Estimates 30,000 Taken At Singapore

Northern Advocate, 18 February 1942, Page 3

Estimates 30,000 Taken At Singapore

(Rec. 1.30 p.m.) LONDON, Feb. 17. No fresh news has been received of events in Singapore or the precise number taken prisoner. One report estimates the number at nearly 30,000. Evacuees reaching places of safety say the scene was an inferno. The landscape was red from flames of burning oil tanks. The incessant roar of artillery was heard over a wide area far from the battleground. Waning Ignored

Asserting that the loss of Singapore was due, at least partly, to bureaucracy, complacency and the legion of fifth columnists, the British United Press representative, Mr Harold Guard, in Batavia, recalls that he wrote a story in April, 1941, quoting military authorities as saying that the Malayan jungle did not offer sufficient protection against enemy infiltration. The censor passed it, but said it was so absurd that it would make the British United Press look ridiculous. Improvised Retreat “During the next few months, the natives who had a grudge against the British showed the Japanese paths through the jungle thicket,” Mr Guard says. “I followed the battle down the Malayan Peninsula and saw fifth columnists swarming through the jungle. I believe that in December the natives might have been rallied, but it did not happen. The Battle of Malaya, as reported officially, might give the impression of a bitter, hardfought, planned defence. Actually, it was a retreat, improvised from day to day.”