Jitra to Singapore

In a rapid advance, the Imperial Japanese Army overran British positions in northern Malaya, easily breaking through at Jitra, a strongly fortified line of wire entanglements and deep trenches astride the road to Alor Star. It was expected to be held for three months. An impromptu night attack by barely 500 Japanese soldiers drove off the defenders in a matter of hours. Along with 3,000 prisoners came large stores of ammunition, petrol and food. For the rest of the campaign, these frequent bags of supplies were laughingly called “Churchill’s allowance”. To turn British positions, baffling tactics were employed, such as night attacks, encirclement, sudden charges and small boat operations. To maintain the momentum of the advance, Yamashita Tomoyuki ’ s men rode bicycles. Tsuji Masanobu recalls how 

the greatest difficulty . . . was the excessive heat, owing to which the tyres punctured easily. A bicycle repair squad of at least two men was attached to each company, and each squad repaired an average of twenty machines a day. But such repairs were only makeshift. When the enemy was being hotly pursued, and time was pressing, punctured tyres were taken off and bicycles ridden on the rims. Surprisingly enough they ran smoothly on the paved roads, which were in perfect condition. Numbers of bicycles some with tyres and some without, when passing along a road, made a noise resembling a tank. At night when such bicycle units advanced the enemy frequently retreated hurriedly, saying, “Here come the tanks! ” . . . Thanks to Britain’s dear money spent on excellent roads, and to the cheap Japanese bicycles, the assault on Malaya was easy.

And when necessary, the Japanese abandoned pedals and advanced through the jungle, carrying their bicycles on their shoulders. This the British found as disconcerting as attacks from the rear.

It was in fact the jungle that Yamashita Tomoyuki so brilliantly exploited. He realised the potential for outflanking movements when he saw it for the first time near Saigon. His previous posting had been Manzhouguo. Unlike him however, nearly all British senior officers regarded jungle and swampy ground as impenetrable natural obstacles. The shining exception was Ian Stewart, the commanding officer of the 2nd Battalion Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. Having investigated the problems of fighting under tropical conditions, he took his men on training exercises designed to accustom them to both the advantages and disadvantages of military action in primary as well as secondary jungle. In the process, the Argylls banished any fears they had about plants or animals. “Cross - country movement through the jungle, ” Stewart wrote, “ and living in it for days at a time, not only by large parties but by small groups of three or four officers or NCOs, was practised until the jungle became a friend and not an enemy. ”  

This familiarity saved the Argylls from destruction on several occasions: it also helped inflict an early reverse on the apparently unbeatable Imperial Japanese Army at Grik Road, inland from Penang. There the Japanese were shocked by a counterattack delivered from the jungle on each side of this thoroughfare. As Steward commented: 

One of the arts of rearguard tactics in the jungle is time and space calculation . . . Quite genuinely it is a fascinating game, embodying as it does appreciations of ground, enemy dispositions, and above all the mind and speed of action of the opposing commander. But it is a nervy business, for a commander works with the jungle as a bandage over his eyes; there is no warning of an approaching crisis, and the situation will turn from blue sky to black storm in a minute or two. There are two rules that must never be broken: to hang on desperately to the initiative and to have plans ready and understood by all in anticipation of every eventuality. 

Because the British had neither tanks nor an adequate antitank defence, Stewart ’ s use of the jungle alongside roads was critical in the battles which were fought to slow down the Japanese advance.

At the engagement for the bridge at the River Slim in early January 1942, a disastrous British defeat that sealed the fate of Kuala Lumpur, the Argylls improvised road blocks and threw Molotov cocktails at Japanese medium tanks. While the bottle - bombs proved less effective than those used by the Imperial Japanese Army at Nomonhan, there was no shortage of volunteers for the Molotov cocktail party. Through this encounter the Japanese came to respect the courage of Stewart’s men, who alone on the surrender of Singapore rode to the Changi prisoner - of - war camp. Impressed by their refusal to hand over their transport, Japanese sentries saluted the column as it went into captivity to the sound of bagpipes. Those Argylls who were sent to work in other parts of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere often found their distinctive bonnets attracted the attention of Japanese officers. In Thailand a sergeant - major was informed that “Argyll Scotsmen number one fighters ”.

Not that the Argylls ’ well - deserved reputation for jungle warfare did much to save Malaya or Singapore. Their capture was a foregone conclusion when British military doctrine firmly held that the jungle was impassable for large numbers of troops and that the situation was therefore overwhelmingly in favour of the defenders. It was on this assumption that the so - called fortress at Singapore had been built. Only a threat from the sea was ever seriously considered before the outbreak of the Pacific War. By the time Arthur Percival appreciated what was happening in Malaya, it was too late to adjust to Japanese methods of attack. Percival ordered the adoption of guerrilla tactics. Formations should reduce their transport as far as possible by sending all vehicles that were not immediately wanted well to the rear.

