Chapter Four
Since the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, Whitehall was always wary of the possibility of an offensive against Malaya. Quite presciently in 1937, Major-General W.G.S. Dobbie, GOC Malaya, prepared an appreciation of a potential Japanese invasion. He stated that Japan would probably seize air bases in Thailand as well as conduct an amphibious assault at Singora and Patani in Thailand, along with eastern coastal sites such as Kota Bahru in Malaya. Despite such clairvoyance, Malaya’s garrison was increased by only one battalion and monies for defence works were mostly allocated to machine-gun emplacements in Johore Province. Once war started with Germany in September 1939, the three service chiefs in Singapore formulated an appreciation for the chiefs-of-staff in London. Assuming that a British surface fleet would be wholly occupied with the German Navy, the principal defence for Malaya and Singapore would be air power. However, this potential defensive posture was almost immediately negated by a political understanding that Japanese entry into Thailand, along Malaya’s northern frontier, would not be a cause for war between the two empires.
On 7 August 1941, Lieutenant-General Arthur E. Percival, who had assumed the role of GOC Malaya, informed the War Office of his need for six divisions of infantry for the defence of Malaya along with two regiments of tanks as well as ancillary antitank and anti-aircraft artillery units. As December 1941 loomed, the British Army in Malaya still was short two of its requested six infantry divisions as well as an absence of the requested armoured regiments and amplified anti-aircraft batteries. Furthermore, rubber plantation owners did not want British and Commonwealth troops on their property. Thus, jungle training was minimal, the quality of troops patchy; and British Army officers fairly ignorant of jungle warfare, with the exception of, perhaps, the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders as opposed to their Japanese counterparts, who were learning how to eventually manoeuvre through the dense Malayan jungle, largely through the efforts of Colonel Tsuji.
It turns out that the Japanese had not caught the British by surprise. At 0200 hours on 6 December 1941, RAAF airmen, flying a Lockheed Hudson bomber based at Kota Bahru, alerted ACM Sir Robert Brooke-Popham, C-in-C Far East, at his general headquarters, about Japanese convoys heading for Thailand’s east coast. It was up to Brooke-Popham, still C-in-C until General Sir Henry Pownall’s arrival in late December to replace him, to decide whether to order implementation of Operation Matador or to position his troops along a fixed line of defences at Jitra, a small village at a road junction in northern Kedah Province 18 miles south of the Thai frontier. Operation Matador was to dispatch Major General David Murray-Lyon’s 11th Indian Division from its incomplete defensive base at Jitra, by road and rail, to the eastern Thai coastal site at Singora, 130 miles away. On 5 December, Brooke-Popham was given permission to implement Operation Matador without conferring with the War Office if he had positive information of the Japanese sailing with the intent of landing on the Kra Isthmus or violating any other part of Thailand. Upon hearing about the Japanese fleet sailing for Thailand, the British Army GOC in Malaya, Lieutenant-General Percival, had duly ordered his 11th Indian Division at Jitra to move north and stand-by to defend possible landing areas according to the pre-arranged Operation Matador plan. Murray-Lyon’s troops were enthusiastic about smashing the Japanese invasion forces. However, the British C-in-C Far East then dithered. As no state of war existed, Brooke-Popham was not going to start one by setting Operation Matador into motion by himself. Parenthetically, this was also the posture that both the Foreign Office and Churchill wanted to take. Thus, if hostilities broke out in Southeast Asia, it would not be due to a pre-emptive British offensive move. In any event, Operation Matador was never executed in response to the sighting of the Japanese invasion fleet on 6 December 1941.
After hostilities commenced, the British strategy was always defensive and lacked any tactical brilliance. At 0800 hours on 8 December, staff officers at Percival’s headquarters in Singapore phoned Brooke-Popham for permission to still put Operation Matador into effect. Brooke-Popham squandered two hours and, in that time, decided to cancel the operation for quasi-political reasons. He also offered as an excuse that the Japanese landings were too strong to oppose. In fact, Percival was also dithering about ordering Operation Matador to commence. He was of the opinion that an encounter between the Japanese landing force and his 11th Indian Division contingents would be a risky endeavour, especially if the Japanese landed tanks as the British had none. So, Percival informed Brooke-Popham that he now considered Operation Matador unsound and the latter ordered the Indian troops to return to Jitra’s defence. Further hours were wasted until Percival could be located and then transmit the order for Murray-Lyon’s division to fall-back. After the decision not to execute Operation Matador, Percival sent the 11th Indian Division to Jitra to defend the airfield nearby and preserve the vital link to both Thailand and, consequently, Burma. However, due to the planning for Operation Matador, this division had done little preparatory work on their defensive line until the evening of 10 December.
