JAPANESE UNPREPARED

Evening Star, Issue 25618, 19 October 1945, Page 5

JAPANESE UNPREPARED

WEAK MALAYAN DEFENCES

NO INTERSERVICE CO-OPERATION

INVASION GUESSES BADLY OUT *

(Rec. 11.30 a.m.) LONDON, Oct. 18. Investigations by British officers after Japan’s surrender revealed that the Japanese army in Malaya was in a completely hopeless position to ward off the British attack for which plans had been drawn up, ' reports a statement issued by Seac. On Singapore Island there were no beach defences, no mines, no materials for building construction, only four coastal guns. The Japanese were apparently depending on the fanaticism of the individual soldier to make the expected British assault as expensive in lives as possible. The Japanese seventh area army, which was responsible for the defence of Malaya, Java, Sumatra, and Borneo, garrisoned Singapore Island with approximately 64,000 troops, of whom 24,000 belonged to the army, 13,000 to the air force, and 27,000, including 11,000 civilian workers, to the navy. The exact figures are ■ unknown, because the army had no figures of its own strength, and had no idea of the number of men at the. disposal of the navy or air force. This lack of interservice co-operation was largely responsible for the state of unpreparedness. A defence plan, the first of its kind, was issued on August 1, 1945. It was mainly passive, giving priority to the construction of deep air raid shelters. Active defence measures were low on the priority list, and only 2 per .cent, of the total fortifications was completed. The Japanese were also entirely .wrong in their expectations as to when and where the British attacks would come. They had placed troops and supplies in accordance with their own conception of what was going to happen, with the result that the entire Japanese force on the mainland would have been completely out of position if there had been no surrender. Seac had actually planned to make landings on September 9 at Ports Wettenham and Dickson a full four months ahead of the Japanese expectations.