days after the Japanese landings when the British hastily abandoned the island of Penang. Only the Europeans on the island had warning of the impending withdrawal and arrangements made for their departure. The Asian population were left to their own devices. The reaction from the local people was one of disbelief and astonishment. They were shocked at the apparent inability of the civilian administration to deal with the emergencies of war; of their display of racial selectivity and the failure to tell them honestly, what was happening.3 It also cast the European civilian population as a whole in a bewildering and damaging image, somewhat diminishing the existing relationship. Many have claimed that the population of Malaya was neither psychologically nor physically prepared for the ordeal that descended
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