1942, Singapore still stands

The capitulation of Singapore has been laid on the commander, Arthur Percival. The actual reasons are many, muddled chain of command, japanese air superiority and years of neglegted ground forces just to name few.

But what if Percival actually had been more gifted commander:


Japanese forces invade Malay in December 1941, Commander of the Commonwealth Forces realizses after few clashes that Malay cannot be held and orders evacuation of air and ground forces south to Singapore while mounting delaying operation with rear guard.

By the beginning of January Japanese reach Johore strait and prepare to take Singapore. Commkonwealth units, while shaken and harassed from the air are still coherent fighting force. Meanwhile their leader has gathered uppred echelon for final conference before pending invasion. Feathers are smoothed (or roughed if needed), but in the end the Dutch, New Zealand and British forces are gathered under unified command.

25. January Japanese assault Sarimbun Beach, after 20 hours of intensive fighting and commitment of 2 brigades from the 11. Division the assault is repulsed. While artillery and air bombardmend continue, Singapore still stands.

Now what happens? As long as ammunition holds Singapore stands a good chance of fighting of another assault. British pre-war planning calls for a naval task force to relief, but are hardly in a position to send one. Singapore would have tremendous prestige, Japanese are not able to just seal it and leave it sitting nor is Churchill just going to abandon it.

How would the Pacific War proceed if Singapore would have held?
 
This is one of my little bugbears, a search back through the threads will show you how often this comes up.

But never letting a chance go by I blame everything on Percival, except what I blame on Phillips. After 2 years of war in europe he should have made the absolute most of what he did have, which in my opinion would be enough to stall the Japanese some way short of the Jahore St. by about Feb 14, the day IOTL where the IJA was contemplating withdrawal due to lack of supplies.

As for Phillips, his ships could have been the core of a powerful ABDA fleet which could have intervened decisively in the invasion of Sumatra or the Battle of the Java Sea if he hadn't thrown them away by ignoring the hard lessons of 2 years of naval war.

My conception, for which I may eventually write a TL for, is for a successful delaying campaign down the peninsula while Foprce Z rendevous with other RN/RAN and ABDA units. The IJA stalls in southern Malaya on Feb 14, and that night the ADBA naval forces intercept and destroy the invasion of Sumatra. At this point the Pacific war will have to change. Will Nagumo still bomb Darwin and do the IO raid or will he hunt down Force Z/ABDA and bomb the defenders in Singapore? And where does that leave him with respect to Sommerville's appearence in the IO in early April. Can Sommerville last long enough for the Dolittle riad and Cortal Sea to divert IJN attention? It never ends.
 
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Must Make Singapore Into REAL Fortress

You need another, rather earlier, step - the defenses of Singapore needed to be built up ALOT. It was strictly a fortress on paper. Otherwise, how will they live through the Japanese air and sea attacks, much less fight back?

To me, this was a serious cost of Empire. If you don't let people govern themselves, they won't grumble about the non-fortified fortress the war plan calls for them to keep as a center of defense. Instead you get those chosen to serve in the sticks, and no local willingness to point out obvious problems.

The thing isn't impossible, but it will take extra work.
 

Hendryk

Banned
You need another, rather earlier, step - the defenses of Singapore needed to be built up ALOT. It was strictly a fortress on paper. Otherwise, how will they live through the Japanese air and sea attacks, much less fight back?
My opinion as a layman is that Singapore would likely hold if it manages to repulse the initial land attack, which could have been done with the existing defenses. The Japanese forces had stretched their logistical chain to the limit, and were running low on critical supplies.
 

Markus

Banned
You need another, rather earlier, step - the defenses of Singapore needed to be built up ALOT. It was strictly a fortress on paper. Otherwise, how will they live through the Japanese air and sea attacks, much less fight back?

Repulsing a „Japanese“ ground attack is not difficult at all. The IJA was very bad at attacking fixed defences; they lacked the doctrine and the firepower. Assuming the Empire Troops are mostly second rate, with some first rate units(Australians), all you need to do is dig interconnected lines of trenches like in WW1, put the second rate troops inside them and have first rate troops in reserve for quick counterattacks. Even second rate troops will be well armed by Japanese standards and skilled enough to hold a well fortified, fixed position with secure flanks. The light artillery (10cm and smaller) won´t do much damage, just like air raids are not doing much damage if the target is camouflaged and dug in.

How do you fight back? If Singapore has not fallen, Sumatra will be under allied control. Meaning you can support Singapore form there.

By the way, anybody but me waiting for CalBear´s Operation Blazer to finally relief Singapore? ;)


Edit: IMO the empire forces in Malay were adequate for crushing the invasion in the early stages even without Operation Matador, if only they had taken the Japanese a bit more serious and solved the many, many organisational problems in their command structure.
 
Probably a few small things would have made a huge difference.

Get rid of Percival in place of someone who has a bit of sense.
While we are at it, dont give an admiral whos been at the Admiralty all war the command of the pacific fleet - give it to someone whos had experience of naval air, after all you know thats how the Japanese are going to attack your ships! The sinking of Force Z was a big blow to morale.
Train the troops that are there properly - yes, they might not have been 1st rate, but they could have been improved considerably by a few simple changes. Import some tanks from the Middle East - plenty there that arent any use againt the Africa Korps, but will do fine in asia. Have the tropps train with them, so they arent scared by tanks, and have them in support. Have the troops train in the jungle. Have a strict scorched earth policy to deny the Japanese supplies.
Evacuate civilians from Singapore as early and as often as possible. Teach the rest just what is involved in standing a seige.

While more euipment et all would help, the above (the only equipment is some obsolescent tanks) wouldnt really cost anything, and would IMO have held Singapore, the added resistance causing the Japanese to run out of supplies. Now the Japanese could reinforce, but then so can the British.
 