On 8 December, the IJA 5th Division, under the command of Lieutenant-General Matsui, landed without any local resistance at Singora and Patani in Thailand and was now prepared to head south-west into the Kedah Province of north-western Malaya. This division was comprised of recruits from the Hiroshima district and consisted of many veterans from campaigning in China, where it had served continuously from 1937 to 1941, becoming renowned for its atrocities committed against the Chinese citizenry. Also, the Japanese 3rd Air Division quickly established itself at Singora and began aerial assault all along northern Malaya. Due chiefly to ineffective RAF fighter defence, along with inadequate anti-aircraft artillery fire, the 3rd Air Division wreaked havoc among British planes still on the ground in north-western Malaya, because of faulty warning systems, as well as local Malay villages, the latter of which helped to spread terror among the civilian population, be they European or Asian. By the evening of 8 December, RAF strength was reduced in northern Malaya from 110 planes to fifty and the Japanese were to possess complete air superiority for the rest of the campaign.
The Chyrsanthemum (18th IJA) Division’s Takumi Force (56th Infantry Regiment) loaded into assault craft shortly before midnight on 7 December. These troops were recruited from the Kurume district and had been in China since 1937. Thought to be one of the finest IJA divisions, under the command of Lieutenant-General Renya Mutaguchi, these troops had campaigned with the 5th Division in China and were stationed from February 1940 to August 1941 in Indochina. Due to rough seas, it was not until 0100 hours on 8 December that Colonel Nasu’s 56th Infantry Regiment headed for Kota Bahru, where they initially met heavy resistance. At 0130 hours, Nasu signalled Takumi, ‘succeeded in landing but there are many obstacles. Send second wave.’ At 0200 hours, RAF aircraft bombed the convoy scoring a hit on Takumi’s HQ ship, the Awajisan Maru, leading the naval escort commander to suggest calling off the landing and heading out to sea away from the threat of aerial assault. Takumi refused and continued the second wave’s landing despite the need to abandon the Awajisan Maru and the heavy Japanese casualties that were being incurred from wired-in British and Commonwealth machine-gun positions. Takumi later wrote, ‘there was utmost confusion on the beach, but the commander realized that if they remained where they were, they would be killed to a man, so the order was “go on”.’ Eventually, the Japanese assault troops began to circumvent the British and Commonwealth positions and were able to get behind them for rifle, grenade and flamethrower attack.
Kota Bahru was defended by the 8th Indian Infantry Brigade but by mid-afternoon their central positions had been taken. The RAF airfield at Kota Bahru was bombed and strafed with much damage to aircraft and installations. At 1900 hours, Brigadier Key received permission to withdraw his troops although elements of the Takumi Force had suffered 15 per cent casualties. Therefore, the 18th IJA Division reaped success by capturing Kota Bahru by tenaciously attacking despite initial setbacks.
Yamashita’s Imperial Guards Division was to capture Bangkok and then move south to join the rest of the 25th Army in Malaya at a later date. This division was recruited from all districts in Japan in order to fulfil the highest physical standards, principally height, in order to protect the emperor as its primary responsibility. In June 1941, this three-regiment field division was formed around the nucleus of the 2nd Guards Brigade and trained especially for the Malayan campaign on Hainan Island before being transferred to southern Indochina in July 1941 with the permission of the Vichy Government in France. Yamashita’s infantry was reinforced by an armoured division of more than 230 light and medium tanks. As for air power, Yamashita commanded the 3rd Air Division of 354 first-line aircraft based in Indochina as well as being supported by the IJN’s 22nd Air Flotilla, with its 180 aircraft, stationed in Saigon.
Major-General David Murray-Lyon, a Scot whose 11th Indian Division defended north-western Malaya, was prepared to initiate Operation Matador. However, with the vacillations of Percival and Brooke-Popham, this division instead fought the monsoon by repairing water-logged trench systems and hastily wiring in machine-gun defensive emplacements and laying anti-tank mines. Because the 11th Indian Division had wasted so much time awaiting Brooke-Popham’s decision on Operation Matador, the Jitra line of defences looked like a rundown construction site. Murray-Lyon had known that his chances of holding the incomplete defences and poor terrain constituting the Jitra line were slim. In order to give the Indian 6th and 15th Brigades the necessary preparatory time for erecting defences at Jitra, Murray-Lyon sent the 1/14th Punjabis of the 15th Brigade north to Changlun to delay the Japanese advance. This chaotic, piecemeal attempt to counter the Japanese assault demonstrated the weakness revealed on multiple occasions by the British commanders in Malaya to follow-up with drawn-up plans. After a heavy bombing raid on the Alor Star airfield on 9 December, the RAF chose to abandon it. Thus, the 11th Indian Division was going to fight at Jitra to protect Alor Star, the capital of Kedah Province, to enable the RAF to maintain their presence at the airfield, which was in the process of being abandoned.
The Japanese were always advancing, thereby making Percival’s plans to counter appear sluggish. After Yamashita had secured Kota Bahru, because its airfield threatened his landings just across the border in Thailand, he knew that the way to invade Malaya was down the western coast which, unlike the underdeveloped eastern side of the peninsula, had good north-south roads all the way to Singapore. The next vital position for the Japanese to drive the British and Commonwealth forces from was at Jitra, which lies in the Malayan province of Kedah Province, located south of Sadao in Thailand in north-western Malaya on the Singora-Alor Star main trunk road. The presence of airfields at Alor Star, 12 miles to the south of Jitra, made this location a position of vital importance to both sides. There were other Allied airfields to the south of Jitra at Sungei Patani and Butterworth. At Jitra, the west coast railway and road trunk came together and ran parallel with one another for 50 miles until they separated on to Butterworth and the ferry point for Penang Island. The IJA 5th Division was ordered to move west on Jitra from Singora and Patani on the eastern coast of Thailand.
