1 4 NAKED ISLAN D HE Situation Facing General Wavell, As He Saw It
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CHAPTER 1 4 NAKED ISLAN D HE situation facing General Wavell, as he saw it at the beginning o f T February, was that Ambon Island had fallen to the enemy on 31st January; there was still a convoy at Balikpapan which might at any time move south on Macassar or Bandjermasin ; and a third force, reported to be in the South China Sea, might be heading for Singapore or Sumatra. Rangoon was endangered by the enemy advance in Burma, and the Britis h forces had been driven from the mainland of Malaya. In Wavell's view much depended on the ability of the forces on Singapore Island to make a prolonged resistance . He considered that an active defence should enable the island to be held for some time—perhaps for some months—while th e forces at his command were being strengthened. Mr Churchill's thoughts had turned, while he was concluding his talks in Washington, to the possibility of a withdrawal to Singapore Island such as had now occurred. "How many troops would be needed to defend this area?" he had asked in a message to General Wavell on 15th January. "What means are there of stopping landings [such] as were made in Hong Kong? What are defences and obstructions on landward side? Are yo u sure you can dominate with fortress cannon any attempt to plant sieg e batteries? Is everything being prepared, and what has been done about the useless mouths? "1 These questions, which but for his preoccupation with more immediat e issues he might well have asked much earlier, brought a disconcertin g reply. On what Wavell told him, Churchill reflected : "So there were no permanent fortifications covering the landward side of the naval base an d the city! Moreover, even more astounding, no measures worth speakin g of had been taken by any of the commanders since the war began, an d more especially since the Japanese had established themselves in Indo - China, to construct field defences . They had not even mentioned the fac t that they did not exist." He added that he had put his faith in th e Japanese "being compelled to use artillery on a very large scale in order to pulverise our strong points at Singapore, and in the almost prohibitiv e difficulties and long delays which would impede such an artillery concen- tration and the gathering of ammunition along Malayan communications . Now, suddenly, all this vanished away, and I saw before me the hideou s spectacle of the almost naked island and of the wearied, if not exhausted , troops retreating upon it."2 In a message to the Chiefs of Staff Committee in London on 19th January Churchill ordered that a plan be made at once to do the best , Churchill, The Second World War, Vol IV, p. 42 . The term "useless mouths" denoted in military parlance those who in circumstances such as those faced at the time on Singapore Islan d could not usefully be employed for military purposes . 2 Churchill, Vol IV, p . 43 . 19-21 Jan A SWIFT READJUSTMENT 285 possible while the battle of Johore was going forward, and went into extensive detail of what he considered the plan should comprise . Among his stipulations were that : The entire male population should be employed upon constructing defence works . The most rigorous compulsion is to be used, up to the limit where picks an d shovels are available. Not only must the defence of Singapore Island be maintained by every means , but the whole island must be fought for until every single unit and every single strong point has been separately destroyed . Finally, the city 3 of Singapore must be converted into a citadel and defended to the death . No surrender can be contemplated . Having thus outlined what an unfettered military governor might hav e done, but not a Percival fettered by all the complications of civil and military administration in Malaya and of relations with the London authorities, Churchill cabled to Wavell on the 20th : I want to make it absolutely clear that I expect every inch of ground to be defended, every scrap of material or defences to be blown to pieces to prevent capture by the enemy, and no question of surrender to be entertained until afte r protracted fighting among the ruins of Singapore City .4 Obviously Mr Churchill was in fine mental fighting trim ; but he di d not explain what the hundreds of thousands of unarmed and untraine d civilian men, women, and children, few with protection from bombs an d shells or with prospect of escape from Singapore Island, were to do whil e all this was going on. Meanwhile Wavell had dispatched to him a message , previously mentioned, which in effect emphasised how far the author o f these ringing demands was from the realities at the scene of action . Schemes were being prepared for defence of the northern part of the island, sai d Wavell, but "I doubt whether island can be held for long once Johore i s lost. ." On this, Mr Churchill swiftly readjusted his perspective, turning hi s thoughts to Burma and of the reinforcements then on the way to Singapor e which might be diverted to Rangoon . What (he asked in a message to his Chiefs of Staff on 21st January) is th e value of Singapore [to the enemy] above the many harbours in the south-wes t Pacific if all naval and military demolitions are thoroughly carried out? On th e other hand, the loss of Burma would be very grievous . It would cut us off from the Chinese, whose troops have been the most successful of those yet engage d against the Japanese . We may, by muddling things and hesitating to take an ugly decision, lose both Singapore and the Burma Road. Obviously the decision depends upon how long the defence of Singapore Island can be maintained . If it is only for a few weeks, it is certainly not worth losing all our reinforcements and aircraft. [Moreover] one must consider that the fall of Singapore, accompanied as it wil l be by the fall of Corregidor, will be a tremendous shock to India, which only th e arrival of powerful forces and successful action on the Burma front can sustain .5 $ Singapore was not officially raised to the status of a city until 1952 . + Churchill, pp. 45, 47 . Churchill, p . 50. 286 NAKED ISLAND 23 Ja n But both Mr Churchill and his Chiefs of Staff did hesitate to take the "ugly decision" ; and while they did so the Australian War Cabinet received from Sir Earle Page warning that the issue was being weighed . On this , and reports of the situation at the time in Malaya, the War Cabine t decided at an emergency meeting on 23rd January that strong representa- tions be made to Mr Churchill. Mr Curtin thereupon sent a cable in language hardly less forthright than Britain's Prime Minister had been using about Singapore. In this he referred to the substance of the reports , and continued: After all the assurances we have been given the evacuation of Singapore would be regarded here and elsewhere as an inexcusable betrayal . Singapore is a central fortress in the system of the Empire and local defence . we understood that it was to be made impregnable, and in any event it was to be capable of holding out fo r a prolonged period until the arrival of the main fleet. Even in an emergency diversion of reinforcements should be to the Netherlands East Indies and not to Burma . Anything else would be deeply resented, and migh t force the Netherlands East Indies to make a separate peace . On the faith of the proposed flow of reinforcements, we have acted and carrie d out our part of the bargain. We expect you not to frustrate the whole purpose b y evacuation . As against the concern which Mr Churchill had expressed about Burm a and India, Mr Curtin went on to say that the heavy scale of the Japanes e attack on Rabaul, and the probability of its occupation, if this had no t already occurred (it was on the 23rd that Rabaul fell), presaged an early attack on Port Moresby .6 After making a wide sweep of problems an d proposals for defence in the Pacific arising from the dangers with which Australia was faced, and an urgent plea for additional aircraft, he added : The trend of the situation in Malaya and the attack on Rabaul are giving rise to a public feeling of grave uneasiness at Allied impotence to do anything to ste m the Japanese advance . The Government, in realising its responsibility to prepar e the public for the intense resisting of an aggressor, also has a duty and obligation to explain why it may not have been possible to prevent the enemy reaching ou r shores. It is therefore in duty bound to exhaust all the possibilities of the situation , the more so since the Australian people, having volunteered for service oversea s in large numbers, find it difficult to understand why they must wait so long for an improvement in the situation when irreparable damage may have been done to their power to resist, the prestige of the Empire, and the solidarity of the Allie d cause . Evidently the Australian War Cabinetand the Advisory War Council, which subsequently endorsed the cable—still hoped that Singapore coul d be held, at least for a period which would repay the cost in men an d material of doing so ; but to leave Australia's 8th Division on the island , and to agree to the diversion to a front so distant from Australia as Burm a of forces then going to its aid, might well have exposed the Australian Government to a tidal wave of protest.