SINGAPORE INQUIRY

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24736, 29 November 1945, Page 5

SINGAPORE INQUIRY

GENERAL BENNETTS ESCAPE

ORDER TO OFFICERS TO STAY WITH MEN

(Rec. 12.5 a.m.) MELBOURNE, Nov. 28, Counsel assisting the Commissioner (Mr Justice Ligertwood) at the inquiry into the escape from Singapore of Lieutenant-General Gordon Bennett, to-day read an order {compiled fronu diaries) issued just before the Singapore capitulation. The order said, among other things, that "officers will remain with their men and not attempt to escape." The, Chief Signals Officer of the Bth Australian .Division (LieutenantColonel C. H. Kappe) said he was unable to, confirm that the order con-tained-this phrase. Lieutenant-Colonel Kappe told General Bennett's counsel (Mr B. Clancy, K.C.), that he learnt 1 that Brigadier Paris, of the British ' forces, had,escaped and that certain officers, including a full colonel of signals, who escaped on February 13, 1942, were m a boat sunk outside Padang. Lieutenant-Colonel Kappe told Mr R. Chambers, who is assisting the Commissioner, that he. spoke to General Bennett on January 29 on future movements. General Bennett seemed

LIEUT.-GENERAL A. E. PERCIVAL very distressed at the apparent hopelessness ,of the situation. Some days earlier the Japanese Domei News Agency had reported that General Bennett had been captured. General Bennett remarked: "They will not get me."

fitness said he visited General Headquarters on the night- of February 15, about 8 o'clock, and was told that General Bennett had gone with Major Moses (his liaison officer) and Lieutenant Walker (his A.D.C) It had been stated that the Japanese cease fire prder was fixed for 830 p.m.

Highly Secret Document

Mr W. R Dovey. K.C. (senior counsel assisting the Commissioner) announced that a highly-secret document from Lieutenant-General A E Percival, who was British General Officer Commanding in Malaya in 1941 and 1942, would be produced The document was General Percival's re-' collection of his surrender orders from the Japanese, and, on grounds of public policy, it should not be "produced to anyone except the Judge. Mr Justice Ligertwood said that Mr Clancy should see it. Mr Dovey said- his information was that there was only one document signed by General Percival and handed to General Yamashita, the Japanese commander. No copy was given to General Percival.

Mr Justice Ligertwood: Is not General Bennett claiming that there was unconditional surrender on the signing of the document?

Mr Clancy: Not" exactly. General Bennett is making his surrender claim on what he was told at a conference with General Percival. as well as on orders which came afterwards. • Replying to a question by the Judge Mr Clancy said that 8.30 p.m, was m-

U.S. PLANES FOR ,

MANY FLOWN FROM INDIA AND BUKMt ;

ELEVENIiMUSTANGS^CRASH

■'-" SkANGHAI, November i 27. "Almost every airworthy aircraft in' ■■';' India and Burma is being flown over 'The Hump'; to China,.presumably <for presentation to the Chinese" Govern-': ment;" reports the correspondent of.the Associated Press. V^'Vv^-'-^i.' "About 700 fighters and transports;" are at; present involved in one • or-thai greatest mass flights in.' they. China-" _ Burma-India theatre in such miserable r weather that already:, several : .Tive»H : have been lost in crashes. Eleven-bl 22 Mustangs flying from Kunming to the, Shanghai area crashed on Thurs- ' day when they encountered ;terrific; weather. '...'.'-.■ -; ■!"■■.■": ■",-:..■ \ : :

"Lieutenant-General :• Stratemeyer, -v the air force commander, declined to'.•'.• discuss the flight, because the crashes are under investigation. .It..,wa*': learned from other sources that; all., the flights had. been;ordered by the : United States War Department, ; > : . "No instructions have yet. been--'re-';'/ ceived about the disposal of the air- ; « craft, but even top air officers ' say ; with a wink that the;aeroplanes will undoubtedly be given to China.; v "Chinese newspapers recently re-,.

ported, that America had decided to give over 1300 aeroplanes to Chungking, but the War Department said that the number had hot been decided. United States lend-lease officials in. Shanghai indicated strongly, that all usable - aeroplanes in China would be returned to the United States on the termination of lend-lease. ;, "American airmen are debating angrily whether they ought to be risking their lives three months after the end of the war.".

RUSSIAN ATOMIC RESEARCH

"NEAR DISCOVERY OF SECRET" LONDON, November 27. "The Soviet Union is nearing the discovery of the secret of atomic energy," says Reuter's correspondent in Moscow, who quotes a statement in the journal of the Central Committee of the Communist Party as an indication. "The first successful steps lately made in' the chemistry of the atomic nucleus give ground to assume that the time is not far off when <,he stocks of energy in the nucleus of the atom will be mastered," says the statement. "Discoveries in this sphere cannot long remain the possession of this or that country." terpreted as being the time of surrender.

Mr Justice Ligertwood: It might have been wrong then? Mr Clancy: Well, yes. But that wai the interpretation.

Lieutenant-Colonel Kappe said he never thought it was General Bennett's intention to escape before the show ended. "I have never seen him (General Bennett) actually up against a » Japanese soldier, but I have seen him in other situations which made me think he is one of the bravest and coolest men I have ever seen," he said. Brigadier John Raymond Broadbent, who was Assistant Adjutant ana Quartermaster-General in the Bth Division, and who led the party selected to leave Singapore before the surrender, told Mr Clancy that General Bennett, 'in ordering his troops to stand fast, undoubtedly had in mind the greater danger and difficulty which would result if they moved into Singapore and became involved in street fighting. Mr C'ancv asked Brigadier Broadbent whctho" hj« had read of the escape of Lieutenant-General Sir Bernard Freyberg, V.C., from Crete, and that of General. Sir Thomas Blarney from Greece. Brigadier Broadbent said he had read of the incidents. Mr Justice Ligertwood: I think there was no question of surrender in Greece.

Brigadier Broadbent added that his impression was that Genera] Bennett did not want to fall into Japanese hands. That sentiment wns shared by all. The hearing is unfinished.