Defence of Malaya, Singapore the area: how would you do it?

The best thing you could do is make sure you have adequate air defence resources available. Their were not enough fighters of sufficient quality available to stop the Japanese gaining air superiority and not enough medium bombers available to carry out attacks on Japanese ground troops and naval assets.
Then there was the problem of being outmaneuvered by the Japanese army on a number of occassions. A decent light tank or infantry tank in theatre would be of benefit!

I have been lurking on this thread since it began having been brought up in Singapore and Malaya and heard first hand accounts of 1941.

Folk have been looking at this from the point of view of a government or military high command who see Malayan defence as urgent.

In the 1941 context Empire forces have been over committed from Norway to Iran since the spring of the preceding year without other military support and taking on the armed forces of Germany, Italy, France and with the Soviet Union and Turkey capable of jumping in. They have cleared all opposition in East Africa and the Middle East proper including taking Iraq, Iran, Syria and Lebanon.

Malaya is important but they have gambled on it not being urgent. We talk of US forces but they are not involved. In the Malayan context Thailand is more important.

To defend Malay means doing so without impacting upon the actual ongoing war. This means maximising the resources already available and introducing only that which could be spared.

So you need to appoint a Supremo who can 'prod buttock' and has the power to appoint and sack as he sees fit no matter who he upsets. You need to support him totally politically and let him have senior officers who can make changes and make them happen, giving them the same powers. You need to woo the support of the local chinese population who can supplement your forces such as with an observer based early warning system, telephone field intelligence and raising local chinese troops.

Your officers, troops and officials are not uniquely incompetent. Motivate them and reward effective zeal.

On the ground the numbers you have, were they 1945 trained troops, would be quite adequate to deal with the invasion. Train them to be jungle savvy and non front line in mentality (eg if the enemy are behind you they are the ones cut off from support). Training, training and useful training. Tell them they are good and they will believe it. By the way you will not get anti tank guns. Take anti tank rifles and site them properly. They are miniature artillery not heavy small arms.

At sea you have the resources to do no more than control the west coast with the Dutch. Do that and do it well and use naval firepower to support land forces near the west coast.

In the air you want aeroplanes that can outperform Ki27s and Ki43s. You won't get them. The Buffalos you have and a few Hurricanes are all you will have released to you. There is an actual war going on elsewhere you know. Now you have to earn your money with moral courage (and I am so glad I do not have to do it). Obsolete aeroplanes are what you can have so take them. The Middle East has Gladiators a plenty including stealing the REAF ones and lots of the Hart family. Maybe Mohawks? Ex FAA Skuas are viable dive bombers, Battles exist in quantity. The FAA are getting in Albacores so they should be able to release some Swordfish which can dive bomb and carry torpedoes. Yes you will have horrendous losses but so will the enemy.

Your objective in the air is to destroy sea landings, secondarily to support ground forces and possibly strike enemy air bases within reach. To do this you need intelligence and a warning system. Your fighters are there to enable your bombers to do their job.

Once done you are in command of a second rate military that is committed to aggressive defence and that works. The starting point would be April 1941 when actions begin against Japan.

This is not an elegant solution but it is an achievable one. Now who might have the driven, ruthless qualities to be the supremo? Someone with a record of ability and a record of standing up to pressure. Wavell has ability but does he have the other? Montgomery has the latter but has he the suitable skills? More likely it would be some less known 'bad boy' banished from the big pond and kicked upstairs to be the big fish in a small pond. He could be from any service.

Catalina flying boats based in Singapore patrolling off Malaya, 1941/ early 1942



Royal Canadian Air Force Squadron Leader Leonard Birchall, the "Saviour of Ceylon", aboard a Catalina aircraft before being shot down and captured near the island of Ceylon by the Japanese in 1942

Although Ceylon had received a warning of an approaching Japanese task force, the Royal Navy ships in the Indian Ocean were once again disadvantaged without proper air cover. The cruisers HMS Dorsetshire and HMS Cornwall were on patrol together when they came under attack from the Japanese carrier based bombers. At 11 a.m. Sunday 5th April, a single Japanese plane was spotted astern and at 1.40 p.m. the ships were attacked by some 80 planes. In less than ten minutes Dorsetshire was sunk and within five minutes more Cornwall went down too.

The cruiser HMS Dorsetshire had assisted with the evacuation of Singapore and of Rangoon and was on patrol in the Indian ocean with HMS Cornwall.



The Kent class Cruiser, HMS Cornwall



HMS Dorsetshire and HMS Cornwall under heavy air attack by Japanese carrier aircraft. The photo was taken from a Japanese aircraft.

tomo pauk said:

The Japanese invasion of today's Malaysia Singapore, along with invasion of today's Thailand Indonesia have subjected UK/Commonwealth armed forces to some dire defeats. If you were main commander of British armed forces there, how would you've prepared to the invasion and battles unfolding from Dec 1941? You assume the position at March 1st 1941. The realistic (in a what if ) choice of equipment and deployment, please.

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Somewhat tongue-in-cheek suggestion (and not the commander to make):

Make peace with Germany and ask German troops.

Two quotes from "Deutschland und Japan im Zweiten Weltkrieg":

Goebbels wrote in his diary 30 Jan 1942: "The Fuhrer naturally feels sorry for the great losses the white man has to suffer in Southeast Asia."

Couple of months later (Hassel) : " Hitler himself is not enthusiastic of the great Japanese successes and thinks that he would rather send 20 divisions to the English to throw back the yellows"

I believe that the Japanese were very surprised when crossing th river to Singapore - that they were unopposed.
They had anticipated artillery and machine gun fire to inflict heavy casualties - did not happen?
Maybe someone in command of the British defence shouild have made this crossing very difficult?

There is no gurantee that sending german troops into Malaya, even on a 'tongue in Cheek" approach would have done any better than the allied formations. On a man for man basis that is.

The germans had zero experience in jungle warfare, and would have had exactly the same, or worse, logistic problems as the allies. Man for man they were worse than some of the units committed to the malayan defence. The Australian 9th Division, a compatriot of the 8th had already fought and defeated the best that the Germans could field in a "colonial" situation, at Tobruk and elsewhere, but the 8th could not contain the japanese and their new jungle tactics and agressive leadership. The Argyll and Sutherlanders had similar impressive records.

The quality of the Indian III Corps did leave something to be desired, but at least had some jungle training. More importantly, the whole campaign was fought and lost because the japanese had complete control of the air and sea, and as a result of that could dictate the logistics situationh. germany if anything was worse, far worse, at logistics management, than just about everyone. ergo, they would have made an even biger hash of this campaign than historically.

Hows that for "tongue in cheek"?

To dredge up am old thread - it was this week, 73 years ago that Singapore fell.

....And the beginning of an awful stint as PoWs

vinnye said:

I believe that the Japanese were very surprised when crossing th river to Singapore - that they were unopposed.
They had anticipated artillery and machine gun fire to inflict heavy casualties - did not happen?
Maybe someone in command of the British defence shouild have made this crossing very difficult?

Click to expand...

There was sharp fighting with the Australians when they landed on the island, but the crossing is actually fairly favorable for the attackers, the heavy mangrove swamp made it difficult for the defenders to prepare proper fields of fire against landings