Oh the most obvious one is probably Singapore, should i really need to tell you that?
NEI and Philippines both had numerical superiority.
Highly simplified…
Are you asking or answering?
NEI and Philippines both had numerical superiority.
Highly simplified…
Meaning what?
Your contention though, was that the succ es of the early Japanese operations could be attributed to “cooperation” between the IJA and IJN. This cooperation was, in fact, minimal, and the careful planning did not feature much in the way of real “cooperation”. There was plenty of pissing contests between the IJA and IJN from Day One of the war and even before; the apparent smoothness of the Japanese operations early in the war had more to do with the fact that contact between the two services was minimized by all that planning.
Which was where, exactly?
The Japanese never encountered “decently led” forces in the early months of the war except at Wake (and they only won there through an American command failure). The “stronger” forces they defeated were the Brits in Malaya/Singapore and the Americans on Bataan, and they were “stronger” in numerical terms only; the Allied leadership in both cases was pathetic. Having uncontested air supremacy and complete control of the sea certainly helped the Japanese, as did being able to pick the timing and locations of their battles. Inter-service cooperation was not a significant factor in early Japanese victories.
Such as?
The odds early in the war completely favored the Japanese because they were attacking into what amounted to a military vacuum. It wasn’t until they attempted to extend themselves beyond the NEI in the south, the mandates in the west, and Bismarck archipelago in the southwest, that they started to suffer real defeats. Luck might have played a part in some individual battles, but over entire campaigns luck evens itself out for both sides. That is why I say that the combination of events that you string together to allow the Japanese to advance further than they did historically is highly unlikely to have occurred.
What actually happened historically is that the USN launched a series of hit and run raids that were actually not risky at all, given Japanese naval dispositions and American intelligence of those dispositions. The USN lost not a single ship on these raids and very few planes and pilots. The riskiest was probably the Doolittle raid which resulted in no unanticipated losses for the US (it was accepted that most, if not all, of the B-25 bombers would be lost) and some tremendous strategic gains.
The Lexington and Yorktown deployment to stop the Japanese Port Moresby operation was taken as a calculated risk to achieve a strategic objective of great value. In fact the loss of the Lexington and the damage to the Yorktown paid dividends of removing one light carrier from the Japanese fleet, and two very effective fleet carriers from the next battle (Midway), not to mention mauling two Japanese carrier airgroups. The results of risking these two carriers was that the odds at Midway were evened up and a crushing defeat inflicted on the IJN.
The Hornet and Wasp were both lost after the US launched it’s counter-offensive against the Japanese in the Pacific, and both were lost in furthering that counter-offensive. The Wasp was sunk by submarine torpedo on 15 September 1942 while covering a convoy of transports conveying the 7th. Marine Regiment as reinforcements to Guadalcanal. These reinforcements were landed and made a crucial difference in that campaign.
The Hornet was lost on 27 October 1942 in the battle of Santa Cruz Islands which had been prompted by an IJN attempt to fight reinforcements and re-supply through to Guadalcanal. The IJN lost the CVL Zuiho and had the Shokaku badly damaged and put out of action for several months. The Japanese were not successful in delivering significant supplies or reinforcements to Guadalcanal, thus Hornet was lost but the success of the first US counter-offensive in the Pacific was materially advanced.
Naval wars cannot be successfully fought by refusing to risk one’s naval assets; the Japanese found that out in preserving their super battleships, Yamato and Musashi. The sacrifice of the US carriers in the southwest Pacific was certainly worth the results and not at all due to excessively risky deployment. In actual fact, the IJN carrier force was so badly mauled between April and October, 1942, that it attempted no further interference with US offensives until June, 1944.
Certainly no more risks than the Japanese carriers were taking in attacking the US forces. And they were successful in rendering the IJN incapable of offensive action until June, 1944. That was not a matter of luck, for as I pointed out, luck tends to evenly distribute itself to both sides over time. Nor did the USN lose more men and equipment than was commensurate with the severe damage inflicted on the IJN, that, after all, is what war is about.
Yes, but none of them were transferred to the Pacific immediately after Pearl Harbor. Had two US carriers been destroyed in the Japanese attack, they would have been. And yes, they were sunk in the Pacific, but not before inflicting more than commensurate damage on the Japanese Fleet.
As I indicated above, by transferring at least two carriers immediately to the Pacific.
