British hold Malaya in 1942?

[Riain]

Nagumo wasn't in the area on the night of the Sumatra invasion, he and the rest of the ijn was fully employed on a strict timetable. If Malaya holds and the Sumatra convoy is thwarted on February 14 Nagumo isn't going to be able to make much impact on the situation on land. Carrier strikes aren't going to reinforce the ija in Malaya or get Sumatra invaded.

 

[johnboy]

Yes on the 14th the carriers were preparing to leave Palau. I guess what I am trying to day is that even if this convoy Was slaughtered then it's still not a perminant fix. For the Japanese a disastrous setback, yes. Yet within weeks they could return with more troops, more transports and with carriers. Without the allied ships having air cover, probably land based air cover since allied cv's were scarce on the ground, they cannot then hold.

 

[Riain]

Japan was very short on shipping and what it did have was very busy on the strict timetable to strike south. If the Sumatra convoy was attacked and ships sunk and damaged a quick recovery would only be possible to diverting resources from other operations. If these ships were needed at the same time as shipping needed to reinforce and resupply the stalled IJA in Malaya then the Japanese are going to have to make some very unpleasant choices with few happy endings.

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=335720&highlight=malaya

Here's a thread with a small TL concerning a better preparation for the units that IOTL were deployed to Malaya.

 

[Namayan]

I believe this is ASB due to the PoD. The British by sept 1940 were already focused in defending britain. Thus, resources for Asia would not be prioritize.

I also in doubt if the British military doctrine can change within one year of time.

Although you can have changes with USA within one year, holding the Philipines is totally different from holding Malaya. Theoretically, assuming Pearl harbor is the same as otl, The Japanese can have naval dominance but cannot take Philippines due to US air and land superiority in the islands due to the changes made by the USA.

 

[Astrodragon]

The easiest PoD is for the British to clear (or at least advance further) in Africa before sending forces to Greece. Clearing NA allows much more to be sent east (even with deliveries to Russia), and more importantly allows better troops and leaders to be sent.

Even as it was, the Japanese assault on Malaya barely succeeded. With more modern aircraft, better led (and a reorganisation may well butterfly the spy into ineffectiveness), the RAF will survive long enough to develop a working set of tactics. The Japanese air production in 1942 was pitiful, the Empire can replace aircraft at a far greater rate.

On the ground, even with better troops the Japanese will advance, but it will be a lot more difficult and they will run out of supply (they almost did in OTL). With NA cleared, Malta becomes easier to support, so more naval forces go east. The big problem for Japan was that all their attacks were marginal, so any failure cascades. Since the Allies can then reinforce faster, the Japanese plans come apart.

Holding Singapore requires Sumatra, but given some extra time reinforcements can be sent.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

The easiest PoD is for the British to clear (or at least advance further) in Africa before sending forces to Greece. Clearing NA allows much more to be sent east (even with deliveries to Russia), and more importantly allows better troops and leaders to be sent.

Even as it was, the Japanese assault on Malaya barely succeeded. With more modern aircraft, better led (and a reorganisation may well butterfly the spy into ineffectiveness), the RAF will survive long enough to develop a working set of tactics. The Japanese air production in 1942 was pitiful, the Empire can replace aircraft at a far greater rate.

On the ground, even with better troops the Japanese will advance, but it will be a lot more difficult and they will run out of supply (they almost did in OTL). With NA cleared, Malta becomes easier to support, so more naval forces go east. The big problem for Japan was that all their attacks were marginal, so any failure cascades. Since the Allies can then reinforce faster, the Japanese plans come apart.

Holding Singapore requires Sumatra, but given some extra time reinforcements can be sent.

I agree with all of that, but didn't know about the spy. I did read that the local commanders-in-chief wrote a joint report expalining their deficiencies. The ship carrying the report to London was captured by a German auxiliary cruiser. The Germans passed the captured report onto the Japanese. Therefore that migh reduce the importance of butterflying out the spy.

 

[dave_r_gilbert]

mines?

The british knew the japanese were coming, had a good idea of where, and enough warning of when.
I believe the japanese were not great at mine countermeasures, and may not have known about magnetic mines.
The british knew all about them, having lost ships to them in 39/40.
And the luftwaffe had kindly dropped one on a beach less than a mile from a major armaments research establishment, so they knew how to build them.
The gulf of Siam is fairly shallow, so magnetic mines off the invasion beaches & ports would have a good chance of inflicting casualties.
It wouldn't have taken much to turn Khota Bharu into a disaster for the Japanese.
How many metal hulled Thai craft were there in Pattani and Songkhla in the 24 hours before the japanese arrived? Probably none.
So covertly mining the approaches has a good chance of doing no damage until the invasion arrives, and is deniable in a way Operation Matador wasn't.

