If no Buffaloes, what fighter would go to Malaya?

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Admiral Beez

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Oct 21, 2019
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By Nov 1941 Britain had five Brewster Buffalo squadrons with a total of sixty operational aircraft, plus spares. If Britain never got any Buffaloes, perhaps they're shipped to Russia, DEI, kept at home, etc.... what fighter would have been sent to Malaya to be operational by Nov 1941?

Perhaps sufficient Gladiators and Mohawks could be had to equip five squadrons. Maybe with the BoB over, the Defiant could go, but that requires twice the flight crews. Or perhaps nothing is sent, leaving Malaya defence to the fighter-equipped Blenheims, plus the Hudsons and Vilderbeests.

More Blenheims with their gun pack of four 0.303 would rattle any IJA bombers, but they'd be slaughtered by Oscars and the like.


The Blenheim's Back!
 
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Hi,
As I understand it, the UK placed their 1st odder for B-339s for the far east in January 1940. I am not positive but I believe part of the rationale for choosing a foreign design was to not impact their own domestic production of fighters for Europe. And as I understand it part of the reason the UK selected the Buffalo was because the F2A that would serve as a basis of what the UK was ordering was already in production and that they believed (whether true or not) that Brewster could deliver what they needed within the timeframe that they needed them.

If Brewster did not exist, or if the UK purchasing commission did not believe that Brewster could fill their order, I guess that there are a couple options. First, if I am recalling correctly UK domestic production of Hurricanes at times exceeded the UK's immediate needs allowing some to be sold to other buyers. As such, I would suspect that the Hurricane would be one viable option.

Secondly, if not the Hurricane then I suspect that the UK purchasing commission would have looked at any other manufacturer that they though might be able to provide them with aircraft in the time frame that they are looking for. This may likely include other US manufacturers like De Seversky with their P-35, Curtiss with their P-36 (and/or maybe P-40), and perhaps even Bell with their P-39, or even some other not as established fighter manufacturers like Vultee with their P-66 (whose design was initiated in 1938 but a prototype wasn't flying till September 1939).

Potentially they could have also looked at Italy as a source of aircraft but since Italy declared war on the UK by June 1940, it is unlikely that many, if any, aircraft would actually be delivered.

Pat

PS. I'm not sure how viable an option the Boulton Paul Defiant would be in that when the 1st order for Buffalos was placed in January 1940 the Defiant was still seen as a valuable part of the European RAF force structure. I don't think that they began to be withdrawn from front line service till after the Fall of France in June 1940. As such, although they could potentially supplement whatever is sent to Malaya and Singapore after the Fall of France, I suspect that the UK would have already ordered something for their far east needs prior to this (specifically the Jan 1940 date mentioned earlier).
 
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Well, if Miles can make an emergency single seat fighter out of the Master then Boulton Paul can do the same with both the Defiant and the Roc, so we're looking at a couple of fighters here with an extra 20-30 mph added to their top speeds. The Defiant could be the interceptor the Roc, the long range fighter. There's always the Miles Master emergency fighter to fall back on.
 
There is of course the Republic XP-41, the non turbo version of the Lancer. That should be available in time.
 
I agree the Hurricane is a good pick. The ones produced in Canada seem the ideal option, as they are mostly surplus to Britain's needs, can be easily flown or crated and shipped by rail from Fort William to Vancouver. However I do not know if sufficient quantities were produced by summer 1941 when the approximately 100 aircraft are needed to equip Malaya's five fighter squadrons.

Canadian Hurricanes - Toronto Aviation History

"In November 1938 CCF was awarded a contract to produce Hawker Hurricanes for the RAF at its Fort William plant"
"The situation was serious by early 1941, and the later Mk 1 machines were shipped without engines, instruments or armaments"
"In time , with new Canadian sources of supply and the introduction of the Packard Merlin built under licence in the United States, these problems were overcome, and in 1942 Hurricanes were leaving the plant at the rate of 15 per week."
 
Admiral Beez said:
Was that ever offered to and evaluated by the Brits in time to be in service Nov 1941?
Click to expand...

In service in Nov 1941 isn't good enough. IMHO, you'd need it in-service by Apr/May 1941 at the absolute latest to give crews time to work up on the new aircraft and wring out the kinks, particularly for an aircraft that's new to the theatre (and ANY single-seat fighter is "new" to Far East Command in 1941).
 
You're right, and I think April/May about matches the Buffaloes arrival at Singapore. Here's how I envision the Hurricanes arriving (from either Canada or UK) at Singapore, with Blenheims behind.



The last minute rush to get Hurricanes to Malaya and DEI is covered here Dutch Hurricanes – Too Few, Too Late
 
Without a crystal ball the Buffalo was probably as good as it was going to get, at least in Jan/Feb 1940.
Nobody really knew what Curtiss, or Republic (or any other American companies) could really do in terms of production/deliveries.
In 1940 the US built 1685 fighters of all types (including 6 NA-50/P-64s) but 1287 of them were built by Curtiss.

It took Republic from Sept of 1940 till April of 1941 to deliver 13 YP-43s. They did build 102 EP-1/P-35As in 1940 but the highest monthly production number was 15 aircraft.
 
