“Fortress Singapore”

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.

The Burma Campaign 1942–45

Burma was to be the theatre of the longest continuous British campaign, from 1941 to 1945 – fought in varying terrain of jungle, mountains, plains and wide rivers. By May 1942, the Japanese occupied almost the entirety of this British colony, and granted it nominal independence in August 1943. The British, having been forced back into Assam, had to build up resources from scratch, and the process was very slow, with priority given to other theatres. Unrest in India after the failure of the Cripps mission in 1942 to agree a timetable for independence and the arrest of many Indian Congress Party leaders, including Gandhi, also impeded the building up of forces, and gave the Japanese scope to create an Indian National Army out of troops captured in Malaya and commanded by Subhas Chandra Bose.

The British finally took the offensive in Arakan in December 1942, attempting to take Akyab and Donbaik, but failed, and guerrilla operations under Brigadier Wingate (the ‘Chindits’) achieved only limited success, though boosting British morale in India. The British retained the ambition to recapture Burma, largely by the coastal route, but through 1943 did not have the means to do so. The American view was that any campaign in Burma should be directed towards improving the situation for China, and not part of a strategy to put the British back into their colonies in South-East Asia. South-East Asia Command (SEAC) was formed in November 1943 to resolve some of these issues, and did provide some central direction. More importantly, the British and Indian forces were commanded by General Slim, one of the best British generals of the war, who was slowly able to rebuild morale and forge an offensive fighting force, the 14th Army. Most of his soldiers were Indians, though there were Kerens, Ghurkas, West Africans and other ethnicities, as well as British.

The Japanese reorganised their forces in Burma, and planned their own offensive to interdict the new supply routes to China and ultimately to disrupt British rule in India. The Japanese offensive began on 3 February 1944 with Operation Ha-Go, designed to hold British reserves in Arakan. Improved tactics and supply enabled the British and Indian forces to resist the Japanese assault in the Battle of the Admin Box. US General Stilwell sent his irregular ‘Merrill’s Marauders’ behind Japanese lines around Myitkyina, matched by operations by the Chindits on the central front. However, the main Japanese assault commanded by Mitaguchi opened on 7 March, Operation U-Go; the start of the invasion of India. They achieved some surprise, but 14th Army’s new tactics and improved morale meant that they held their positions on the crucial roads that led into India. Surrounded at Imphal and Kohima, Indian and British forces fought an epic struggle with the Japanese and Bose’s Indians through the monsoon season. The troops were at very close quarters: at Kohima, there was fighting for months across the district commissioner’s tennis court. The Allies were supplied from the air in a massive operation; the Japanese forces were not, and 14th Army was finally able to force Mitaguchi’s 15th Army into retreat on 4 July. It was the largest defeat ever suffered by the Japanese Army: of 85,000 soldiers, 53,000 were casualties (30,000 killed).

Further north, the Allied offensive was able to continue unaffected by U-Go, but the Japanese held out against Stilwell at Myitkyina for two months until 1 August, though the Chinese captured the airfield in May allowing despatch of supplies to and from China. Chinese forces also drove southwards from Yunnan to open the Burma Road, but the Ichi-Go offensive in China (Map 42) caused Jiang to remove his support from Stilwell’s plans for further operations into Burma.

The British pressed forward their advance: by October, 14th Army had crossed the Chindwin river and was approaching Mandalay and Meiktila. The Chinese captured Wanting in January 1945, re-opening the Ledo Road. Tough fighting in the swamps and river country of the coastal region in January and February (the ‘Chaung War’), led to the capture by the British and Indians of Meiktila on 4 March. An amphibious landing directed at Rangoon had long been planned; this finally took place as Operation Dracula on 3 May, and Rangoon was entered by 4th Corps on 6 May, 1945, effectively bringing an end to the campaign, though the Japanese forces remaining in Burma did not surrender until 28 August. It had always been something of a side-show for the Americans and Chinese, but for the British it was a vital campaign if they were to regain control of their empire and some of their prestige as an imperial power. For some Indians it was a war of national defence against the Japanese, who had shown themselves to be unsympathetic liberators, while for others in Bose’s army, it was the opportunity to free India from British rule – the latter were decimated as a fighting force at Kohima and Imphal. The British planned further amphibious operations to regain Malaya and to attack Sumatra, but they had not come anywhere near fruition when the Japanese surrendered, and it was that event that enabled the British to re-enter their other South-East Asian colonies. Ironically, disarmed Japanese troops were to be used in the months following to maintain internal order as the British struggled to re-assert their authority against people that no longer held them in any kind of awe.