But as Stewart later commented: “New tactics cannot be learnt in the middle of a battle.” Another reason for Yamashita Tomoyuki ’ s victory was far better intelligence: he even knew the names of all the Argyll officers. The sheer speed of the Japanese advance gave the British commander - in - chief no chance of regrouping his forces for a last stand in southern Malaya, so that in February 1942 Percival was called upon to conduct his last campaign, the defence of Singapore.

The Fighting Retreat of the British in Burma

Burning Burma's Oilfields

 

The only action comparable with the American defence of the Philippines was the fighting retreat of the British in Burma. There the last - minute appointment of William Slim turned a potential rout into a taxing withdrawal. On his arrival in March 1942, it was self - evident that the colony would not be able to offer sustained resistance to the 15th Japanese Army, whose tactics paralleled those used by Yamashita Tomoyuki in Malaya. Disaster first struck the British defenders near the Thai - Burma border. Having been forced back into Burma and evacuated the southern port of Moulmein, a stand was attempted at the River Sittang whose long bridge allowed access to Rangoon. The defeat of the 17th Indian Division on the Sittang was a terrible one, but Wavell ’ s strategy of holding up the Japanese as far away from Rangoon for as long as possible, so that reinforcements could be brought in to defeat them via this port, was militarily sound. It permitted the disembarkation of the 7th Armoured Brigade, originally destined for Malaya.

This strategy was unfortunately compromised by the commander of the 17th Indian Division, the highly decorated Jackie Smyth, who overlooked the possibility of Japanese flanking movements as he withdrew his forces to the Sittang Bridge. To send the whole division and its transport along a broken - down road was bound to be slow, even if the enemy did not interfere. To have left an inadequate guard on the bridge itself was foolhardy. On 21 February, news reached Smyth that large Japanese forces were already ahead of him en route for the Sittang River. Even though he ordered extra troops to hold the vulnerable eastern side of the bridge, as they took up defensive positions there, they could hear the ominous sound of enemy machine - gun fi re. A heavy Japanese attack took place the next day. Smyth got within sight of the bridge, but the failure to establish an effective defence well before the arrival of the Japanese, and the consequent inability to use the approach road, created a serious handicap. The loss of many radios complicated an already confused situation. Some of his troops managed to cross the river by boat, and Smyth set up his headquarters on the other side. Many others were still on the east bank when the order was given to demolish the bridge’ s central spans on 23 February. Up to the explosion, the Japanese actually thought that they were getting the worst of the fighting. Now they knew that although they could no longer capture the bridge intact, they had won the battle. Appreciating that the defeat meant the loss of Rangoon as well as southern Burma, Wavell sent Smyth home on retirement leave. In a matter of days, William Slim was called in and ordered to salvage what he could.

As the Japanese advanced northwards, Slim fought a series of well - conducted delaying actions. One of them, at Kokkogwa, north of Prome, ended in an unusual humiliation for the Japanese, who were so shaken by the experience that they failed to recover their dead, always a shameful omission. Already the new commander was sowing the seeds of a British recovery in the interest he showed in jungle warfare. He allowed Michael Calvert to raid Japanese lines with his locally trained guerrillas and was pleased to learn that the daring major, after an initial disagreement, got on well with Orde Wingate, Wavell ’s favourite. The meeting of these two enthusiasts for irregular tactics was to lead to the formation of the famous Chindits. Racing the Japanese and the monsoon, Slim led his battered troops into India with mixed feelings. He had shared their hardships, even sporting a beard like that of so many of his men until he noticed the hairs were coming out white. Thirteen thousand had been killed or wounded against a Japanese total of 4,000. He recalls how on the last day of the thousand - kilometre retreat:

I stood on a bank beside the road and watched the rearguard march into India. All of them, British, Indian, and Gurkha, were gaunt and ragged as scarecrows. Yet, as they trudged behind their surviving officers in groups pitifully small, they still carried their arms and kept their ranks, they were still recognizable as fighting units. They might look like scarecrows, but they looked like soldiers too.