As for Ranger, she was definitely NOT a light carrier. My father served on her before the war and claimed she could put as many fighters and strike aircraft in the air, and just as fast, as Enterprise (which he also served on). She was smaller and somewhat cramped, but she was just as big as Wasp and could operate more planes than either Wasp or Hornet. Her hangar was actually larger than either Lexington or Saratoga. There is no doubt whatsoever that Ranger would have gone to the Pacific had the USN lost two carriers at Pearl Harbor.
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They did appear long before the Zero was captured and flown by US pilots. Coral Sea, and Midway both featured air battles between US planes and Zeros and the kill ratios were quite good for the US. The Zero in question was not flown until September, 1942, yet over Guadalcanal American naval pilots were more than holding their own by September.
Sorry, but in this case you are just ignorant of the facts.
From “Fire In The Sky” by Eric M. Bergerud, page 451;
“After the war [John] Thach gave credit to Chennault’s warning for prodding him and his comrades to come up with superior formations to even the playing field against the formidable Zero;”
Bergerud quotes Thach thusly;
“It was in the spring of 1941 that we received an intelligence report of great significance. The report described a new Japanese aircraft, a fighter, that performed far better than anything we had. Some of our pilots just didn’t believe it and said, ‘This can’t be. It is a gross exaggeration.’…I felt we should give it some credence because it sounded like a fighter pilot who knew what he was talking about. As it turned out, this Japanese plane did have a rate of climb of about three thousand feet per minute. It could turn inside of anything and it did have a lot more speed than we did, even carrying more gasoline. This was the Zero. I decided we had better do something about this airplane…But without that intelligence report that was said to have come out of China, I think we would have gone right along fat, dumb, and happy, and eventually run into the Zero and not had nearly the success we did have…in fact we would have been in far worse shape in the early battles of the war.”
Notice Thach says the report was issued in “the spring of 1941”. In fact, my father recalled reading it in February, 1941, and discussing it with his fellow pilots throughout the spring and summer of 1941. The Zero might have surprised some Allied pilots, but the US Navy carrier pilots were well aware of the Zeros characteristics, including it’s strengths and weaknesses.
Better recheck your facts.
None of the Independence class light carriers served in the Atlantic except for very brief shakedown cruises. All were sent to the Pacific where they were partnered with Essex class CV’s in two- or three-carrier task forces. Had the US lost everything at Midway, and not sunk the four Japanese carriers, a very unlikely scenario, by July 1943, the USN would have 7 CV’s and 7CVL’s with 850 planes in the Pacific to the Japanese 6 CV’s and 2 CVL’s with 561 planes. Moreover, the Japanese were still training their new carrier pilots in 1943 after their tremendous losses in 1942.
See; http://www.combinedfleet.com/economic.htm
The only really effective true fleet carrier in that list is Zuikaku, the rest are either very unsatisfactory light carriers not even able to stand up to Ranger, or a training carrier like Hosho. And you are, of course, assuming that the Japanese carrier forces suffer NO losses whatsoever, something that historically is laughable.
This is simply wrong. The USN will outnumber the IJN in both flight decks and planes by the end of 1943, even if Midway turns out to be a defeat.
Just how will the Japanese accomplish that fantasy?
More very wishful thinking. There was plenty of fuel in California and plenty of tankers could have been diverted from the East Coast to carry it to Oahu. Two months and Pearl harbor is back up and operating.
I think you have it backwards.
Even if Japan captures the fuel storage tanks on Oahu intact, and that’s a very big IF, they still have to get the tankers out there to move it. Either that or they have to base their fleet there. And that makes it vulnerable to attack by the US fleet that would be transferred from the Atlantic. The US won’t operate in the South Pacific until Hawaii is recaptured and by that time the IJN has exhausted itself trying to hold a base that is logistically a “bridge too far” for them.
Probably not. The USN performed near miracles in getting temporary forward bases operating in weeks not months; the same could be done in Hawaii
You simply have no idea of the conditions in the US in early 1942.
The American public was outraged at Japan and viewed the European war as something that the Europeans should handle. They were willing to help out with war supplies and equipment, but the Germans were Europe’s problem, not America’s. Roosevelt did not feel that way and knew Japan was a loser no matter what they did, but he still had to accommodate the public’s feelings and opinions.
