Singapore “Thrown Away” Says Australian Writer

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29001, 16 September 1959, Page 11

Singapore “Thrown Away” Says Australian Writer

(ipecMU Correspondent

LONDON, September 15. •'A moving story of heroism, human weakness, and Japanese savagery” is one reviewer’s description of “The Singapore Story.” by the Australian writer Kenneth Attiwell. Mr Attiwell was a lieutenant serving with a battery that was part of Bth Division, and subsequently spent three years and a half as a prisoner of war. War despatches and the official | history, unofficial reminiscences, | his own experiences and conver- | nations with others who took part ( in the fall of Singapore are . weaved into a “vivid tapestry.” I It is also a story of ineptitude . and cowardice. ■ Mr Attiwell says that after what | was practically the loss of British sea and air power in the opening days of the campaign Singapore probably had to fall; “but it did not have to be thrown away I within a week." Distrust was bred of disunion and ignorance. Between “a nar- | row elite of service, commercial and plantation people at the top” i and below “lesser Europeans, Chinese, Malays, Indians, Eurasians, Arabs, and Jews” there was I a great gulf fixed, he says. I “East Was East" “Nobody wanted to die for ‘ Singapore. East was East and West was West, and the twain did ndt meet, except to exchange dollars or back horses.” Distrust frustrated the Asiatic war effort. Together fear and distrust denied to General Wavell the extra month that he needed to mount his Colombo offensive, and inter-service jealousy between soldier and colonial civil servant was there to play its insidious part. There was a fundamental misunderstanding as to what the fighting in Malaya was all about. 1 “Singapore was not a fortress.” | wrote Lieutenant General A. E. ’ Percival, a former G.O.C. Malaya, I in his despatch released for pubI lication in 1948. He went on to emphasise that the primary object I of defence had been the protection of the naval base, and that I with this object in view the necessity to hold the whole of Malaya from the Kra isthmus southward had been accepted. From this premise there followed his conclusion that the enforced withdrawal of the defending forces on to Singapore island on January 31, 1942, had been

an admission of failure.

Sir Winston Churchill, on the other hand, had an entirely different conception. Defence of Singapore

Two days after the Japanese had landed near the Kra isthmus Churchill had signalled “Beware lest the troops required for the

ultimate defence of Singapore island and fortress are not used up or cut off on the Malay peninsula. Nothing compares in importance with the fortress.” It was not till January 16, 1942 however, only one month before Singapore capitulated, that Churchill learnt the truth. In his own words: “The seaward batteries and naval base do not constitute the fortress;” yet, as he then pointed out, “Over the last two years I have repeatedly shown that I relied on the defence of Singapore against a formal siege, and have never relied on the Kra isthmus plan.” The consequences of the misunderstanding were manifold. To the consternation of the defending troops, on February 1, the day after the successful withdrawal across the causeway, the denial scheme for the destruction of the £63 million naval base was set in motion.

Tired troops found, too, that there were no trenches or wire on the vulnerable north-east and north-west shores of the island, facing the mainland across the narrow Johore straits. When the attack came “the troops fought as best they could. From the events of the desperate days of Monday, February 9 Tuesday, February 10, Wednesday, February 11 and Thursday, February 12, there emerges a painful catalogue of error, folly, indecision and indescribable confusion,” Mr Attiwell says.