The japanese plan was so intricate, and depended on so many things going right that any major delay or heavy casualties unravells the whole thing.
They assumed the timetable could be met, and that casualties would be low enough in phase 1 for men and machines to be used again in phase 2, 3, and 4.
I've looked at what is available for the dispositions and reserve forces in Dec '41, and if the Japanese needed reinforcements for Malaya, it is difficult to see where they can come from.
To invade Sumatra they need to get past Malaya, or come the long way round past Java.
Sumatra was invaded before Java, in order to isolate Java.
With Singapore still a going concern, they would have to do it the other way round, and accept a delay, or take a huge risk.
Central and Northern Sumatra were invaded from Malaya.
With Malaya still in British hands the Japanese would need to progress up the island from the South instead (assuming they had managed that bit - see above).
More delay, more opportunity to get allied reinforcements in place.
The odds of getting all the way north to Bandar Aceh when starting from Palembang, with supplies coming the long way through the Java Sea, are quite long.

 

[Simon]

Assuming a point of departure no earlier than September 1940 (when Imperial Japan invaded French Indo-China) and events in Europe proceeding largely as in the original timeline, unless otherwise altered by a point of departure, is it possible for the British and allies to repel the Japanese onslaught in Malaya of December 1941, and to hold Malaya in 1942?

On one of the previous threads on this topic someone, I forget who, suggested the idea of replacing the Governor of the Straits Settlements, which also dealt with the Federated Malay States and Unfederated Malay States, Sir Shenton Thomas with Air Marshal Brooke-Popham who in our timeline became Commander-in-Chief British Far East Command. Even after the start of the war in Europe and rising tensions in the Far East Shenton Thomas appears to have not done very much, continuing to operate on peacetime procedures and actually somewhat resist any policies that were too disruptive locally. In contrast Brooke-Popham whilst seemingly somewhat out of his depth as military Commander-in-Chief in the Far East was apparently a very successful Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Kenya between 1937 and 1939 after the Italian takeover of neighbouring Abyssinia made the British feel they needed a military man in charge and the early days of WWII. So Brooke-Popham replaces Shenton Thomas as Governor, he's had six years or so in the job which is a decent enough innings, instead of becoming Commander-in-Chief and proceeds to actually start taking some active measures and putting the colony and territories on a war footing whilst another, hopefully better able to deal with the demands, officer is drafted in to take over the military side of things as Commander-in-Chief.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

Very true but the Japanese can still send follow on forces with carriers that are much stronger. But with enough air support to cover your ships, there are really in trouble

They could, but it would be at the expense of some other operation, The Japanese were unable to deploy more than a token stratigic reserve & were shorting operations even with their sucess. ie: They tried to make up shortages for invading the DEI by moving Army units out of the Phillipines early, which slowed the advance in Bataan & eventually necessitated sending another division to Luzon. Which could have been used elsewhere.

The Japanese were on a very tight schedule & a failure about anywhere is very likely to run the whole thing off the rails.

 

[Driftless]

1937 Percival - Defense of Malaya Study

Percival had done a 1937 detailled assessment of the defense situation for Malaya (A big part of why Dill selected him to be the area commander in 1941). The background studies showed the need, but the political will and the funds were not available to do the preparations - at least at the level needed. Make that the POD, and the fight becomes much tougher for the Japanese.

Percival's early assessment of the vulnerability of Singapore

In 1936, Major-General William Dobbie, then General Officer Commanding (Malaya), made an inquiry into whether more forces were required on mainland Malaya to prevent the Japanese from establishing forward bases to attack Singapore. Percival, then his Chief Staff Officer, was tasked to draw up a tactical assessment of how the Japanese were most likely to attack. In late 1937, his analysis duly confirmed that north Malaya might become the critical battleground. The Japanese were likely to seize the east coast landing sites on Thailand and Malaya in order to capture aerodromes and achieve air superiority. This could serve as a prelude to further Japanese landings in Johore to disrupt communications northwards and enable the construction of another main base in North Borneo. From North Borneo, the final sea and air assault could be launched against eastern Singapore—against Changi area.

Although the British military leaders had warned London in 1937 that the defense of Singapore was tied to the defense of Malaya and that any Japanese attack on the island would likely be made from the Malay Peninsula, their assessment was rejected by the British War Office, which was convinced that the impenetrable rain forests of the peninsula would discourage any landward invasion. Air bases were established in northern Malaya but were never adequately fortified. A new naval base was constructed on the northern coast of the island, but few ships were deployed there. Military strategists in London believed that the Singapore garrison could defend the island for about two months, or the time it would take for a relief naval force to arrive from Britain.

