The Japanese estimate was that shore defences, behind barbed
wire, were well sited but `little more formidable than ordinary field
entrenchments' and easy to neutralise `with field guns lighter than 15
centimetres'. On the west coast of Singapore, their artillery barrage was so
effective that it cut communications to the beaches, leaving the defenders
isolated at critical moments.
Clearly, more beach lights, communication systems,
minefields, underwater obstacles and the like might have been prepared on
Singapore's northern shores, if not in Johore as well, and on 19 January
Churchill cabled ten specific measures he wanted taken. These included using
the coastal guns to fire northward and acquiring for them high explosive
ammunition, and using if necessary `rigorous compulsion' to marshal the entire
male population on works.
His urgency reflected the fact that relatively little had
been done by mid-January, despite calls from some quarters for more urgency. As
far back as August 1941, the new Chief Engineer, Brigadier Ivan Simson, had
come to similar conclusions. Indeed, there must be some suspicion that Simson's
views influenced Churchill's later writing.
After two years helping with defences in Britain, Simson had
arrived in Malaya with instructions to modernise defences. He almost
immediately urged anti-tank defences be constructed in depth along Malaya's
north-south road system, with obstacles and works on the flanks to channel
attackers into killing grounds. He even saw Percival in mid- October 1941,
outlining how effective defences had been previously against Japanese attack,
at Port Arthur. Like Singapore, Port Arthur was a fortifted naval base. The
Japanese isolated it in 1904 by a surprise attack on the Russian fleet, but
were prevented from seizing the base itself by fortifications to its landward
side. These works had allowed the defenders to hold out for five months and
inflict heavy casualties on the Japanese before Port Arthur fell.
Simson now advised Percival that field fortifications in
south Johore be improved, and stressed that it was vital to construct such
works before war started and labour became scarce. At first, he was ignored,
and by October 1941 defence works planned included little more than the Jitra
line, and additional work on Singapore's south coast, where the coast guns made
direct attack less likely anyway. Simson's appeal to develop the island's
northern shores went ignored. He called for
field and permanent
defences in depth consisting of mutually supporting wired trenches, switch
lines, pillboxes and various underwater obstacles, mines, petrol fire traps,
anchored but floating barbed wire, and methods of illuminating the water at
night' so that `the water surface and shore line should always be the main
killing ground'.
Other ideas included preparing detonation chambers for
bridges, something that might have reduced the number of failed demolitions due
to wet charges in 1942. As with Lieutenant-Colonel Stewart's ideas for jungle
training, and for holding the road by fighting the battle for the road off the
road, overall command failed to harness the best and most vigorous ideas. According
to Simson he saw Percival again on 27 December. Then he had a request by
Lieutenant-General Heath, commanding the forces retreating on the peninsula, to
prepare defences in Johore before his battle-worn troops reached it. Percival
later did order some work in Johore, but too little, too late. For Singapore
the story was even less inspiring.
Simson later claimed to have worked on Percival for over two
hours on 27 December, telling him `that time was rapidly running out for the
construction of permanent and field defences on the north shore of Singapore
Island; because once any area came under enemy fire civilian labour would
vanish'. Now, he said, was the time to marshal both civilian labour, and the
6,500 Commonwealth Engineers, to do what could be done. The answer from
Percival, and the Fortress Commander, Major-General Keith Simmons was
supposedly that defences were bad for civilian and military morale.
Orders to develop northern defences were finally given in
early January, after Wavell expressed horror at seeing the largely unfortified
landward side of Singapore. But even then they were too timid. Anyway, War
Office payscales for civilian labour still remained below those obtainable on
plantations, and became yet more inadequate as wartime inflation pushed up
costs. By the time they were increased bombing meant it was too late.
There was also debate about just how to defend a
mangrove-fringed northern and western coast. On 23 January Percival emphasised
that
The northern and
western shores of the island are too intersected with creeks and mangroves for
any recognised form of beach defences,' recommending instead `small defended
localities to cover known approaches, such as rivers, creeks and roads to the
coast…supported by mobile reserves in suitable assembly areas'.
This was a fine theory, except that British communications
broke down as Japanese bombardment damaged surface lines and neither troops nor
commanders were geared to rapid and decisive counter-attack. Besides, more
mines, oil traps and underwater obstacles would still have helped soften an
enemy up, even if beach defence was not the main plan. Instead, there was
confusion to the last.
Simson, meanwhile, reconnoitred the coast of Johore and
decided the swamps to the east of the Causeway would make a poor jumping off
point for an attack on Singapore, compared to west Johore, where there was good
road access to the coast. At the same time, the Japanese concluded British
defensive positions would be stronger east of the Causeway because of the Naval
Base.
So Simson had mines, booby traps, Lyon lights, petrol drums
for setting alight the water, barbed wire and obstacles dumped along
Singapore's northwest coast, ready for use. Unfortunately Percival read the
situation differently, so Simson was ordered to move these stocks to the west,
completing the task by 5 February. Whereupon the sighting of Japanese in west
Johore prompted orders by 6 February to switch some of the supplies back. Again,
it was all far too late.
Tragically, the material needed for defence works had been
present in Singapore all along, even if the willpower and organisation to use
it effectively was not. The War Office had sent large quantities of the
supplies necessary to build defences to ports such as Aden and Singapore as
early as 1938 to 1939. This had specifically been intended to ensure the
stockpiles were there before wartime conditions placed a premium on shipping
space.
The real tragedy of Singapore may be that Churchill failed
to force a decisive debate on these differences at any stage from late 1940 to
mid-January 1942. A debate whereby he would accept plans for all-Malayan
defence and provide the necessary reinforcements, or the Chiefs of Staff would
enforce a more limited defence based mainly on Johore, and a more thorough
fortification of Singapore as security against the worst.
Churchill and his commanders clung to very different visions
of the defence of Singapore, right down to the bitter end. Churchill had one
conception of strategy, of Singapore and Johore as a fortress, defensible as a
hedgehog, and to be retired to relatively quickly. From his perspective, it
turned out that Singapore was never properly fortified, not because his
commanders were surprised by a northern attack, but precisely because they
concentrated too much energy on meeting that attack in the north. Indeed, the
impetus of planning to meet an attack from the north, slowly building up from
Dobbie's reports in the mid-1930s, may have made it difficult for the military
to make a paradigm shift when they found the resources for Matador lacking.
Only very briefly, in early 1940, did a local commander (General Bond as GOC
Malaya) seem to realise that all-Malayan defence, while theoretically ideal,
might prove disastrous with the limited resources available.
From the perspective of Churchill's commanders, Etonian and
then Matador remained vital, even if the aircraft were not there. For them,
fortifications seem to have been viewed as a distraction, excepting perhaps
those at Jitra in the far north, and on Singapore's seaward coast in the far
south. To them fortifications seem to have been regarded almost as bookends,
something desirable only to support the northern and southern extremities of
their defensive area.