Moreover, the US military had already determined, and Roosevelt had agreed, that if Hawaii fell it would be the same as an invasion of the west coast of the US and preventing that was the absolute top priority which came before defeating Germany or even participating in the European war. So it was guaranteed that the full force of the US naval and military might would fall on the Japanese if they tried to invade Hawaii
German sub warfare was never that successful and certainly not enough of a threat to prevent the US from going all out to defend Hawaii. Furthermore, the US could easily have pulled every major Fleet unit out of the Atlantic without affecting the ASW war in that area. Planes were much more effective than surface units; the US could simply have told Britain that the next 500 B-24’s will be used in ASW patrols rather than bombing Germany. It might set the air war back a few months, but it absolutely ends the threat iof the U-boat in the Atlantic.
And you’d be wrong.
If Japan even looked like they were thinking about invading Hawaii, Roosevelt has to transfer every possible plane and ship to the Pacific to defend Hawaii. I don’t think you really understand that was the plan all along anyway. The absolute number one priority of the US was to defend the North American continent, and Hawaii was considered part of that continent. Nothing else had as much importance in the US defense plan.
Are you seriously suggesting that computer games are authentic enough to determine something like that? That pretty much scotches your credibility as far as I’m concerned.
You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
Surprising Oahu’s defenses with an air attack launched from 250 miles out is one thing, surprising Oahu’s defenses with a slow moving invasion convoy that has to close to within five miles of the coast is quite another. To be successful, both forms of attack have to be surprises, and that is impossible. W hen I was in the Navy, I had a friend who wrote his Navy War College dissertation on a hypothetical invasion of Hawaii; every staff officer who reviewed it said it had zero chance of succeeding, even with today’s technology.
Why? they’d spend far less time at sea than the Japanese invasion troops.
Says who?
The Japanese had absolutely no experience with multi-divisional assault landings against defended beaches. They had no experience at all with NGF support, nor close air support; they couldn’t even communicate by radio between ships and troops or ships and planes, or troops and planes. Nor did Japan have enough landing craft to land more than a single regiment at a time.
What time period are you talking about?
Actually, this applies more to Japan than the US. Japan simply didn’t have the troop transports and supply ships to lift the required number of divisions that far, let alone support the warships it would have required.
You sound like a rank amateur. Do you have any idea of the distances between Hawaii and Japan? Hawaii and the West Coast of the US? Japan could never take Hawaii even if they could somehow scrape up the logistical shipping. Where does the air support required to achieve air superiority come from? Japan’s carriers can launch a raid, but in 1942 they couldn’t maintain a sustained air campaign in a hostile environment like Oahu. Even the US couldn’t do that until mid-1944.
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Man, are you ever wrong! Oahu was surprised by an air raid, not a ground invasion. Hawaii’s ground and naval defenses were extremely heavy in December, 1941. Japan would have had to land at least four divisions with tanks and plenty of artillery to have even a 50-50 chance of being successful. And the weather might have easily have prevented any landing for days; Oahu’s only possible landing beaches are closed out by heavy surf about half the time in winter. And those beaches were zeroed in by the heaviest concentration of artillery in the Pacific at the time.
Sure, if they manage to tow it back to Japan, make a lot of spare parts, overhaul the engines, etc, etc, they might have an operational carrier in a couple of years.
Actually, it was a given in 1941-42. The JCS had approved the plan for Hemisphere Defense that included Oahu as part of the North American continent. The number one priority of the military was defending the continent and that came before Europe, aiding Britain, defending South America, or anything else. If the Japanese attacked Oahu, the plan required the US Army and US Navy to drop everything else every where in the world and defend the island. Roosevelt had signed off on the plan so there was no question that Oahu would be defended with everything the US had.
Well, I actually know a lot more about it than you, that’s pretty obvious to any informed person. You obviously have noi idea how difficult the logistics would be for Japan in defending Oahu, IF they mange to take it. They will be much easier for the US because the US is much closer and because the US gas a larger pool of logistical shipping.
You say if Hawaii is taken then Japan will have a bunch of airfields to use, but you obviously haven’t realized that BEFORE they take Oahu the reverse is true for the US, and that is why Japan CAN’T take Hawaii.
Really, how ignorant can you be? There were no “undefended beaches” on Oahu in December, 1941, or later for that matter.
