1942:Slim, Monty & the "Auk" at HK & Singapore

Would having a top (by British standards), more aggressive general like Bill Slim, or even Auchinleck or Montgomery at Singapore or Hong Kong have made any difference, or would they merely have delayed the inevitable debacle?

Singapore maybe, but I think Hong Kong is an impossiblity. Even if the Brits were able to hold off the inital advance, they still have no way of reinforcing or resupplying the city with the Japanese occupying everything around the port and a blockade right outside of it.

Re Singapore: I agree that a better British gen than Percival might've made a difference to the 'Gibraltar of the East' being able to hold out against the Japs better, had the defenders also received the other reinforcements they in OTL were denied, such as the 200 Hurricanes which were sent to Russia, 100 Shermans slated for Malaya Command, the HMS FORMIDABLE to accompany the HMS PRINCE OF WALES and REPULSE- had the carrier not been run aground, more and better A-A and A-T weapons, together with troops better trained in jungle warfare apart from the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders and the AIF, and as much work undertaken on the Singapore landward-side fortifications as possible.

You could add, what if the garrison at Singapore had had a few battalions of uruk-hai and a squadron of Nazgul in support. Malaya was a very low priority in British defence thinking. It was assumed that the Japanese could never succeed in taking it. I forget which British commander expressed the wish that they'd try just to teach them a lesson.

I agree that Hong Kong is difficult to give a different ATL. It's OTL garrison was only a handful of batalions and if Singapore was a long way to go from UK Hong Kong was quite a distance further.

In the British pre-WWII plans for a war against Japan (no European war) it was reckoned that retaking and not reinforcing Hong Kong was to be one of the first war aims. But apart from this the major British war effort would be trade war/blockade against Japan, with the major part of the RN operating in the Far East and with Singapore as main base.

Regards

Steffen Redbeard

Dunash said:

Would having a top (by British standards), more aggressive general like Bill Slim, or even Auchinleck or Montgomery at Singapore or Hong Kong have made any difference, or would they merely have delayed the inevitable debacle?

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William Slim was not senior or known enough at the time, but he would have made a difference (at Singapore, not HK because of the reasons stated by others), not doubt about that. Slim was, in my as allways humble view, the best British (and among the absolute top among the Allies) field commander.

Monty, as I think Steffen and I have debated somewhere else, would have been a disaster (hmm, we actually never seemd to agree on that ).

Claude Auchinleck? Hmm, he did good in Norway, capturing Narvik and all, and to some extent in Egypt-Libya too, but would he be suited to lead the defense of Singapore? I really don't know. He and Slim would be a good team though, just as in real life; Slim as division commander or some such and the Auk in overall command.

Best regards!

- Bluenote.