Major-General Murray-Lyon’s task was daunting as he had to defend too much frontage in north-western Malaya with his 15th, 6th and 28th Brigades. Neither brigade could support the other while support within units of each brigade was limited. Mixed in with the brigades of the 11th Indian Division were the three regular British Army battalions from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, the East Surreys and the Leicesters. They totalled over 2,000 men and comprised a fifth of the division’s infantry, being considered the most ready and jungle-trained. When the British generals before the war wanted local labour to improve the Jitra defences, they were told that the rubber plantations and tin mines had priority. When a plan was offered to secure the British left flank to the sea by flooding an area of a rice paddy, that too was rejected as food supplies in Malaya could not be compromised in the name of amplifying a defensive position. The troops ultimately allocated the job of defending Jitra were the 1/14th Punjabi of 15th Brigade and by the evening of 10 December they were occupying a position at Changlun.
At 0800 hours on 11 December, this unit was attacked by Lieutenant-Colonel Saeki’s Reconnaissance Unit support by ten light and medium tanks. After some of the Punjabi positions had become compromised, Brigadier Garrett withdrew the battalion to an intermediate position just to the north of Jitra and gave them the task of holding it overnight. However, while the men were moving their anti-tank guns and equipment in steady rain, Saeki attacked with tanks and infantry in trucks, catching the rear of the column and wreaking havoc upon it as it was sheltering under the rubber trees from the teeming rain. After the destruction of the Punjabis, the Japanese attacked the 2/1st Gurkhas and a battalion of the 28th Brigade.
Saeki launched an attack on the 2/9th Jats at 2030 hrs on 11 December. However, stiff artillery and machine-gunfire broke the assault. Saeki made another assault against the British centre, but they held out until a Japanese flanking attack panicked the remnants of the 11th Indian Division. Murray-Lyon asked his III Corps commander, General Heath, permission to withdraw to a more suitable anti-tank barrier and, after some vacillation, at 2200 hours he received orders that the his division would withdraw from Jitra 15 miles to the south. By the afternoon of 11 December, the 5th IJA Division was engaging the lead elements of the 11th Indian Division. Although the initial assault by the two lead battalions of the 5th IJA Division was being repulsed by the Indian right flank, the British division commander, fearing an encirclement that would cut him off to his east, ordered a withdrawal. In characteristic fashion, the Japanese infantry exploited the hasty retreat by the 11th Indian Division and forced the evacuation of Penang Island on 16 December and the abandonment of numerous barges, motor launches and junks that would be used later by the IJA for flanking attacks by sea.
The British retreat was disorderly with the Japanese in pursuit of the divisional rearguard and at 0430 hours on 12 December, the engagement temporarily ceased. The debacle at Jitra for the British was disastrous with British casualties running into the thousands coupled with the loss of guns, vehicles, supplies, ammunition and, more importantly, morale. Japanese casualties were under fifty men and their morale soared, in addition to the captured weaponry, ammunition, vehicles, fuel and food stocks. Most importantly, the British lost the initiative after Jitra as there would not now be time to adequately establish and man defensive positions in Johore Province and Singapore. As the retreat continued southerly after the loss at Jitra, British morale sunk to even lower depths. The Japanese advance, in large part, was due to Colonel Tsuji’s inclusion of engineer regiments to repair damaged bridges, and in this way deprive the element of time for the British to establish new defensive positions. Now that all Allied opposition was crushed in north-west Malaya, Yamashita ordered his Takumi Detachment to deal with the 9th Indian Division on the east coast after landing reinforcements at Kota Bahru. Yamashita’s goal was to occupy Kuala Lumpur, the Federated States capital, by mid-January, in order to reach the Straits of Johore by 31 January. A large part of Yamashita’s success in north-western Malaya’s Kedah Province was the use of the tank by the Japanese to spearhead their infantry. The main tank was the Type 97 Chi-Ha medium tank, which had a 57mm gun and two machine-guns. The tank could run at a speed of 24 miles per hour for 130 miles. The British had no tanks and could only answer with their 2-pounder anti-tank guns if they were unlimbered and in ambush position concealed from the Japanese.
During the subsequent days after the British defeat at Jitra, battles occurred on 14–15 December at Gurun, a road junction astride the railway where rice paddies from the western plains merge into south Kedah’s rubber plantations, about 30 miles to the south of Jitra on western Malaya’s coast. Remnants of Murray-Lyon’s 11th Indian Division received reinforcements (12th and 6th Brigades) from Percival after he withdrew his battered troops, first to behind the Krian River and then on the line of the Perak River.