Yes, that’s the main problem for the Japanese. They need air superiority before launching the beach assault, but in order to gain it they need to attack a day or two before the landing. That means no surprise for the beach defenses which were very strong. Every beach that was a possible landing point was zeroed in by coastal artillery as well as mobile 155 MM guns which were pre-position in the mountains overlooking the beaches. The defenders had tanks, 75 MM anti-boat guns, dug-in machine guns, mines, barbed wire, you name it. Anyone who thinks Oahu was undefended on December 7 1941, is just plain ignorant. The Japanese had absolutely no intelligence about Oahu’s ground defenses and weren’t even aware of the strength of the infantry on the island. They had no chance whatsoever.
It almost surely will for Japan as well, and they will have twice as far to limp, if they make it at all. So there is no advantage for Japan at all in trying to defend Oahu.
Japan won’t be attacking south because they are going to be so crippled from trying to take Oahu, they won’t have the resources, and besides that, they no longer have the element of surprise which was so valuable to them in their conquest of Malaya and the Philippines.
No, the Japanese will, if they even manage to take Oahu, be forced to use every ship and plane in their fleet to defend it from US counter-attacks and they will be forced to use their logistical shipping in a hopeless attempt to keep those forces supplied over 4,000 miles of open ocean. They will use up every bit of their captured oil (IF they capture it) just operating their warships to cover their supply convoys. When they run out, they won’t be ab le to attack south or in any other direction. And the attrition factor will eventually force them to retreat from Oahu having accomplished nothing except to enrage the US.
As I’ve already proven, the US pilots knew enough to hold their own against the Japanese aircraft from Day One of the war.
So is an attack that follows an air raid on Pearl Harbor. That would alert Oahu’s defenses as it did historically. Within two hours Oahu’s considerable beach defenses were completely manned and ready to repel any attempt at an invasion. And if you think Oahu wasn’t defended on December 7 1941, then you are just plain ignorant. The Army had two infantry divisions on the island along with tanks and huge amounts of artillery of every description.
See; http://www.cgsc.edu/carl/download/csipubs/gudmens/Gudmens_pearl_b.pdf
That article is based on going with the historical strike at Pearl AND the southern campaign. Let me repeat again shall i? The invasion of Hawaii will force a few to several months of delay to the southern campaign.
BUT, even though that sucks for Japan in the short term, taking Hawaii means essentially taking control over the Pacific west of Hawaii… The advantage is immense.[/QUOTE]
Don’t bother because it doesn’t make any difference. First, Japan can’t take Hawaii and even if it does it would never be able to “control” it. The US military would counter-attack with everything in it’s arsenal; it has to because that was what the Hemisphere Defense plan called for. There would be no “immense advantage” for Japan because it immediately becomes bogged down in an attritional battle it can’t win. It can’t win that battle because the US has all the advantages. When Japan loses that battle, the war is essentially over because Japan has no reserves it can bring to bear and it’s fleet has been depleted.
Vastly over-simplified as far as Singapore is concerned.
200 Japanese tanks against zero British and Commonwealth tanks.
Close to complete Japanese air superiority over British and Commonwealth forces.
Japanese freedom of tactical movement against British command being tied to the defence of strategically disastrous airfields dotted over Malaya.
Japan given the initiative because Churchill tied Percival’s hands by precluding implementation of Matador until after Japan attacked, by which time Japan had landed and advanced unopposed past the defensive choke points available to Percival.
Study the campaign and you’ll find that Churchill gave Japan a huge tactical advantage in almost every respect.
That doesn’t take anything away from Tsujii’s and Yamashita’s great planning and execution in a fairly short preparation time, but Japan was in fact the superior mobile force given a free run in the crucial invasion stage.
Highly simplified indeed. Because, you said “Except where they wiped the floor with stronger and sometimes even decently led forces”…
Many would argue that there was a definite failure of leadership in Singapore and that while I believe that Gen. Percival is made the goat, the scapegoat, for the overall British Commonwealth defeat–there’s no escaping the fact that large numbers of his “Army” became a riotous rabble rampaging throughout the city just prior to its fall and during tenuous negotiations. I think this could quite clearly be attributed to a failure of leadership on ALL levels of the British Army there. Especially when one considers the fact that if Percival had kept his command right, against all odds I’ll concede, he may well have called what was Yamashita’s bluff and forced a bloody street fight against an Imperial Japanese Army running low on ammunition and supplies and could well have defeated them.
Of course, this is written with the benefit of hindsight, and I’m a great “Monday Morning Quarterback” but a pretty shitty Sunday afternoon one!
