JAPANESE ACTED TOO QUICKLY

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22569, 24 February 1948, Page 5

JAPANESE ACTED TOO QUICKLY

WHY BRITISH FAILED IN MALAYA LORD WAVELL’S SURVEY OF PROBLEMS (11.3!) a.m.) LONDON. Fob. 23. “The main reason for I lie British iailurc in Malaya was that our enemies moved too Quickly on a simple, efloctivo plan and ncvci o-;\ \- e us time to col loot the forces necessary to remedy out initial weakness,” said Field-Marshal Lord Wavell, in a dispatch published by His Majesty’s Stationery Office today as a booklet, in which he tells of 41 days six years atfo when he was supreme commander of the American, British, Dutch and Australian area in the SouthWest Pacific.

Air Power a Vital Factor Written in August 1942—six months after Lord Waveil's command ended—(he despatch is now published two days before the date set for publication of the dispatch by Lieut.-General A. E. Percival on the Malaya campaign. Lord Wavell said the air was a vital factor, though the effect of enemy superiority on land operations, apart from moral effect, was greatly exaggerated. As a result of a number of factors, the Allied Air Force, instead of increasing in strength, _ “was wasted with gradually increasing intensity and was finally completely destroyed.” Land reinforcements arrived too late to save the situation. Lord Wavell was the final arbiter of strategy for the Malaya campaign from the date his headquarters began to operate, January 15, until Singapore fell, exactly a month later. Fight-on Order to Gain Time It is clear that he gave his instructions to General Percival to fight on as long as it was physically possible, so as to gain time for his own plans, which included a counterstroke in Malaya as soon as he could muster sufficient resources. The dispatches say that the Australian Corps, comprising the Sixth and Seventh Divisions, was intended, when brought back from the M'ddle East early in 1942, to go immediately into action in a counter-offensive against the Japanese in Malaya. Later roles proposed for it were as reinforcements for Java and Burma. Lord Wavell hoped to delay the Japanese on the Malayan mainland so that the Australian Corps could be landed at Singapore and prepared for a counter-offensive from Johore. However, the rapid Japanese advance prevented this being done. Australian Corps Diverted Lord Wavell hoped that MajorGeneral Gordon Bennett and the Eighth Australian Division might be able to prevent a further advance of the enemy till the arrival of the 18th (British) Division towards the end of January and that, with this reinforcement, they might be able to hold the enemy till the arrival of the Australian Corps in February enabled him to deliver a counter-stroke. The despatch con-

tinues: “Before more than Australian advance parties could arrive, Southern Sumatra had been captured by the enemy and Java was so closely threatened that it would have been impossible to land any large number of troops “The Australian Corps was diverted to Australia and Ceylon after the Australian Government had refused to consent to its being used to reinforce Burma.” Tho dispatch makes it clear that Lord Wavell had a tug-of-war with the Australian Government on the destination of the Australian Corps. It was evidently not his only one. He records, for instance, that while he was anxiously awaiting the promised air reinforcements the Australian Government "succeeded in getting a number of United States aircraft intended for A.B.D.A. diverted to the defence of Australia.” On February 21 the Chiefs of Staff instructed Lord Wavell that Java should be defended to the last by all combatant troops then in the island, but that ho should withdraw the A.B.D.A. headquarters from Java. If Planes had Arrived in Time Lord Wavell, as an alternative, recommended that the headquarters should be dissolved and that Dutch commanders should take over. His views were accepted and A.B.D.A. ceased to exist on February 25. Eleven thousand five hundred British (including 6000 R.A F., mainly unarmed and without aircraft, 3000 Australians and 500 Americans, were left to assist the Dutch, Lord Wavell’s original object, lie says, was tlie maintenance of a line of bases —Darwin, Timor, Java Southern Sumatra and' Singapore—on which he could build up above all, an air force capable of securing local air superiority and thereby checking the Japanese advance southward. The dispatch admits that these hopes proved over-optimistic, but, added Lord Wavell. “if all the aircraft promised to the A.B.D.A. Command (including 1000 from the United States) had arrived safely and up to time and had we succeeded in establishing sufficiently wellprotected aerodromes and ground organisation, all would have been well. We had no time to assemble sufficient forces or to create favourable conditions for them to operate.”