On 16 December, Penang Island was evacuated on the west coast of Malaya. Penang Island, with its harbour located at Georgetown, had been viewed as a fortress since 1936 by the British. It was another vital site that Yamashita’s 25th Army had to seize to keep his coastal flank free of any Allied air or seaborne attack as he descended the western side of the Malay Peninsula in his drive towards Singapore. Another reason for the British desire to retain Penang Island was its underwater communication cables with both Ceylon and India and, therefore, London and the War Cabinet. Percival had a contingency plan to defend Penang Island but, like many of his others, it fell apart when the 11th Indian Division, which was to add support to the island’s garrison, was routed at Jitra and now in full retreat. Also, the island’s garrison had been ferried over to the mainland in an attempt to halt the Japanese advance, so in essence, there were no first-rate troops to defend Penang Island. After daily bombings since 8 December, the island’s defences, which did not include any anti-aircraft guns, and the civilian population were severely damaged and injured respectively. Over 2,000 civilians were killed on 11 December in a particularly heavy raid on the population centre of Georgetown. There was a meaningful RAAF fighter response with Brewster Buffalo aircraft sortied from Singapore to Butterworth immediately opposite the island, with some downing of Japanese bombers on 13 and 14 December. By 15 December, the aerial assault on the island stopped. However, the harm to the civilian population’s morale and the island’s infrastructure had been overwhelming. On 12 December, the island’s commander and civil authority both ordered the evacuation of all Europeans, although the population of Penang Island was predominantly Asian. The first evacuations of the Europeans from Penang Island began on the night of 13–14 December.
However, nothing seemed to be able to stop the Japanese juggernaut as they crossed sequential east-to-west running rivers with only minimal opposition as they pursued the 11th Indian Division throughout Kedah Province. On 13 December, the Japanese attacked down the main western road trunk with tanks and trucks loaded with infantry. On 15 December, the III Corps commander, General Heath, after having arrived in Kedah Province two days earlier from Kuala Lumpur to assess the situation, ordered the evacuation of the small Penang garrison with several hundred European men for the night of 16–17 December as the Asians were left behind. On the morning of 16 December, the retreating 11th Indian Division was already south of the Muda River and had passed into Province Wellesley, on Malaya’s west coast, in which Butterworth was situated, with the intent of moving further south into Perak Province. Two companies from the Japanese 5th Division arrived unopposed in Georgetown at 1600 hours on 19 December. Yamashita had captured Penang Island without firing a shot. It was Yamashita’s assessment that the British were demoralized and would fight only sporadically behind the barriers that the rivers posed to the Japanese advance. Even so, III Corps Commander Heath, on 20 December, decided to let the Japanese cross the Perak River without any opposition from the 11th Indian Division, enabling this battered formation to make a stand further south, but in the process conceding much more territory in the process.
The capture of Kota Bahru on 8 December was followed by a continued steady southwards advance down the eastern coast of the Malay Peninsula, ultimately forcing the 9th Indian Division into Kuantan, halfway between Kota Bahru and Singapore, by the end of December. On 23 December, General Sir Henry Pownall arrived in Singapore to relieve Air Chief Marshal Sir Robert Brooke-Popham as C-in-C Far East, and was to assume control on 27 December. Contemporaneous with Pownall’s appointment, Percival, as GOC Malaya, countered by allowing the 9th Indian Division to extract itself west of Kuantan in order to defend Kuala Lumpur, the capital of the Malay States. However, in order to achieve this, the 11th Indian Division needed to occupy defensive positions in Kampar on 27 December. The 5th IJA Division attacked Kampar on 30 December, but the 11th Indian Division held out against the usual Japanese infantry tactics of flank attacks and infiltration. The Japanese response was to launch an amphibious westward turning movement, using the watercraft captured at Penang Island and the small boats brought overland from the Singora landing. Again, the 11th Indian Division, without sufficient reserves to repel the Japanese landings, had to withdraw again under the constant threat of aerial bombardment and strafing. By 2 January 1942, Percival pulled the remnants of the 11th Division to behind the Slim River. Pownall, who knew Percival from the BEF in France in 1940, wrote in his diary, he is ‘an uninspiring leader and rather gloomy. I hope it won’t mean that I have to relieve Percival […] But it might so happen.’ Technically, in fact, as of 30 December 1941, when Churchill appointed Wavell, then C-in-C India, Supreme Commander South West Pacific (the ABDA command), Pownall after only three days in his post as C-in-C Far East stepped down and prepared to become Wavell’s chief of staff. Brooke-Popham had been relieved earlier as C-in-C Far East by Churchill himself.
On 7 January 1942, on his visit to Singapore to inspect the defences on the north side of the fortress island, Wavell found nothing erected nor any detailed plans made for resistance against a land invasion from across the Straits of Johore. The field marshal had also learned that almost all of the island’s great guns, the Buono Vista and Johore batteries were facing either the sea or the Johore River to the east of Singapore Island, and could not be turned to fire at the advancing Japanese coming southwards down the Malay Peninsula. Only the 6- and 9.2-inch guns on Blankang Mati Island, to the south of Keppel Harbour on Singapore Island’s southern shore, could be turned to fire inland. However, these batteries were equipped with mostly armour-piercing shells for ships. Percival’s chief engineer, Ivan Simson, at this time also badgered the Malayan Army commander that not only was there a need to erect fixed defences in Johore for the exhausted 11th Indian Division to retreat into and fight behind them but also an absence and shortage of time to secure the northern and north-western shores of Singapore should an evacuation of the peninsula to Singapore Island become necessary while the southern shore of the island bristled with defences. Percival gave the lame excuse that erecting fixed northern shore defences would weaken civilian morale while those in Johore would rob the 11th Indian Division of an offensive fighting spirit. A few days after his encounters with Wavell and Simson, Percival directed his engineers to prepare a series of obstacles, mainly anti-tank ones, on the northern shore.
