Defending the indefensible

The physical appearance of LieutenantGeneral Arthur Percival was not that of a Great Captain. His was an awkward, angular shape, not suited to tropical shorts. He had buck-teeth and lacked the jaw-line of Slim or Alanbrooke. These attributes worked against him when the knives were out after Singapore fell in 1941, as did his recent `staff experience. But he had fought nobly with the Bedfords on the Western Front in the Great War, a leader by example, loved by his men. awarded the DSO, MC and three mentions. And after 1918, he secured total victory over the Bolsheviks on the Dvina River when with the Royal Fusiliers under Ironside. Later, as Intelligence Officer of the Essex Regiment, he won in Ulster the reluctant respect of the IRA, before moving to staff appointments at home and abroad, including Nigeria and, from 1935 to 1937, de facto Chief of Staff, Malaya.

Winston Churchill, then Prime Minister, described the fall of Singapore as `this grievous and shameful blow . . . the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history'. It is General Kinvig's contention that the blame for the catastrophe lay not primarily with General Percival, GOC Malaya Command, but in the fallacy that the island ever was a defensible 'fortress', and in Churchill's own failure to give the defence of Malaya a high priority in aircraft, tanks and jungle-trained soldiers.

In fact, the island itself had no landward defences. Plans had always been based on holding the land attack in Johore or further north, but the means to implement the plan, in terms especially of armour and fighters, had been diverted to the USSR whose survival was judged by Churchill to be that sine qua non of final victory which that of Malaya could not be. And the great man, beset by menace in Europe and the Middle East, either did not believe in an imminent, effective Japanese threat, or hoped that it would not happen, or even imagined it as the occasion for longed-for US intervention.

In 1937 the island had contained only two British battalions, while one single Indian battalion and some vestigial local forces were thought adequate to defend the whole Malayan peninsula. Percival, warning of Japanese intelligence penetration, and of vastly improved military capacity, and the likelihood of delay in the arrival of the British Main Fleet, had then recommended considerably augmented air, infantry and local naval support. When he returned in 1941 as GOC his Army was still 17 battalions short of the (inadequate) Chiefs of Staff estimate for six brigades, while the Air Force lacked 178 aircraft out of the 336 which the Chiefs had agreed, against the 566 locally recommended. (Sixty of those were Brewster Buffaloes, no match for Zeros and flown by pilots straight out of flying school). The Main Fleet, including Prince of Wales and Repulse, did not arrive until December, without the essential aircraft carrier: 'A lovely sight', correctly commented Lady Diana Cooper, `but on the petty side.'

The Japanese then landed in the north-east, pre-empting Matador, the planned British attempt to seize Thai bases before they could be taken by the Japanese. Percival's subordinate, Commander of 3 Indian Corps, was Lieutenant General Sir Lewis Heath, older and more senior, the knighted victor of Keren. Relations between the two deteriorated, to the detriment of the whole campaign, after Heath had blamed Percival - `You lost your honour in the North' for not activating Matador.

In the north-west, the Japanese captured a marked British map. The three raw brigades of 11th Indian Division, losing vast quantities of arms and with 3,000 soldiers - often without Urdu-speaking officers - surrendering, were roundly defeated at Jitra. The RAF was reduced, often on the ground, from 110 operational aircraft in north Malaya to 50, destroyed largely by the espionage of the British Captain Keenan. Prince of Wales and Repulse, without air cover, were sent to the bottom. There followed a gruesome record of treachery, incompetence, failure to communicate, leading to endless botched withdrawals in east and west Malaya against Japanese command of air and sea, superior armour and outflanking tactics, as later against Slim in the Burma retreat. No useful contribution was made by the Resident Minister, Duff Cooper, nor by Lord Wavell, the Supreme Allied Commander.

The Hurricanes which now started to arrive in crates could not compete with the Zeros. Not enough Hudson or Blenheim bombers arrived. The last, frequently deplorable retreats led finally to a successful withdrawal by 31 January to Singapore island, which now contained about 95,000 men, few of whom were trained and reliable. But although 18 Division, unacclimatised and desert trained, disembarked on 29 January, Singapore was untenable now that the mainland had been lost, a fact admitted by Wavell. Despite Churchill's demand that Singapore should become an Asian Masada - `Commanders and senior officers should die with their troops' - an immoral request that `Indians, Australians and Singaporeans should die for the Empire', Wavell gave discretion to Percival to cease resistance. Troops were looting, deserting or escaping; the failure of the water supply was imminent, with certainty of epidemic; petrol was exhausted; ammunition was running out; most of Percival's soldiers had given up the struggle. He signed the surrender document on Sunday, 15 February.

General Jacob said: `If we had had our best general there, it would have made no difference.' Commanders need trained and equipped soldiers with air and naval support and they need time, none of which commodities Percival had in any measure. There was just no fight left in Percival's Army, and that was not his fault.

Copyright Spectator Mar 8, 1997
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