Off the top of the head, supplemented by Google for quick checks.
The British government’s postwar refusal to conduct a full public inquiry into the disaster was tacit admission of this fact.
A sound reason for not enquiring is that it would have disproved the bullshit Churchill and others put forward that the loss of Singapore was the fault of the Australians. This conveniently overlooked the facts that (a) the Australians were a minor part of the Malaya force and, (b) like the other nationalities in the force prejudiced in their defence by the failure of Churchill to implement his military adviser’s recommendations on, notably but not solely, air forces in Malaya and, (c) the Australians were not responsible for the successive defeats on the Malayan peninsular (indeed, with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders they were the only units to give a really good account of themselves during that retreat, and that was recorded by no less an observer than Masanobu Tsujii) which was a necessary precondition to the attack on Singapore.
It has been estimated
Estimated by whom? On the basis of what data? Which units? Which men? Because it would be interesting to compare that sweeping ‘for example’ with the known dispositions and actions of Australian troops in Singapore’s defence.
for example, that probably three quarters of the Australian division
I hate to upset this grand and patently ill-informed assertion, but at best it couldn’t have been more than about half of the Australian division in Malaya / Singapore ( 8th Division, 2nd AIF). Only about two brigades of the three brigade division went to Malaya. Three quarters of two thirds is about half of the division.
Such statements demonstrate the ignorance of the authors and the sloppiness of their research, assuming they conducted any, or the carelessness of their statements.
in the line
What line? What do they mean by ‘the line’? Troops and units placed to meet the enemy advance across the Strait?
That would be the Australians in the critical north west sector. Here’s the Australian War Memorial’s concise summary of how that turned out.
The defence of Singapore was poorly conceived and conducted. Despite clear indications that the Japanese would concentrate their attack on the island’s north west, the British commander Lieutenant General Percival, sought to defend the entire coastline leaving him with little depth and an inadequate reserve. The 8th Australian Division, considerably weakened after the fighting in Malaya, was allocated the vital north-western sector. When the Japanese attacked on the night of 8 February 1942 it was too weak and dispersed to hold them back, initiating a disorganised retreat towards the centre of the island. In succeeding days Percival’s reluctance to commit reserves from other parts of the island, and a virtual command breakdown in the 8th Division, lead to the British Commonwealth forces being pushed back into a steadily decreasing perimeter around Singapore city.
http://www.awm.gov.au/units/event_221.asp
on Singapore had deserted by the time that the Japanese moved across the Strait.
What utter and offensively stupid bullshit!
If three quarters of the Australians facing the Japanese assault across the Strait had deserted, the Japanese would not have met any resistance from the Australians. And the remaining Australians would have had to be suicidal to attempt to resist them, which hardly conforms with the picture painted by some of Australians deserting in droves because they were cowards.
Nor would, for example (this being a factually based example, unlike the moronic ‘for example’ in the quoted piece) the 2/18th Battalion have suffered about 180 deaths (in addition to 80 in Malaya) and several hundred casualties in the defence of Singapore giving it about a 50% casualty rate. If three quarters of its 1,200 or so members had pissed off, and if every remaining man had been a casualty, it still doesn’t get above a 25% casualty rate = about 400 casualties, which is still well below the documented casualties. The three quarter desertion rate isn’t supported by such figures, unless the author of that statement has access to previously unknown and reliable data.
The quoted, and patently idiotic, statement demonstrates in every respect a total lack of factual knowledge and a total lack of understanding by its maker of the collapse of the Singapore defences and the disorganisation, disarray, lack of communiciations, separation of troops from leaders, and separation of units from superiors which arose from skilful Japanese advances, penetrations, and encirclements of the defenders. The fact that troops or units, Australian and others, were not under local or higher command and were acting on their own initiative in falling back or trying to connect with other troops or units is not desertion. It’s just what happens in something close to a rout.
Allegedly, British marines and bluejackets
I think they were the same thing. Wasn’t blue jacket a slang term for Royal Marines well before WWII? During WWII part of a ship’s complement of Royal Marines included band members who, I think, were also known as blue jackets, although both band other marines were used for various duties on the ship and as landing parties.
from a light cruiser stormed a ship at Batavia that had been seized by Australian deserters at Singapore and forced to sail for Java; the word was that the Australians were afforded summary execution."
That sounds like even more ignorance and astounding bullshit.
- It sounds like a hugely embellished version about a group or groups, variously stated at between 100 and 140 (out of about 2,100 passengers), of armed Australian troops which forced their way aboard the Empire Star shortly before it left Singapore.
They did not commandeer the ship and did not control it, but neither did the ship’s crew or others on board control that group or those groups.
At Batavia a ruse using sailors, possibly from Durban if it was in fact in port, or soldiers dressed as sailors was used to persuade them to disembark, and the ship sailed for Australia without them.
Some or many or most of the deserters are thought to have fallen into Japanese captivity or to have been lost in attempts to reach Australia.
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The Empire Star wasn’t forced to sail for Java by the alleged deserters who didn’t commandeer it. With the Vyner Brooke and other ships it was ordered to evacuate people from Singapore to Australia and was, as far as was possible in the circumstances, an orderly evacuation.
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I’d be interested to see the records or other evidence of the execution of 100 to 140 Australian troops by the Royal Marines or whomever. It’s not something that would have been done summarily by the British, particularly as during and from WWI onwards Australia refused to allow the British to impose the death penalty on its troops. If the British had summarily, or even after court-martial, executed 100 to 140 Australian troops it would have been well known and a major issue by now. It isn’t.