The supercilious British commanders on Malaya and Singapore Island could not have foreseen such a rapid advance by Yamashita’s three divisions, comprising his 25th Army. In fact, a captured British officer from the Royal Engineers had told Colonel Masanobu Tsuji that he had expected the defences in northern Malaya to hold out for substantially longer than the few weeks that they had. He mentioned, ‘As the Japanese Army had not beaten the weak Chinese Army after four years’ fighting in China we did not consider it a very formidable enemy.’
The month of January brought further disasters for the British and Commonwealth troops defending the Malay States to the north, although the Japanese 5th Division was delayed for a few days by the floodwaters of the Perak River. Then, being unopposed, the Japanese crossed the Perak River and advanced in strength down the motor road trunk towards the Slim River, which flows east-to-west near Telok Anson. After some fighting in Telok Anson, in which the Japanese 4th Guards Regiment and the 5th Division’s 11th Infantry Regiment were amphibiously landed on 1 January 1942, British troops disengaged to the natural shelter of the Slim River. However, on 5 January, the Japanese were making landings at Selangor and Port Swettenham, which were 70 miles behind the 11th Division in southern Perak Province. On the eastern coast, the Allied 9th Division was retreating into central Malaya from Kuantan. The III Corps commander, General Heath, was forced to abandon the airfield at Kuantan. Percival was already of the mindset that eventually III Corps would have to execute a retreat in stages into northern Johore, where the final stand on the mainland would be made, which meant that Kuala Lumpur would also eventually be abandoned.
The Japanese began their attack on the Slim River line on 5 January and were initially beaten off by two Indian battalions of the 12th Indian Brigade, resulting in heavy enemy casualties. However, on the night of 7 January, Japanese tanks attacked down the motor trunk road and cleared the Indian road-blocks before any Allied antitank guns could be employed, resulting in the retreat of the Indian 12th Brigade pell mell. The attack across the Slim River continued a few miles to the south where the Japanese engaged the 28th Indian Brigade. Allied units comprised of Gurkhas and Punjabis were badly mauled and the Japanese were soon to control the Slim River road-bridge with all of the 11th Indian Division’s motor transport trapped on the far side. Casualties among the 12th and 28th Indian Brigades approached 80 per cent. After the Japanese captured all of the division’s artillery, including sixteen 25-pounder guns and seven 2-pounder anti-tank guns as well as motor transport, only about 1,000 British and Indian soldiers from the 11th Indian Division were able to make their escape south by foot. The retreating British and Commonwealth forces were under orders to destroy all resources that could be used by the enemy. According to the Official British History of the war in the Far East, ‘The action at the Slim River was a major disaster. It resulted in the early abandonment of Central Malaya and gravely prejudiced reinforcing formations, then on their way to Singapore, to arm and prepare for battle […] The immediate causes of the disaster were the failure to make full use of the anti-tank weapons available.’ Brigadier General Ian Stewart of the 12th Brigade accepted his share of the blame both in the choice of a brigade headquarters, which put him out of contact with his troops, and for not deploying the field artillery in an anti-tank role. Stewart confessed that he had no prior experience combating tanks at night or in using field artillery in an anti-tank role, which was common practice among the British formations fighting Rommel along the North African littoral. In addition, the motor road bridge across the Slim River was not demolished by the British, thereby enabling the Japanese advance to continue unimpeded. Major General Archie Paris, who had replaced Murray-Lyon as commander of the 11th Indian Division and had initially added some esprit to that demoralized fighting unit after Jitra, was demoted by III Corps Commander Heath. Paris returned to his former command of the 12th Brigade, while Brigadier Stewart rejoined the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders as their commander.
To compound the operational dysfunction at GOC, Malaya headquarters, Wavell arrived on 7 January 1942 and accepted the Australian General Gordon Bennett’s, and not Percival’s, plans for the defence of Johore. General Sir Henry Pownall noted in his diary that Wavell was ‘not at all happy about Percival, who has the knowledge, but not the personality to carry through a tough fight’. Clearly, Percival had lost Wavell’s vote of approval for his command style. After the crossing of the Slim River, Wavell drove north to find III Corps disorganized and the 11th Indian Division completely shattered. Wavell too recognized that the disaster at the Slim River necessitated the shifting of the entire British line back to the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, and so ordered a general withdrawal of the Indian troops of almost 150 miles south-east to Johore Province for re-organization. There would now be nothing between the victorious Japanese and Kuala Lumpur. A new line was formed with the 9th Indian and the rested 8th Australian Divisions, the latter of which was already positioned in Johore, to hold along the Muar River on the western coast, while the remnants of III Corps defended the eastern coast at Mersing. Major-General Gordon Bennett’s Australians would be entrusted, in large part, to make the final attempt to stop Yamashita’s Japanese onslaught, while the battle-weary 9th Division would contribute to the line’s defence. The remnants of the 11th Indian Division would refit in Johore as it was unfit for combat in its present state.