A number of Army officers, however, became concerned about the 'back door' approach to Singapore via the Malay peninsula. These included General Percival, who was Chief General Staff Officer in Malaya in 1936- 37, and General Dobbie, General Officer Commanding in Malaya who began work on a defence line in southern Malaya in 1938. Indeed, the US historian John Costello recounts how in 1937 Dobbie and Percival had advised their superiors in London that:
...since the Royal Navy might not be able to send out a fleet for over two months and the Malayan jungle across the Johore Strait was 'in most places not impassable,' as had been assumed, the Japanese would have plenty of time to advance south through Thailand....But while the British were frantically rearming to face Germany, finding the troops and equipment to garrison Malaya was an impossible task.

Thus a combination of inter- Service disagreement, misjudgment about the defensive value of the Malayan jungle and lack of resources conspired to create a situation at the outbreak of the Pacific War in which Singapore remained vulnerable to attack from the north, across the narrow Johore Strait.

 

[HJ Tulp]

Would replacing/supplementing Percival*, sending better planes than frickin' Brewster Buffaloes and coordinating more with the Dutch government-in-exile once Japan tipped its hand by moving into Southern Indochina be too much of a hindsight argument?
*who I nonetheless feel was more a man trapped by circumstances than the incompetent dunderhead most make him out to be

The problem with Allied cooporation in South-East Asia isn't the coordonation with the Dutch government in exile. It is coordinating with the colonial government of the Dutch East Indies which was acting pretty independently from the Dutch government in London and quite desperately tried to remain neutral in the war. Thus you had the situation that while RNN ships were fighting German U-boats that were sinking Dutch merchant vessels in the Atlantic there were barely any Allied exercises in South East Asia. So in hindsight: yes it was insane that ABDACOM was only set up AFTER Pearl Harbour but to change that you need some changes in the Dutch political situation after may 1940. Multiple options though. You could have the Dutch government relocate to Batavia instead of London in 1940 or have the resignation of the Governor General in 1940 be accepted.

 

[Look More Closely Later]

Chain of command?

The problem with Allied cooporation in South-East Asia isn't the coordonation with the Dutch government in exile. It is coordinating with the colonial government of the Dutch East Indies which was acting pretty independently from the Dutch government in London and quite desperately tried to remain neutral in the war. Thus you had the situation that while RNN ships were fighting German U-boats that were sinking Dutch merchant vessels in the Atlantic there were barely any Allied exercises in South East Asia. So in hindsight: yes it was insane that ABDACOM was only set up AFTER Pearl Harbour but to change that you need some changes in the Dutch political situation after may 1940. Multiple options though. You could have the Dutch government relocate to Batavia instead of London in 1940 or have the resignation of the Governor General in 1940 be accepted.

I'm not sure if it was a militarily correct (or for that matter 'proper') thing to do, but there's a reference in Volume 4 of Churchill's Second World War memoirs to General Wavell ordering a withdrawal in Malaya a short time after a Japanese attack on January 7th, 1942.

...At this moment General Wavell, who had arrived in Singapore on his way to take up the A.B.D.A. Command, visited the front. He ordered a deep withdrawal to get well clear of the Japanese, and thus give a breathing-space to our exhausted men behind whatever fresh, or comparatively fresh, troops could be gathered. The position selected was a hundred and fifty miles further back...

(page 34, 1951 edition)

At that point the fighting was still some way out in Malaya, as far as I can determine. I can only assume that Wavell was able to do this [i.e. order a withdrawal] on the basis that his ABDA position gave him some kind of authority that superceded Percival's?

 

[Riain]

Wavell was a 4 star General, Percival was a 3 Star Lt General, Wavell outranked him and was theatre commander.

Just as a matter of interest, in the context of a 10 week campaign I would consider 7 January particularly early, events had a full month to unfold and had unfolded almost disastrously.

 

[Look More Closely Later]

?

Wavell was a 4 star General, Percival was a 3 Star Lt General, Wavell outranked him and was theatre commander.

Just as a matter of interest, in the context of a 10 week campaign I would consider 7 January particularly early, events had a full month to unfold and had unfolded almost disastrously.

Do you mean particularly early for the troops to be exhausted, particularly early for the theatre commander to be stepping in and giving orders over the head of a subordinate, or particularly early for something else?

 

[Riain]

Do you mean particularly early for the troops to be exhausted, particularly early for the theatre commander to be stepping in, or particularly early for something else?

You wrote:

I'm not sure if it was a militarily correct (or for that matter 'proper') thing to do, but there's a reference in Volume 4 of Churchill's Second World War memoirs to General Wavell ordering a withdrawal in Malaya a short time after a Japanese attack on January 7th, 1942.

I'm just pointing out that in the context of successful advances 4 weeks (Dec 8 to Jan 7) is not a short time, it can be an eternity.

 

[Look More Closely Later]

Ah.