Probably a few small things would have made a huge difference.

While we are at it, dont give an admiral whos been at the Admiralty all war the command of the pacific fleet - give it to someone whos had experience of naval air, after all you know thats how the Japanese are going to attack your ships! The sinking of Force Z was a big blow to morale.

Frankly, before late 1941 nobody knows how the Japanese are going to attack ships, at sea or port. Also Prince of Wales and Repulse were sunk by land based aircraft IIRC.

One easy change would be ensuring that the 15in guns that are emplaced about Singapore have high explosive shells rather than just armour piercing.
 
Frankly, before late 1941 nobody knows how the Japanese are going to attack ships, at sea or port. Also Prince of Wales and Repulse were sunk by land based aircraft IIRC.

One easy change would be ensuring that the 15in guns that are emplaced about Singapore have high explosive shells rather than just armour piercing.

Actually they did have a pretty good idea they would attack at sea - after all, if nothing else there is the example of Norway and the Mediterranean. Just a shame Phillips didnt bother to learn them himself.

And I believe the guns did have HE, apparently the 'only anti-ship' role is a myth.
 

Markus

Banned
Frankly, before late 1941 nobody knows how the Japanese are going to attack ships, at sea or port. Also Prince of Wales and Repulse were sunk by land based aircraft IIRC.

Highly unlikely! so much info about japanese airpower was readily available -even very good estimates of the Zero´s performance- but discounted for racist reasons. I doubt the ability of Bettys and Nells to carry torpedoes was unknown. In fact the Brits had their own twin engined, land based torpedo bomber.
 
Highly unlikely! so much info about japanese airpower was readily available -even very good estimates of the Zero´s performance- but discounted for racist reasons. I doubt the ability of Bettys and Nells to carry torpedoes was unknown. In fact the Brits had their own twin engined, land based torpedo bomber.

The capability of the Japanese aircraft were probably known, to a degree depending upon reports. But nobody knew, for sure, that the Japanese were going to be attacking British and American positions in December 1941.
 
The capability of the Japanese aircraft were probably known, to a degree depending upon reports. But nobody knew, for sure, that the Japanese were going to be attacking British and American positions in December 1941.

So all those commonwealth troops in Malaya were there for a nice winter vacation, then? :rolleyes::rolleyes:
 

Redbeard

Banned
Percival indeed wasn't a bright example of active leadership, but comtributing probably also was that he considered the battle lost beforehand, because of decisions taken by his superiors - and to a degree he had a point.

First Churchill repeatedly through 1941 refused to send reinforcements to Malaya and Singapore, so that the forces there could come closer to what was required in the defenceplan (Matador) - no matter that the Imperial General Staff recommended reinforcements. Churchill wanted all efforts focussed in the Med. and hoped for a great victory in 1941.

Next Percival's immediate superior Brooke-Popham (Commander Far East) had been striclty instructed by Churchill in the weeks before 7th of December 1941 that he should not take actions that could lead to war with Japan. Only a few days before the Japanese attack did he recieve authority to initiate Matador without previous permission from London. Brooke-Popham did recieve intelligence on Japanese transport fleets, and in combination with the intell. mentioned in a post above about the date of an attack (but they didn't know where) Brooke-Popham in 20/20 hindsight would have had the option of initiating Matador.

That would have meant invading Thai teritory on the Isthmus of Kra, but would have put the British and Commonwealth forces in a very favourable defensive position. The geography of 1941 Malaya was so that the only realistic accesroute to Malaya from the South China Sea side was down the narrow Isthmus of Kra, the east and north coast of malay wasn't connected to the west coast by any major roads, but once into the western areas of Malaya an attacker would be on a dense road net and it would require bigger forces than the British had to stop an attacker.

This was all acknowledged in Matador, so when Brooke-Popham did not initiate Matador when he had the chance, Percival was in a situation that his own official plans descibed as hopeless.

IMHO a good commander should never give up or sink into apathy. Slowing the Japanse as much as possible down the peninsula and utilising the time to prepare a tough defense of Singapore itself was what should be expacted as was, also by Churchill. In this context refusing the building of field fortifications in order not to worry the civilians IMO was criminal neglect, as was not having the numerous and heavy guns supplied with HE ammo - it is a myth that they couldn't cover the land side - but they only had AP ammo.

The Japanese army that reached Singapore in Feburary 42 was exhausted and with siege artillery - a well prepared and motivated defence could very well have stopped an assault, and valuable time would have been won to bring in reinforcements - but probably with heavy casualties among the civilian population in the meantime. We know that by April 42 the British had several Brigades and landing capacity available in the Indian Ocean. If the British beat back the first assault - time will be working on their side, and the Japanse will be in a terrible position, as their entire presence in SEA is in danger as long as they don't have Singapore.

Regards

Steffen Redbeard
 
Percivals biggest failing is not making the most of what he had to do the job he was asked, that is hold the Japanese until reveiled. That relief was half-arsed but did appear, in the form 1 division, 50 Hurricanes and Sommerville's fleet. I think that if the British effort failed after this relief then that is fair enough, buit they were strong enough to survive on land until Sommerville arrived.

Someone mentioned how Sumatra was captured, meaning that Singapore was untennable. Phillips' Force Z, reinforced by other RN/RAN units including Exeter and Perth, was easily strong enough to destroy the invasion of Sumatra convoy, even though it was covered by the carrier Ryujo. But of course Phillips stupidly threw his ships away.

I easily can see a scenario whereby on Feb 15 the IJA is stalled in southern Malaya and Sumatra is in allied hands, despite a Japanese para company needing to be cleared up. At this point the Japanese have too many decisions and not enough forces, moving their dilemma point forward by many months.
 
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