Recently,
I watched a historical documentary on the Pacific War. The
show was produced by a reputable filmaker and was shown on
a prominent channel.
Not far into
the film they highlighted the Battle for Singapore and I was
shocked at what I heard. Once again, as so many times before,
the statement was made that the British “lost” Singapore to
a Japanese force that numbered one third that of the British
forces defending the island fortress. I was outraged that
after all this time and with so much accurate information
available, such a blatant mistake would be aired.
However, this is
not surprising, for in the words of one of my American researcher
friends, “many ‘so-called historians’ today never bother to
really dig into the stories or check the facts for themselves.
They just use information already published and repeat it
again, thus perpetuating the errors of those who have gone
before.”
This is what I
have found to be the case with many of the the Allied intelligence
reports on the Taiwan POW camps, and a great deal of other
information supposedly ‘documenting’ the war in the Pacific.
In the interests of truth and to hopefully help stop the continued
perpetration of this myth, I have researched the numbers involved
in that famous battle and submit them here for our readers
to draw their own conclusions.
 The Japanese overrun
Signapore February 1942 First of all, it
should be emphasized that the British army did not “lose”
Singapore. If General Percival had not surrendered, then thousands
more would have died - including innocent civilians. The Japanese
army had overrun most of the island, captured the water reservoirs
and surrounded the main city itself. The British were very
low on ammunition, food and other necessary supplies, so it
would have been suicidal to have fought on as the Japanese
would have killed all the soldiers and most likely many of
the civilians too. The fault for the “loss” of Singapore lies
squarely with Winston Churchill and the British government!
The poorly
equipped RAF had been ordered out of Malaya and Singapore,
and without adequate air support, the navy’s only two ships
that could have made any difference were easily sunk by the
Japanese Navy Air Arm. The Japanese had complete mastery of
the air and could bomb and straffe at will. The land forces
could not hope to win any kind of battle as they had little
equipment to fight with. They had no tanks, and much of the
equipment that accompanied the ill-fated 18th Division was
never unloaded but was returned to England or other theatres.
Churchill and his advisors knew that Singapore could not be
defended but ordered that the army ‘fight to the last man’.
Of course, that way there would be no one left to tell of
their betrayal. It was fortunate indeed that General Percival
had the good sense to surrender!
As to
the numbers - by the first of December 1941, the Japanese
had amassed more than 250,000 trained soldiers in Indo-China.
On December 7 the landing force at Kota-Bahru, Malaya numbered
12,000 men, and as well, 50,000 troops had been secretly moved
across Thailand to launch a simultaneous invasion on the west
coast near Alor Star and Jitra.
A detailed breakdown
of Japanese forces in Malaya on December 7, 1941 reveals that
- the 25th Army under General Yamashita and Count Terrauchi
had 83,000 men, the 15th Army commanded by General Lida had
55,000 men, the 26th Infantry Division led by General Mataguchi
had 28,000 men, the Imperial Guards under General Nishimura
had 38,000 men and they were re-inforced by 50,000 Korean
soldiers. In addition, the Japanese forces had one armoured
division with 500 tanks, two regiments of artillery, 500 aircraft
with 80 in reserve, ten destroyers, two aircraft carriers,
five submarines plus other support vessels. In total the Japanese
had more that 265,000 men plus the 50,000 Korean conscripts
- totalling more than 300,000 trained soldiers.
In
his report to parliament after the fall of Singapore, Churchill
concocted the figures - which seem to have remained in many
historians’ books until the present - that a mere force of
30,000 Japanese defeated the 120,000 British and Allied forces
on the island - implying a shameful defeat of the British
army.
But even the figures
he attributed to the Allies were incorrect. Allied forces
in Malaya and Singapore on December 1, 1941 were as follows
- 19,000 British, 15,000 Australian, 37,000 Indian Army -
including the 11th Division which was largely made up of British
soldiers trained in India, and 17,000 Malay Volunteers.
Approximately 25,000
Allied soldiers were killed, wounded, escaped or were listed
missing in the Battle of Malaya. On January 29, 1942 approximately
20,000 green troops of the 18th Division arrived in Singapore,
bringing the total Allied strength up to around 85,000 men.
After Singapore fell, a tally of Allied losses revealed 7,000
killed and 2,000 wounded or missing.
On the Japanese side - more than 25,000 were killed or wounded in Malaya, while on Singapore the total reached more than 20,000 men killed and 5,000 wounded or missing. This figure alone is more than the number quoted by Churchill! It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see
that the numbers cited by Churchill were pure lies and fabrication.
So why did he do
it? At the time, with things not going well for Britain, Churchill’s
image and position were on shaky ground. Had the British public
known that he and his government had betrayed thousands of
young British servicemen and sacrificed them to the Japanese,
it would have likely caused his political downfall. Better
to distort and cover up the truth to save his own skin. (Sadly,
it’s still the same today!)
The sad part is
that many of those old soldiers have died believing that what
Churchill said was true, and also that subsequent generations
have been deprived of the knowledge and the truth about the
Battle of Malaya and Singapore. It’s time to let the facts
speak for themselves, and to correct the fallacies of history!
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