Despite the visit by Wavell on 7–8 January to both Singapore and forward areas on the peninsula and an expectation that the soon-to-arrive British 18th Division, comprising fresh Territorial units from East Anglia, would reinforce the Australians giving Bennett some offensive punch, Yamashita committed troops of the Guards Division, which reached Ipoh and was bringing more of Mutaguchi’s 18th IJA Division down to Johore by road. Wavell had ascertained first-hand during his visit to the forward areas on the peninsula on 8 January that the 9th and 11th Indian Divisions ‘with very few exceptions are no longer fit to withstand attack’. Wavell, on 9 January, discussed his plan with Bennett at Johore Bahru, that a decisive battle should be fought on the north-west frontier of Johore near the mouth of the Muar River using the Australian 8th Division (less the 22nd Brigade), that had been stationed in Mersing, and the 45th Indian Brigade as the main Allied force. The 9th Indian Division and the 45th Indian Brigade would come under Bennett’s command (Westforce) while Heath’s III Corps would withdraw into southern Johore Province defending a line running from Mersing on the east coast through Kluang in central Johore to the town of Batu Pahat on the west coast to essentially rest and re-fit. The Australian 22nd Brigade would remain in Mersing but re-join the Australian 8th Division on the Muar after it could be relieved by reinforcements from Singapore Island. Then, Wavell met Percival and presented the plan devised with Bennett as a done deal, which was the direct opposite of Percival’s plan that the Australians would defend the east coast of Johore Province while Heath’s III Corps held the west coast. Wavell and Bennett’s plan depended on holding the Japanese in northern Johore Province until reinforcements could be mustered on Singapore Island, which would not be before the middle of February, for an Allied counter-attack against Yamashita’s forces on the peninsula. Already the 5th IJA Division had entered Kuala Lumpur on 11 January, the main base of British III Corps, capturing copious amounts of supplies and equipment there.
Initially, Bennett’s fresh Australian troops gained some success against the Japanese, principally by ambushing them on the Muar-Bakri road west of Gemas on 14–15 January. However, the Japanese were to cross the Muar River without much opposition as Bennett believed that the bulk of Japanese forces would attack down the trunk road in the vicinity of Gemas. At the Muar River, the 4th Japanese Guards Regiment annihilated the Indian companies of the Rajputana Rifles, which had been poorly positioned on the north side of a river that did not have a bridge to retreat over. At 0200 hours on 16 January, the Japanese crossed the river in force a few miles upstream of the Indians and established a road-block. Yamashita had just turned Bennett’s left flank and when the 45th Indian Brigade began its withdrawal, Westforce was in danger of becoming surrounded. Wavell, having left Singapore for Java on 10 January, had always regretted that he did not send the Australian 22nd Brigade to Bennett to stiffen up Westforce prior to being replaced at Mersing by reinforcements. It was clear that even Bennett’s Australians could not stem the Japanese tide as it methodically kept demolishing each new static line of defence that the Commonwealth forces established, even though they were inflicting casualties on the Japanese. On the afternoon of 18 January, the British now knew that the entire Imperial Guards Division was in the Muar area while the Japanese 5th Division was on the main road heading south. Despite a trickle of reinforcements from Singapore that Percival had dispatched to the peninsula, Bennett knew that unless the Westforce retreated, his main force would be destroyed. So Bennett’s command was forced to withdraw from north-west Johore Province, which was effected on the evening of 19 January, over the one narrow bridge spanning a deep gorge of the Segamat River. In fact, the depleted 45th Indian Brigade had held up the Imperial Guards long enough to save Westforce from encirclement. After the Battle of the Muar, 45th Indian Brigade ceased to exist.
On 19 January, Wavell learned that there was no formalized plan to withdraw to Singapore Island. Wavell cabled Percival, ‘You must think out the problem of how to withdraw from the mainland […] and how to prolong resistance on the island.’ Percival, in response to Wavell’s cables, planned for his Malayan forces to retreat in three columns and for the establishment of a bridge-head covering the passage through Johore Bahru. The following day, 20 January, Wavell met with Percival on Singapore to plan for the island’s defence since the battle on the mainland appeared to be already a foregone conclusion to the field marshal. To his disliking, Wavell found that very little had been done to strengthen the island’s northern defences and outlined some of his thoughts to augment defensive capabilities. Even Churchill entered the fray on 20 January and signalled Wavell, ‘I want to make it absolutely clear that I expect every inch of ground to be defended, every scrap of material for defences to be blown to pieces to prevent capture by the enemy, and no question of surrender to be entertained until after protracted fighting among the ruins of Singapore City.’ On 21 January, Wavell replied to Churchill that he had little hope of a drawn-out defence of Singapore Island as the prime minister had envisioned once the battle for Johore was lost. Wavell reiterated the obvious, namely that the fortress guns were sited for use against ships, and most of the ammunition was armour-piercing rather than high-explosive or anti-personnel.