You wrote:

I'm not sure if it was a militarily correct (or for that matter 'proper') thing to do, but there's a reference in Volume 4 of Churchill's Second World War memoirs to General Wavell ordering a withdrawal in Malaya a short time after a Japanese attack on January 7th, 1942.

I'm just pointing out that in the context of successful advances 4 weeks (Dec 8 to Jan 7) is not a short time, it can be an eternity.

Ah. I meant to indicate that Wavell seems to have ordered the withdrawal 'a short time' (my words) after the Japanese attack of January the 7th. Churchill gets a bit vague with his chronology, and I haven't been able to pin down exactly when Wavell ordered the withdrawal. All Churchill has on that is 'The retreat began on January 10.' (volume 4 (again), page 34.)

Edit:
I get the impression that the original timeline Malaya campaign seems to have been a series of relentless Japanese attacks and offensives, interspersed with confused Allied retreats, routs, withdrawals, and the odd holding action. Maybe that's not an accurate impression though, and the holding actions were more frequent.

 

[MattII]

Yes on the 14th the carriers were preparing to leave Palau. I guess what I am trying to day is that even if this convoy Was slaughtered then it's still not a perminant fix. For the Japanese a disastrous setback, yes. Yet within weeks they could return with more troops, more transports and with carriers. Without the allied ships having air cover, probably land based air cover since allied cv's were scarce on the ground, they cannot then hold.

If there were any oil wells in Sumatra, there likely aren't very many left by the time Japan makes a second go mind-you.

I believe this is ASB due to the PoD. The British by sept 1940 were already focused in defending britain. Thus, resources for Asia would not be prioritize.

It might be possible to prioritise them over Russia mind you, which would provide a significant boost.

They could, but it would be at the expense of some other operation, The Japanese were unable to deploy more than a token stratigic reserve & were shorting operations even with their sucess. ie: They tried to make up shortages for invading the DEI by moving Army units out of the Phillipines early, which slowed the advance in Bataan & eventually necessitated sending another division to Luzon. Which could have been used elsewhere.

At about that time OTL the Japanese launched the Indian Ocean Raid, so it might not cost them that much in terms of diverted resources.

 

[Namayan]

All of the British assumptions that the British will reallocate but the Japanese will not is counter intuitive. If the British do find ways to counter OTL Japan's moves, JApan certainly won't be doing and allocating the same resource as OTL. Too much British bias going there.

The Japanese are still a one ocean navy. Even with the adjustments made, The British are still split with resources not unless they want to give up the Atlantic to the Germans, thus making British isles vulnerable to invasion/no shipments coming from usa and the Meds to the Italians.

The Japanese invasion force in otl malaya is smaller than its counterparts and is just a token force when you look at what the Japanese total Japanese forces at that time.

With regards to Malaya and the philippines. Any delays in ATl philippines is not that much relevant. in otl Malaya and Singapore fell, It took months after that the Philippines fell to the Japanese. So even in ATl philippines held up its defense as planned, Malaya and Singapore would have still fallen.

 

[MattII]

All of the British assumptions that the British will reallocate but the Japanese will not is counter intuitive. If the British do find ways to counter OTL Japan's moves, JApan certainly won't be doing and allocating the same resource as OTL. Too much British bias going there.

Except the Japanese don't have a whole lot to reallocate, if they pull a force out of somewhere for a second attempt at Malaya, then somewhere else isn't going to get invaded for a while.

The Japanese invasion force in otl malaya is smaller than its counterparts and is just a token force when you look at what the Japanese total Japanese forces at that time.

Well wikipedia's the only place that gives real figures, and that quotes 70,000 troops to Malaya, but only 50,000 to the DEI, so no, Malaya wasn't hit with a token force.

With regards to Malaya and the philippines. Any delays in ATl philippines is not that much relevant. in otl Malaya and Singapore fell, It took months after that the Philippines fell to the Japanese. So even in ATl philippines held up its defense as planned, Malaya and Singapore would have still fallen.

If Malaya holds, then the Japanese have to reallocate, which takes troops away from later DEI operations.

 

[jsb]

..... Too much British bias going there...

The Japanese are still a one ocean navy. Even with the adjustments made, The British are still split with resources not unless they want to give up the Atlantic to the Germans, ........ and the Meds to the Italians....

So even in ATl philippines held up its defense as planned,...

1) Maybe
2) Japan may be a one ocean navy but she is still 60%/70% of both the RN and the USN alone rather than added up. So should be outnumbered by 20% of the RN and 50% of the USN if they can work together (and not get sunk in/off Singapore/pearl)
3) Not sure that the PI was planed to hold by anyone in the US outside of MacArthur's mind ? (and it would cut the supply lines, as soon as you had working subs based in Manila)