Secondly, the British had no real armor in the Malaysian Pennsinsula and lacked artillery and other supplies and were forced to fly with a very second rate air force there. “Stronger?” Hardly, unless one blindly accepts superficial numbers on paper…
Thirdly, you’d have to be very specific about what constituted “stronger, decently led” forces in the Philippines as there were actually relatively few actual American units there, and the Philippine Army was a badly uneven force comprised of everything from elite Filipino Scouts that were a match for anyone, to poorly trained and equipped units little better than militia using ancient weapons. Many, as previously posted by Wizard and RS*, would question the leadership’s command decisions there…
One must keep in mind the Japanese could strike when and wherever they wanted while the British had to play a defensive and not offensive game due to supplies (or lack of them.) Add to this the Japanese airforces , navy, and army was better overall as they had been at war for years.
And remember that Z force as about their only real offensive run, and it ended badly.
In reality all the British could do, like the Americans, was to hold out as long as they could and upset the Japanese timetable. And they did that. But sooner or later the allies would have to lay down their arms as supplies ran out.
Deaf
Also, the best equipped and best trained and battle hardened British and Commonwealth forces were fighting the Germans.
While there were some very good unit actions against the Japanese in Malaya, notably the British Sutherland and Argyll Highlanders and the Australians, even those troops were not always all that well trained and, unlike many of the Japanese attacking them, they weren’t battle hardened.
In my view, he was and is most unfairly held responsible for a defeat which Churchill forced upon him by denying Percival almost everything he needed for a proper defence, apart from a large number of often poorly trained troops who lacked all sorts of support necessary for a useful defence.
Churchill blamed all that on the Australians.
Which, as an Australian, I think is entirely possible as we are by nature, training and experience a riotous rabble. 
It was in fact a fairly minor issue, much of it IIRC arising from fairly recently arrived troops who lacked the discipline of the fighting troops who were mostly at the front rather than in the rear area. REMFs, and all that.
The main problem for Percival was that once the Japanese captured control of the water supply they could force the defenders into surrender within a few days.
But Percival couldn’t fight for more than a few days once the Japanese had control of the water supply.
Fighting on would only have subjected the troops and civilians to a dehydrated agony with the only option as eventual surrender, within a matter of days after the actual date of surrender and to no purpose.
I think Percival was correct to avoid unnecessary suffering by surrendering sooner rather than later.
Percival was, in my view, most unfairly blamed for a defeat which Churchill forced on him by denying him the resources, and most of all the air power, which the military planners said were necessary for the defence of Malaya. And the opportunity to implement Matador before Japan tried to land, which by itself could have altered the Malayan campaign.
That’s true. Most were way ‘over there’. I suspect like most militaries they kept their ‘B’ team back home while they ‘A’ team was on the field (North Africa.)
I had a nephew in the Marines in Desert Storm I. Being uh, not the most Gung Ho, they kept him in the motor pool until it was over. Then his bunch were shipped out to load the ships to go back home. I’m serious. All he saw of Saudi Arabia was the docks!
Deaf
Agreed. For the most part…
Churchill blamed all that on the Australians.
Which, as an Australian, I think is entirely possible as we are by nature, training and experience a riotous rabble.
Well, maybe Churchill was worried they were still pissed at him for his Gallipoli debacle?!
It was in fact a fairly minor issue, much of it IIRC arising from fairly recently arrived troops who lacked the discipline of the fighting troops who were mostly at the front rather than in the rear area. REMFs, and all that.
The main problem for Percival was that once the Japanese captured control of the water supply they could force the defenders into surrender within a few days.
But Percival couldn’t fight for more than a few days once the Japanese had control of the water supply.
Fighting on would only have subjected the troops and civilians to a dehydrated agony with the only option as eventual surrender, within a matter of days after the actual date of surrender and to no purpose.
I think Percival was correct to avoid unnecessary suffering by surrendering sooner rather than later.
Percival was, in my view, most unfairly blamed for a defeat which Churchill forced on him by denying him the resources, and most of all the air power, which the military planners said were necessary for the defence of Malaya. And the opportunity to implement Matador before Japan tried to land, which by itself could have altered the Malayan campaign.
These are all good points and as I stated, I’m damn good at Monday Morning hindsights… 
But the problem I have with Percival was that he was slow to react to the lightening Japanese advance and made the same cliche mistakes of the “logical” military thinker and always expected the Japanese to logically do the expected when it was pretty bloody obvious that they hadn’t ever been predictable throughout the campaign…
He should have been.