The Japanese were not idle and launched three divisions in southern Johore against the British line there, necessitating Percival on 24 January to issue orders for the withdrawal from the southern Malay Peninsula to the island should it become necessary. On 28 January, Percival informed his divisional commanders that the evacuation should be carried out on the night of 30–31 January to form another defensive line on the island across the 2–3km-wide Straits of Johore. By dawn of 31 January, the entire British forces were over and preparations went forward to destroy the causeway across the Straits of Johore. Just after dawn, a skirl of bagpipes was heard as the shattered remnants, all ninety of them, of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders were the last men to leave the Malayan Peninsula. At 0800 hours, the causeway was blown up. Those who saw the separation of the island from the peninsula harboured some re-assurance about their distance from the Japanese across Singapore Island’s moat. However, they were also clearly unaware that the Straits of Johore were scarcely 4 feet deep at low tide where the causeway once stood.
Malayan native pulls in soldiers of the Dogra Regiment on exercises in assorted craft on a lake near Singapore City in November 1941. (Library of Congress)
Australian soldiers with their personal weapons in portable two-man rubber assault boats row across a Malayan waterway before the outbreak of war. (Library of Congress)
A British Bren carrier on a Malayan road during pre-invasion training. Few British or Commonwealth units were adept at jungle field craft and with their vehicles had the unfortunate tendency to become road-bound, enabling the Japanese to outflank them all too often. (USAMHI)
British troops ride in an armoured troop carrier while on drills in Malaya. The reliance on mechanical transport became a liability for the British and Commonwealth forces in Malayan terrain, which the general staff believed was unsuitable for tanks. (USAMHI)
The 2nd Battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders did prepare for fighting off-road. Here, two Highlanders deploy from a Lanchester armoured car with the soldier in the foreground carrying a machine-gun with a bipod in a rubber plantation. (USAMHI)
Japanese troops march single file through a rocky Malayan waterway surrounded by dense jungle. These soldiers had learned much of their jungle field craft from Colonel Tsuji’s Taiwan Army No. 82 Unit, which in 1941 was charged with learning and preparing for fighting in Pacific war regions such as Malaya, Indonesia, the Philippine Islands and Burma. (USAMHI)
Heavily laden Japanese troops march across yet another Malayan waterway surrounded by jungle. Colonel Tsuji knew that newer methods for fighting in jungle terrain were needed for an army that had been fighting in China for the past decade. (USAMHI)
A Chinese man in northwestern Malaya tries to repair some of his bombed hut after the Japanese aerial assaults began in Kedah Province on 8 December 1941. (Library of Congress)
Malay soldiers look at debris in a north-western Malayan village after a Japanese air attack soon after hostilities commenced. (USAMHI)
Australian troops dig their foxholes in a rubber plantation. A machine-gun has been set-up in the background. Many of the Malayan rubber estate owners objected to the use of their property by the military being a source of continual friction up until the opening of hostilities. (AWM)
Two British 3-inch mortar crews set up their pieces and prepare to fire on Japanese positions in Malaya soon after the invasion. (USAMHI)
A Japanese Type 92 tank helps support the infantry during an assault through a Malayan village. General Yamashita had the distinct advantage using armour since the Allies had only mortars and 2-pounder anti-tank guns to stop them. The 25-pounder field artillery pieces were not effectively put to use as anti-tank weapons as they had been in North Africa. (USAMHI)
A Japanese Type 95 light tank with its 37mm gun traversed moves through dense Malayan vegetation on the periphery of a village to assist in an infantry assault. (USAMHI)
A British machine-gun emplacement in a concrete pillbox is assaulted by a Japanese soldier who is about to hurl in hand grenades to neutralize it during the battle of Jitra in Kedah Province in early December 1941. (USAMHI)
A Japanese infantry section advances almost doubled over beside a railroad track in an attempt to outflank their Allied opponents on the western side of the Malayan Peninsula. The officers lying prone in the foreground are trying to spot Allied firing positions with their binoculars. (USAMHI)
Stretcher bearers on Singapore Island aid a wounded soldier from the Malayan Peninsula onto an ambulance early in the conflict. (USAMHI)
An Allied soldier with his hands up looks bewildered as he surrenders to the invading Japanese. The helmeted Japanese solider (left) holding onto the prisoner is an officer, as he carries a long sword and a binoculars case. The helmeted Japanese soldier to the right of the prisoner holds his Mk. I helmet of First World War vintage. (AWM)
Commonwealth troops disembark from an uncovered lorry during the retreat down the Malayan Peninsula. (AWM)
Medical personnel attend a wounded British soldier on the Malayan Peninsula early in the conflict. Note the motorcycle that one of the medical officers utilized leaning against the tree. (USAMHI)
British sappers use a hydraulic drill in order to prepare a bridge for demolition during the retreat in early 1942. (Library of Congress)
British sappers inserting their demolition charges into a bridge’s infrastructure as Malay natives casually cross the bridge with their bicycles. (USAMHI)
