SINGAPORE

Korero (AEWS), Volume 3, Issue 11, 2 July 1945, Page 18

SINGAPORE

Its loss was “Australia’s Dunkirk” A KORERO Report

With the fall of France in 1940 Britain was placed in great peril. In many ways and at several widely separated points her position was endangered. Some results were immediate. Britain stood alone, the Dominions her only partners ; the Soviet Union had not yet been attacked, the United States was still neutral. Lost to Britain were French naval and air bases in all parts of the world, the large French Navy, the substantial French forces which in North Africa and the Levant had guarded the flanks •of the British position in the Middle East and all the industries of France. There was, too, the danger that these resources might be used by the enemy. How these problems were met and overcome is a matter of history. Other dangers lay in the future and were not at once apparent, notably the new threat to Singapore —“ the chief British naval base and defended harbour in the Far East.” On the surrender of France, Japan was quick to demand the use of bases in French Indo-China, and soon was in virtual occupation of the whole country. Thus she gained control of the South China Sea, an area enclosed by the Philippines, the Dutch East Indies, and the Malay Peninsula. And she obtained this advantage at a moment when the loss of the French Fleet had forced Britain to keep nearly all her naval strength in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean and to bare the Far East. In December of 1941 Japan used her opportunity. Secure in control of the South China Sea, she landed forces at various points round it, and within two months had seized Singapore. Singapore, an island about 26 miles long and 14 miles wide, with an area of 220 square miles, lies at the southern end of the Malay Peninsula. A strait, three-quarters of a mile wide, separates it from the peninsula, with which it is

connected by a causeway. It has been in British possession for 126 years since Sir Stamford Raffles, a servant of the British East India Company, in agreement with the Sultan of Johore and the Chief of Singapore, established a trading post there. Neither the company nor the British Foreign Office at first completely shared the views of Raffles about the importance of the East Indies. Thus, although when Napoleon took over the Dutch possessions in the East Indies, Raffles was able to persuade the GovernorGeneral of India to annex Java, he was unable to prevent the return of the island to the Dutch in 1814. Five years later, however, after a difficult struggle with his superiors, he acquired Singapore, and he wrote then to a friend : “It gives us command of China and Japan, to say nothing of the Dutch East Indies and the Philippines.” He added that Singapore would become “ a great commercial emporium and fulcrum whence we may extend our influence politically as Empire circumstances may hereafter require.” His reward was retirement, death at forty-five caused partly by worry connected with the threat of an unpleasant lawsuit by the company, and the perpetuation of his name in several public institutions in Singapore. By the end of the last war Singapore Island, with a population of nearly 700,000, had become the great mercantile centre of Raffles’ dream. With Province Wellesley and Malacca on the mainland, and Labuan, Penang, Christmas, and Cocos Islands, it formed the Straits Settlements, a Crown Colony with a total population of 1,500,000. Behind it, right up the peninsula to Thailand, lay the Malay States, in which British influence and control had finally been consolidated as late as 1909— the federated states of Perak, Selangor, Negri, Sembilang, and Pahang, 27,000 square miles in area and with a population of 2,200,000, and the unfederated states

of Johore, Kedah, Perlis, Kelantan, and Trengganu, 22,000 square miles in area and with a population of nearly 2,000,000. Through Singapore flowed the trade of the rich peninsulaexports : rubber, tin, and oil, worth £132,000,000 sterling a year ; imports : cotton goods, iron and steel manufactures, and tobacco worth £100,000,000 sterling a year. Every twelve months there passed through the port 16,000 ships, 20,000,000 tons of shipping. What Malta is in the West, that may Singapore become in the East,” wrote Raffles in 1819. One hundred years ’ later Britain began to prepare Singapore for the part in Empire defence which Raffles had foreseen. A combination of circumstances forced this decision. Faced about the turn of the century with growing German naval building, Britain had freed herself in the Far East by making a defensive pact with Japan which enabled her to assemble her navy in western seas. Under this pact Japan had during the war of 1914-18 declared war on Germany and accepted the task of patrolling the Pacific. At the same time, however, Japan had acquired strategic German islands in the Pacific and had begun in China a more open policy of expansion which threatened to bring her ultimately into conflict with British interests. By 1920, therefore, the situation was completely different from that of 1914. The German naval threat in the west no longer existed, but in the Pacific Japan and the United States had become strong sea powers. Moreover, although it had the support of India, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand, the British alliance with Japan had become unpopular in the United States and Canada. In such circumstances, when it fell due for reconsideration in 1921, the alliance was not renewed, but was replaced by the Four Power —signed by Britain, the United States, France, and Japan. While the old Anglo-Japanese Alliance had contained a guarantee of armed assistance in the event of war, the new pact provided only' for consultation. Thus Britain found herself in 1921 with a dangerous and pushful neighbour in the Far East, with no ally to assist in