Shortround6 said:
Without a crystal ball the Buffalo was probably as good as it was going to get, at least in Jan/Feb 1940.
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Nothing wrong with the Buffalo, you just can't ask five squadrons to provide air defence for a territory larger than the UK. But, we're not getting even the Buffalo. Would Churchill and the RAF have sent next to nothing? That's certainly what the British did in Hong Kong (rightfully deemed as hopeless) and even Ceylon (total RAF fighter coverage was three Hurricane squadrons).
 
If you don't get the Buffalo then you may very well end up with nothing as there wasn't much else to send.
Not unless you change the minds of the generals/air marshals in Britain about how many planes they need to defend Britain itself.

The situation in Britain doesn't really change until June of 1941 when the Germans invade Russia. Up until that point the British may have been justified in thinking that the Summer of 1941 was going to be a repeat of the summer of 1940 (repeat BoB). The Germans stopped the night Blitz in the 3rd week of May. Not a lot of time to re-allocate forces and ship them half way around the world.
The Japanese may be seen as a rising threat but until the shooting actually starts they are several positions down on the list of areas that need reinforcement.
 
In fact from June to Nov 1941 it might have looked like Germany was going to defeat Russia, so perhaps even then aircraft would not have been available.
 
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Admiral Beez said:
In fact from June to Nov 1941 it might have looked like Germany was going to defeat Russia, so perhaps even then aircraft would not have been available.
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That may have something to do with it. The first 48 Tomahawks arrived in Russia on Sept 1st 1941. At least 171 Tomahawk IIa and IIb aircraft were sent to Russia in the fall/winter of 1941.

A drop in the bucket compared to the total number of aircraft used in Russia but a considerable number to the British forces at the same time. a total of 190 pre protocol and 30 1st protocol Tomahawks were shipped to Russia. Most straight from the curtiss factory.
 
The first Valentine tanks arrived in the USSR on October 11th, 1941
Talks about shipping tanks to Russia started in the summer. What kinds, how many, spare parts and ammo, etc.

Granted it takes quite a bit longer to get from the UK to SIngapore/Far east than to Murmansk but convoy PQ 1 sailed from Iceland on the 29th Sept with 20 Valentines and 193 crated Hurricanes.

The earlier Dervish convoy had 24 crated Hurricanes, 48 Hurricanes flown off the Argus, and 2,700 men of of the 151 wing RAF.

large reinforcements to the Far east were possible, but only at the expense of other efforts/theaters.

A major problem being trained manpower.
 
It was noteworthy that Britain thought that diverting weapons, aircraft and AFVs to Russia was the better decision over reinforcing Malaya or Burma. After Japan occupied FIC in Sept 1940 and the US/DEI fuel embargoes were pushing Japan into desperation it was clear where they were going next. But no, let's send our Hurricanes and Valentines to Russia.

As for before summer 1941 and Barbarossa, if there's no Buffaloes available, the same expense can be used on the army defence of Malaya. I sometimes wonder if Malaya would have held out if they'd had more Gurkhas, or all the Gurkha regiments.... Gurkha - Wikipedia
 
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It was NOT clear where Japan was going next. The minutes from Japanese Imperial Conferences which chart the political decisions in the period 1940-41 make it clear that even senior Japanese leaders didn't know whether to attack Russia, make a play for the NEI or just continue pushing forward in China. Those mixed messages were accurately captured in the diplomatic and intelligence assessments in the 2 years prior to December 1941. To say "it was clear where they were going" is applying the retrospectroscope, I'm afraid.
 

Not all the Gurkha regiments performed well. The small unit problems were poor training, resulting in poor fieldcraft, but the real problems in Malaya were in headquarters, both local and regional. For a number of reasons, the IJA was able to function at a much quicker tempo than the Commonwealth forces, who were forced to stumble repeatedly and were always at least a half-step late. Of course, the tanks the Japanese had were frequently functionally invulnerable, and Commonwealth forces couldn't hold against them.
 

It's the classic problem of being a defender, trying to guard against all likely eventualities, while the attacker can pick the time and location of his attack. Lack of training was key - one of the few units to train properly were the 2nd Battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. Their commander, Lt Col Stewart, correctly identified the road network in Malaya as the key ground, and he repeatedly trained his troops to be comfortable operating just off the road, into the "jungle", to conduct and defend against flanking manoeuvres. Many of his peers thought he was crazy...but his was the only unit that was adequately prepared to deal with the Japanese assault. In fairness, many of the battalions, particularly those from India, were very fresh and lacked a sufficient seasoning of "old salt" corporals and sergeants to build team confidence and steady the line during battle.

Lack of integration between civilian and military leadership also played a big part. Desire to leave rubber plantation and tin mining production uninterrupted, coupled with a desire not to "upset the locals", led to a lack of defensive preparation in Malaya.

Finally, we have equipment. With no anti-tank guns, the poorly trained, often highly inexperienced, units had to face tanks with nothing more than rifles and hand grenades. The term "filleting" that was applied to the Japanese armoured thrust as it cut through British defensive positions across the main north-south road down the west of Malaya was an accurate epithet.
 
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