War in China 1942–45

When the Pacific War began, Japan controlled all China’s industrial centres and major ports. Jiang Jieshi [Chiang Kai-shek] was in a poor situation, under threat from Japanese airpower and with dwindling sources of supply. Soviet aid stopped after 1940 as Stalin wished to avoid antagonising the Japanese, and wanted to marshal his resources for possible conflict with Germany. The Burma Road was sporadically closed under Japanese pressure. However, Japan did not have the military force to conquer the rest of China, or even achieve a decisive victory. Both sides were pre-occupied with maintaining authority in their spheres. Jiang was continually faced with the need to exert his authority over his own forces, many of which owed at least partial allegiance to a local warlord. Then there were the Communists (CCP) based in Fushih. After the Sian agreement there was an uneasy truce between the Kuomintang (KMT) and CCP, to focus their attention on the Japanese. Communist forces were under Jiang’s nominal overall command, though in practice they fought separate wars. In 1940, the Japanese set up a puppet regime under Wang Ching-Wei (who had defected from Jiang), but held collaborators in contempt and did not give them any real authority. The Japanese never had the numbers to maintain full dominance over the countryside by their own efforts: their main focus was on extracting the resources they needed for their war effort elsewhere – rice, minerals, coal and Manchurian manufactures – and exploiting the labour force where they could. The 25 divisions they deployed in China were mainly involved in occupation and pacification, though they were also able to exploit the complications of Chinese politics by dealing with the warlords who maintained an autonomous existence between Jiang in the south and Mao’s Communists in the north and resistance within their occupation zone never seriously discommoded them, apart from in a few areas penetrated by the CCP. Conversely, Jiang’s forces, though nominally the largest army in the world, were mostly passive, being poorly-trained and equipped and preoccupied with the internal politics of his militaristic regime. Until 1944 the Japanese were under no pressure to mount offensives, as they controlled all the productive parts of the country and until major air attacks began, they were under no threat.

When the US entered the war, Jiang hoped that China would be the centre of American efforts against Japan. Congress voted a $500 million loan in February 1942 and Roosevelt depicted China as the US’s major ally against Japan, but the logistical difficulties of supplying China, British reservations about Jiang and the urgency of other fronts meant that this never came to fruition. General Claire Chennault’s aviators in the American Volunteer Group were reinforced (eventually to become the 14th Air Force), and General ‘Vinegar Joe’ Stilwell was appointed as Jiang’s Chief of Staff, and as commander of US forces in the China–Burma–India theatre. Stilwell’s job was to improve the efficiency of Jiang’s forces and to push back the Japanese. He found both to be very difficult tasks. Jiang, Stilwell and Chennault bitterly disagreed on the use to put the limited (15,000 tons a month in January 1944) amount of aid coming in over the ‘Hump’ (the Himalayas) from India to Kunming.

In any case, other theatres got first call on resources, especially once American strategy no longer hinged on China, with their advances in the Pacific. The obvious low priority China was given in Allied strategy, despite the popularity of Jiang and his wife in the US, helped both the KMT and the CCP to conclude that the US did not need China to beat Japan, and they sought to keep their forces intact, ready for the renewal of their own conflict, though also recognising that they could not be entirely passive and retain credibility. The Communists were the more successful in organising their region and building loyalties among the peasantry, and also in organising armed activities behind Japanese lines. In Jiang’s sphere, his authoritarian rule was based on managing factional conflicts, which produced an increasing amount of inefficiency and corruption.

As the airpower situation improved at the start of 1944, deliveries over the Hump increased, and Stilwell’s training programmes bore fruit. Although threatened by the Japanese U-Go offensive in Burma in March, the Ledo Road (later re-named the Stilwell Road) was re-opened. However, Chinese plans for an offensive were pre-empted by the Japanese, provoked by Chennault’s attacks on their bases. In the Ichi-Go offensive beginning on 17 April 1944 they overran many of the airfields in Kiangsi and Kwangsi, and by June they had gained control of the Peking–Hankow railway, then Changsha and Hengyang. There were fears in the US that Jiang’s government would collapse. Jiang blamed Stilwell for these setbacks, because Stilwell was personally commanding Chinese forces in (successful) operations in Burma at the time. In October, Roosevelt acceded to Jiang’s request and replaced Stilwell with Wedemeyer.

Chinese forces were able to hold Kunming, and in summer 1945 they defeated two further Japanese offensives in Hunan and Hupeh. At the time the Japanese surrendered to the Allies, Jiang was preparing an offensive towards Hong Kong and Canton. It is estimated that over 1,500,000 Chinese were killed between 1937 and 1945, and with conflict re-opening immediately between Jiang and the Communists, there were to be four more years of war in China.