guarding her territories, and with no base in this area capable of servicing a. battle fleet. Four sites for a base were considered— Colombo, in Ceylon; Port Darwin, in North Australia ; Sydney, in South East Australia; and Singapore. Colombo,, which gave too little protection to British interests in the Pacific, and Port Darwin, where resources in manpower were insufficient, were quickly ruled out, and the choice lay between Sydney and Singapore. It fell to Singapore as a base which could neutralize forces operating against Australia, guard, the Malacca Straits gateway to India, from the East, protect Burma and the Persian oilfields, and cover both the main trade routes and its own communications. In the light of the Pacific War it is interesting to consider whether Sydney might not after all have been the better choice in spite of the argument then advanced that, while Singapore could protect Sydney, Sydney could not protect Singapore. It was not until January of 1924 that work on the base was begun. In England the proposal met at first with strong opposition. It was described as an insult to Japan, a provocative, costly, and totally unnecessary undertaking “ inspired by the Admiralty mentality which, having been robbed of the German menace,” had to find “ a new menace somewhere and so gratefully discovered one in the Pacific.” This opposition delayed adoption of the scheme, and even once it had been begun the work went on slowly. Indeed, before 1924 came to an end it had been stopped by the MacDonald Labour Government in conformity with the Labour policy of relying on collective security through the League of Nations. Begun again by the succeeding Conservative Administration, it was “ slowed down as much as possible,” when in 1929 Ramsay MacDonald once more led a Labour Government into office. Not until March of 1936 was the main contract completed, and it was February of 1938 before the naval station was officially opened. To the cost New Zealand had contributed £1,000,000, about one-eighth of the total.

At various times strong support for the proposal was expressed in the Dominion. The Right Hon. W. F. Massey, protesting against the suggestion that the plan be abandoned, declared : ‘‘lt may turn out to have been a pity that the League of Nations was ever brought into being if the defence of the Empire is to depend upon the League of Nations only. I earnestly protest on behalf of New Zealand against the abandonment of the proposal to make Singapore a safe and strong naval station.” The Hon. Walter Nash, then Secretary of the New Zealand Labour Party, said that the majority of his party favoured the base as a purely defensive measure on these grounds: “ (1) That the British Fleet is one of the great securities for the peace of the world ; (2) that this security can only be maintained by providing the fleet with a means to operate effectively ; (3) that the naval base at Singapore is the one place from which a fleet can operate effectively in the Pacific area ; (4) that if you exclude that area from the area in which the British Fleet is effective you exclude one of the greatest instruments for maintaining world peace.” In Australia, too, the proposal was supported, but, having begun to build up a naval force of her own, Australia was unable to contribute to the cost. As the base neared completion manoeuvres were held to put it to the test. Air, land, and naval forces took part in manoeuvres held between December 12 and 16, 1934, twenty-one ships from the China Station, as well as the full strength of the available air and land forces. According to the local authorities, the defending bombers made a landing by the attacking force “ practically impossible.” Seven years later to a month the real test came. On December 7, 1941, Japan struck in the Far East. The moment was favourable to her design. With the resources of thirteen continental nations behind them, the German armies were flooding into Russia and threatening Britain in the Middle East. German planes and U-boats were blockading the British Isles and were ceaselessly attacking the sea life-lines to the United States, to the northern Russian ports,