Some of us still are.
You’re probably correct in seeing him as an uninspired, and by all accounts a rather uninspiring, commander. Nonetheless, I think he was still quite competent.
Around 1937 (relying on memory) as the chief staff officer in Malaya he did an assessment of a likely war with Japan and correctly predicted where and how the Japanese would attack.
The problem which is always overlooked in the popular comments on Percival, and by Churchill and his ilk, was that there were airfields (can’t recall number – something like eight or so?) widely dispersed over Malaya, rather foolishly built to accommodate aircraft which, courtesy of Churchill ignoring his own military advisers’ advice, weren’t provided to Malaya when it most needed them. The airfields weren’t where the Japanese land line of advanced would go.
Percival’s dilemma was to leave the airfields undefended and thus offer them to the enemy to land troops, supplies and to use as forward bases for offensive air action, or to defend them and risk diverting troops a long way away from the line of Japanese advance where they couldn’t be utilised against the Japanese line of advance. It was a ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ situation. He quite reasonably decided to defend the airfields, not least to prevent the Japanese landing in force and establishing offensive airfields in his rear, while trying not to divert unnecessary forces to that purpose.
Percival’s major tactical mistake was probably in refusing to build defensive positions at the bottom of Malaya to prevent an assault on Singapore. Some of his advisers recommended this when there was ample time to build effective defences, but Percival refused on the basis that construction of defences before the war had started would be bad for morale. As it turned out, if he had been able to hold the Japanese long enough on the Malayan side of the causeway they might well have stalled as they were getting short of ammunition in the final phase of the capture of Singapore, while Percival would not have had the problems caused by Japan getting control of Singapore’s water supply which led him to surrender. Then again, in all probability it would just have delayed things as Japan consolidated its forces and made Singapore a grinding victory like Bataan rather than the rapid victory it really was.
But if he’d had tanks and planes which Churchill chose to divert elsewhere or not to deploy to Malaya, it would have been a much more equal contest with a greater prospect of a Japanese failure. Assuming that Japan didn’t divert armour and air to Malaya to compensate, although whether that was possible at the time is debatable.
But I’m also being a Monday morning expert here, with the benefit of a lot of hindsight which wasn’t available to Percival and his commanders, or Churchill who was juggling a lot of balls of which Malaya wasn’t the largest or most important, at the time.
Rubbish.
It’s a pity Percival surrendered. Had he not done so, the Japanese attack might have faltered, as he was understrength, short of everything and outnumbered by the British.
But that is war. It’s know what you have or they have but what you THINK they have and they THINK you have that matters. War is more than a bit like poker.
Deaf
Not really.
Without significant naval forces and an adequate air force, Singapore was indefensible. In 1942, Britain was in no position to send either aircraft or ships to the aid of Singapore and would not be for at least two years. In fact, without a fleet there was no point in defending Singapore, as H. P. Willmott has pointed out in his book “Empires in The Balance”.
Had Percival delayed his surrender, the Japanese would have simply kept chipping away at Singapore’s defenses as they did at Bataan’s, and Singapore would eventually have fallen to them in a few weeks or months. The delay would not have been significant in terms of the overall Japanese Pacific offensive.
But the Japanese would have had control of the water supply to Singapore whether or not he surrendered, resulting in Percival having to deal with an insurrection or other problems from the dehydrated civilian population in his rear. Not to mention his own troops running out of water, which gave them about two to three days before their health and fighting capacity was reduced to the point of being ineffective or dead from dehydration.
Percival didn’t have any choice but to surrender once he’d lost control of the water supply. It was only a question of when, with a time frame of a few days at most. He couldn’t hold out beyond that, so he made what I think was the proper decision to avoid unnecessary suffering of the civilian population by surrendering.
Of course, he couldn’t have foreseen the Sook Ching massacres and sundry other evils visited upon the civilian population by the victorious Japanese. It’s a pity that more odium isn’t visited upon the abhorrent Japanese conduct after Percival’s surrender than is visited upon him for making the only decision reasonably available to a responsible commander and a good man.
That was the position during the whole of the Malayan campaign, during which the Japanese consistently defeated the British forces and forced them back to the island of Singapore.
And then launched amphibious attacks upon the island which overwhelmed the British forces and pushed them back on the island.
The British were not going to hold out militarily on Singapore, and they had no hope once Japan had control of the island’s water supply.