The Indian Army

 

A sepoy of the 1st Afridi Bn receives some friendly words of advice from the subedar-major at Port Tewfik, Egypt. The regiment moved to Syria for training as a Commando unit, but resumed its role as conventional infantry in 1943. Reborn as the Khyber Rifles, the regiment is now part of the Pakistan Army. (IWM E14177)

The Indian Army entered the Second World War woefully underprepared. The amount of money devoted to the army by the Government of India had slowly declined after the end of the First World War. Despite a subsidy from Great Britain it was left desperately short of modern weapons and equipment and it did not possess sufficient men able to handle mechanical transport - not a single member of the Royal Deccan Horse, for example, knew how to drive. Only with the recruitment of a large number of Madrassis and Mahrattas did this situation begin to change. Neither the Japanese depredations in China nor the outbreak of war in Europe disturbed the sanguine outlook of the British and Indian Governments - indeed, the advice coming from London was that it was unlikely that Indian troops would be required at all.

The extent of the government's miscalculation was apparent when, at the outbreak of war, the Indian Army quickly found itself in the field again, immediately contributing two divisions (the 4th and 5th Infantry Divisions) to the operations in the Western Desert and Abyssinia (and, curiously, four mule companies of the RIASC to the British Expeditionary Force in France). Three Indian divisions (the 4th, 8th and 10th) went on to make a significant contribution to the campaigns in North Africa and Italy, from Mersa Matruh to the Gothic Line and the final crossing of the River Po. Another force intervened in Iraq and Persia to safeguard the overland route to the Soviet Union and also provided the trucks used to deliver aid. At this stage of the war training in India was directed entirely towards preparing for campaigns in North Africa and the Middle East. Nothing at all was done to strengthen the defences of Burma and Malaya, since the Japanese were discounted as a real threat, and the garrisons of both countries consisted only of Indian States battalions and Indian Army battalions weakened by the departure of drafts sent to reinforce the units in Africa.

Cavalry

By the end of 1940 all the cavalry regiments had given up their horses, but were not yet fully armoured. A shortage of AFVs meant that a number of regiments, such as the Central India Horse (the reconnaissance regiment of 4th Infantry Division) or Skinner's Horse (its counterpart in 5th Infantry Division), were equipped only with 15-cwt. trucks - in effect making them understrength motor battalions. Indeed, some regiments served in precisely that role: the 2nd Royal Lancers, 11th Cavalry and 18th Lancers were formed into 3rd Motor Brigade (31st Indian Armoured Division) and sent to North Africa in 1941. There they were thrown into the Tobruk fighting 40 per cent below establishment in machine guns and with only one anti-tank rifle per regiment instead of 42.

Volunteers from the regiments in this brigade went on to form the nucleus of the Indian Long Range Squadron, an LRDG-type unit destined to be employed in Persia and Iraq if the Germans ever reached that far into Asia. The ILRS consisted of a headquarters and four 'patrols', lettered 'J', 'P', 'R', and 'S', containing]at, Punjabi, Rajput and Sikh personnel respectively. Although the Squadron never saw action against the Germans as a unit both J and R Patrols were attached to the Long Range Desert Group in the Western Desert.

Artillery

During the Second World War the Artillery expanded rapidly, raising 66 regiments between 1939 and 1945; at the peak of its strength in 1943-44 it contained 64 regiments. All the field regiments were equipped with 25-pdrs from 1941 onwards, the first to be raised abandoning their horses in favour of the internal combustion engine at the same time. This increase in strength was helped by the transfer of 12 infantry battalions into the artillery to form newly created anti-tank and anti-aircraft regiments. Growth was particularly noticeable in the anti-aircraft branch. In 1939, only one British Heavy AA regiment was serving in India and not a single Light Regiment. In 1940, the first Indian HAA regiment was raised; by the end of 1945, 19 Heavy regiments and eight Light regiments had been created.

Infantry

At the beginning of the Second World War, as at the outbreak of the First, the infantry arm was obliged to expand to meet the manpower needs of the conflict. The 3rd Madras Regiment, disbanded in 1928 as an economy measure, was re-raised; the Territorial battalions were incorporated into their respective regiments, and a number of regiments raised garrison battalions to free fit men for the front line. These measures were still insufficient. Rather than repeat the mistakes of the First World War, when a reluctance to look beyond the traditional 'martial races' led to over-recruitment in their home areas, the army now broadened its recruiting base and created new regiments from non-traditional sources. This resulted in the formation of the Bihar, the Assam, the Mahar, the Ajmer and the Chamar Regiments and of the Lingayat and Coorg Battalions. Some of these units were ineffective as infantry, but once they had been transferred to other arms-of-service many of the men were a success as soldiers - the experience of war again demonstrating the flawed nature of the whole 'martial race' theory.