Japanese soldiers cross over a makeshift wooden plank bridge over a Malayan waterway besides the concrete support of a destroyed steel girder road bridge. Note that many of the Japanese infantry have their bicycles with them for the crossing. (USAMHI)
Heavily camouflaged Japanese Type 97 Chi-Ha medium tank with its 57mm turret gun in traversed position. (USAMHI)
Malay troops, some shirtless, attacking a Japanese position in a Malayan town. They carry the typical assortment of Allied weapons including a Bren light-machine-gun, a Sten light-machine-gun, and the SMLE rifle. (USAMHI)
Georgetown, the capital of Penang Island, as it appeared before the invasion. The general staff in Singapore erroneously labelled this a fortress as it was captured without firing a shot at the Japanese who crossed over from the Peninsula on their advance down the western side. (NARA)
A photograph of Georgetown before the war with many signs in Chinese, foreboding how many Asians were to be left behind in the evacuation to the Malayan Peninsula, while Europeans were given preference in Penang Island’s abandonment. (NARA)
A European mother shows her happiness as she and her child, having been evacuated from Penang Island, arrive at the train station at Ipoh rail station in Perak Province. (Library of Congress)
European evacuees from Penang Island arrive at Ipoh rail station and get refreshment from the local residents there in Perak Province. (Library of Congress)
A warning sign about a minefield that had been set up by British sappers in their retreat down the Malay Peninsula. (USAMHI)
Japanese infantry stand beside their light tank in their advance through Kuala Lumpur, the capital of the Federated Malay States. (USAMHI)
Street fighting in Kuala Lumpur as two infantrymen cautiously advance in the open while two others provide covering fire. (USAMHI)
Four Japanese infantrymen racing through a Kuala Lumpur street as smoke from fires billows in the background. (USAMHI)
Japanese troops advancing through a street in Kuala Lumpur. The infantryman lying on his side has a grenade launcher, which was often misnamed by the Allies as a knee mortar. (USAMHI)
Japanese infantry advance on the Kuala Lumpur railway yards, which are ablaze. The Commonwealth rear guard was under orders to burn anything that might be of value to the invading Japanese forces. (USAMHI)
A sword-wielding Japanese officer leads infantry through a destroyed Kuala Lumpur street as bicycles lie discarded on the side of the road. (USAMHI)
Japanese sentries guard huts full of captured petrol, which helped propel the Japanese forces down the Malayan Peninsula. General Yamashita instructed his subordinates to press the attack and not wait for re-supply in anticipation of capturing enemy stores. (USAMHI)
British and Commonwealth forces burn rubber supplies in Malaya as a large black plume of smoke rises into the air. (Library of Congress)
The 8th Australian Division headquarters under camouflage in Johore Province. Field Marshal Wavell and General Bennett devised a plan for the defence of Johore Province, which directly contradicted that of General Percival. (AWM)
An Australian Bren light-machine-gun crew takes a cigarette break in Johore Province. Another Bren gun barrel lies on the ground next to the weapon. (AWM)
An Australian sentry stands guard at a river in Malaya. The defence of the Muar River was vital to contain the Japanese advance into Johore Province. (AWM)
An Australian 25-pounder field artillery piece with its limber in action under a camouflage net. Allied commanders seldom used this formidable weapon in an anti-tank role and many guns were captured intact by the Japanese in Johore Province. (NARA)
An Australian 2-pounder gun crew fires on a Japanese light tank column at a pre-arranged ambush site on the Muar-Bakri Road. Many Japanese light tanks were disabled in this engagement. (NARA)
The crew of an Australian 2-pounder gun crew standing at ease after destroying several Japanese light tanks on the Muar-Bakri Road in Johore Province. (NARA)
A column of Australian troops marches past the disabled Japanese tankettes destroyed in action at Milne Bay on New Guinea that were similarly halted by Australian 2-pounder gunfire in Johore Province. (AWM)
A close view of a Japanese Type 95 Ke-Go light tank disabled on the Muar-Bakri Road by the concealed Australian 2-pounder anti-tank guns. The tank’s main weapon was a 37mm turret gun with two 7.7mm machine-guns, one in the turret and one on the hull. (NARA)
The body of a dead Japanese tank crewman lies beside his Type 95 Ke-Go light tank after its disabling by Australian anti-tank guns in Johore Province. (NARA)
Japanese infantry wait patiently behind a wall of sandbags as one of its accompanying light tanks moves through a street in search of enemy forces in a Johore Province town. (USAMHI)
Japanese infantry race across railway tracks at the Gemas station during fighting in Johore Province. (USAMHI)
Japanese infantry cautiously advance past a locomotive at the Gemas rail yards during their conquest of Johore Province at the end of the campaign for the Malayan Peninsula. (USAMHI)
A Japanese sentry stands on an embankment above a destroyed bridge during the Allied retreat in Johore Province. (USAMHI)
An Indian infantry column in Chevrolet 25-cwt light trucks moves to the front during the fighting in Johore Province. Even late reinforcements with the Indian troops could not help General Bennett stem the Japanese advance through this most southern Malayan province. (NARA)
General Yamashita and his staff inspect a scene of recent fighting during his victorious sweep through the Malayan Peninsula. His arrival at the Straits of Johore by the end of January had certainly put him ahead of his time table for the conquest of both Malaya and Singapore. (USAMHI)