The Basket
Senior Master Sergeant
- 3,712
- Jun 27, 2007
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EMAC, i suspect youre right.
The generalship of the commonwealth troops in malaya and Singapore was horrible. It was a peacetime colonial mindset. Its a shame that the ANZAC forces lost so many good troops for nothing! They would have been invaluable in the coming months in NG and the Solomons.
The allies did better in the NEI, but it was hopeless from the onset due to a lack of troops/airpower/naval power to stop the Japanese advance.
Quite simply, the Japanese used superior tactics, supurb light infantry and naval forces and took advantage of the many Allied blunders all throughout SE Asia.
Ok many blunders occured before during and after the fall of Malaya and Singapore. The British totally ignored or discounted the Japanese Military in S.E.Asia. When troop increases occured in French Indo China would have given some inidication as to what the Japanese were up to. But this was ignored. Warning signs of build up of the Japanese Navy should have given insight to what Japan was doing in the Far East and Asia. It is not likely that Japan's military increases would have gone unnoticed by some one in England dealing with intelligence and Military development etc. When actual landings took place in East Coast West Malaya. Plans were placed before Percival to outflank the Japanese via Southern Thailand to also blunt attacks coming from and via French Indo China. But all these plans were rejected by Percival at the time. These plans mostly came from the office of Australian General Gordon Bennet. Malaya virtually fell within weeks of the landings. An unmitigated failure of reading the enemy capabilty on behalf of Allied Command. When Singapore was threatened these same Allied Command Staff had learnt nothing in the short period of time and with the eventual fall of Singapore proved beyond doubt how bizzare the lack of Generalship was in Far East Command. I am still going to go with in this poll that the Fall of Malaya and Singapore and with consquent the Fall of Dutch East Indies was the greatest disaster and Military Blunder the world had witnessed
The biggest blunder of the war, which I believe cost it for Hitler, was when he changed the Luftwaffe's mission from destroying RAF fighter bases to trying to destroy London.
Had he stayed the course in destroying RAF bases, he could have proceeded w/ operation Sea Lion and brought England to her knees.
Syscom, Singapore was not indefenisble - it just wasn't defended correctly.
But considering the Leadership the Brits sent there, the quality of the equipment, the distance from the sources of supply, level of training, level of commitment and the enemy forces arrayed against them, it was very, very difficult to defend.
The further the Japanese got away from Japan, the less effective they became. The same can be said for the British Forces, but not to the same degree. Also, the Commonwealth Forces were not ready to fight at Singapore (training, supply, equipment, ect). By the time they got to New Guinea, the odds were starting to stack less against them.
But Singapore, while not indefensible, was in no way ready to defend itself in December of 1941 from any serious attack.
It has to be Dunkirk / Barbarossa / Operation Sealion - historically Hitler should have known a 2 front war was beyond Germany and therefore he should have dealt with one front before starting a second. I haven't voted as all 3 are aspects of the same decision
If they'd captured the BEF we'd probably have sought terms and then Hitler would have been free to defeat Russia and the US would have struggled to stage any European inavsion (assuming Ireland would have been garrisoned)