and through the Mediterranean to India and the Dominions. The United Kingdom, besieged from the air and the sea, still stood in imminent danger of invasion by land. The United States, although neutral, was heavily committed to supplying Britain with arms and food. Carrier - borne aircraft crippled the United States Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbour and soon destroyed the United States Far Eastern Air Force. Relief from here for the Far East became impossible. Then the fall of the United States “ stepping-stones ” of Guam and Wake Islands on December 11 and December 24 cut the direct route between Hawaii, the Philippines, and Singapore. The surrender of Hong Kong 'on December 25 and of Manila and the Cavite naval base in the Philippines on January 2 cost the Allies positions from which the lines of communication between the Japanese homeland and the enemy forces overseas might have been attacked —if the Allies had had the necessary strength. The capture of Tarakan off the coast of Dutch Borneo gave the enemy control of the entrance to the Macassar Straits, the main passageway to Java from Davao in the Philippines. Another prong reached British New Guinea, New Britain, and the Solomon Islands flanking Torres Strait, one of the alternate routes from Hawaii and Sydney to Singapore. North-west of Malaya the capture of Moulmein menaced Rangoon and guarded the Japanese in Malaya from a possible British attack on their rear from Burma. Singapore was cut off. On February 15 the fortress surrendered. Mr. Curtin described its loss as “ Australia’s Dunkirk,” and Mr. Churchill, in reporting the surrender of the island and the 70,000 British troops defending it, offered to the House of Commons “ hard and heavy tidings of a great and far-reaching military disaster.” With the fall of Singapore the Indian Ocean was opened to Japanese raiders, India, East Africa, and the British position in the Middle East were threatened ; Australia and New Zealand were placed in direct danger with their supply lines open to attack ; China’s chief supply route was cut. Outflanked

on the west, the Dutch East Indies fell, and . the Japanese took possession of territories which would give them the oil, tin, rubber, rice, and iron they needed for a long war. To the fall of Singapore many factors contributed, three at least with their roots in the events of 1940 —the surrender of the French bases in Indo-China to Japan, the loss of the French Fleet which involved the stripping of the Far East naval forces, and the decision taken by Britain to use in the Middle East what little strength was left to her after Dunkirk. It needed then only the crippling of the United States Pacific Fleet accomplished at Pearl Harbour— to lay the Far East bare to the enemy. The story of the local campaign in Malaya, from the landing at Khota Baru near the top of the peninsula on December 8, to the abandonment of the mainland on January 31 and the fall of Singapore on February 15, is one of lacks. Warships which could have faced the enemy in the Pacific, bombers which could have destroyed their transports, small armed vessels which could have broken up their landings on the coast of Malaya, fighters and reconnaissance planes, guns, and tanks which could have broken their air and artillery attacks — these had been sent to meet the enemy elsewhere. Britain had done what she could to meet the danger. To Singapore she had sent one of her new battleships, Prince of Wales, and the battle cruiser, Repulse, with a few smaller craft — she had not been able to send with them an aircraft carrier, and on December 10 both were sunk from the air in an attempt to break up the Japanese landings. It was a bold venture made with a full knowledge of the risks. Defenceless at sea, the British forces were almost as helpless in the air. On the day of the attack there were not many more than 100 front-line planes in all Malaya, and most of these were obsolete.' Heavy losses were inflicted on the enemy, but within a week the Japanese had full control of the air.

Reinforcements were sent, but they arrived too late and not in sufficient numbers. On land the British forces first 50,000 in number, but later increased to 70,000 —had to fight without air support and without air reconnaissance. The country of the Malayan Peninsula favoured the enemy — long coastline parallel with their advance and indented by many river estuaries, up which infiltrating forces could proceed. It was a hard struggle. The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, SOO strong, crossed to Singapore Island with fewer than 100 effectives. When the cease fire sounded there were not 100 alive, including wounded, of the 846 men in one battalion of Malayan levies. There may have been other factors which contributed to the defeat, but it is not correct to say that the guns “ pointed, the wrong way ” — out to sea. The heavy coastal artillery, designed for a specific purpose, did point out to sea, but mobile artillery was provided for the landward defences, and plans were made for defence of the island by land. A plan is one thing ; the force with which to carry it out is another. Britain had in Malaya the plans and the men—but not the equipment. Three months after the fall of Singapore, on June 4, 1942, at the Battle of Midway Island, the Japanese received their first check —the first real reverse in fifty years of expansion. Early in August the Americans launched an offensive in the Solomons and established themselves on Guadalcanal. The offensive then begun carried the Allies into the Philippines, into Borneo, on to Okinawa and Iwojima, through Burma to Rangoon, to the coasts and over the cities of Japan. It was the enemy offensive in reverse. The Japanese were pressed back into the China Sea, from which in December of 1941 they struck out, and British forces early this year began to close in on Singapore five years after the French surrender had smoothed the way for Japanese conquest and three years after the fall of the island.