No, wrong, I'm really puzzled by what you're saying here.
Yamashita only took Singapore by the skin of his teeth.
The incompetence of the British defense is the matter to which I allude.
If you need the specifics; that is a good start for it.
Now, in a scenario where Britain is not even at war in Europe, they're not going to be able to devote additional resources to Malaya and Singapore? Really?
Look, the RN was never going to be able to devote the forces required because of Italy in the Mediterranean Sea and what they felt they needed in home waters. In their
plans in 1938, the RN estimated a deployment equivalent to 2 SAGs and 1 CTF to defend Singapore as a deterrent. In numbers that is about 8 old BBs and 3-4 CVs. 6-8 CAs and 5-8 Cls plus about 40 or so DDs and auxiliaries.
They intended to bluff.
Japanese air and sea assault assets in the Sickle amounted to 1 SAG and 2 to 3 CTF raids. (Why the Kido Butai was important. Defeat the Americans at Hawaii, defeat the Australians at Darwin in the North Territories, defeat the British (Crushingly so, for Somerville on paper was Nagumo's match in all assets except in flattops.) in the Indian Ocean. He lost badly because British naval doctrine with regards to a major fleet action was not supported by adequate shore based air reconnaissance or by
a good shore control master plot. If the RN was caught up in the gross negligence, ineptitude and inefficiency which plagued the Allied command structures in East Asia in 1941 and 1942, it just comes down to the utter incompetence of Tom Phillips when he was the head honcho for the RN's equivalent of the USN's Warplans (OP-20-G). I am cutting neither Pound, his superior, or him any slack. They were the authors of the Singapore Bastion Defense and they set up Somerville for his own subsequent defeat.
Note, I am not cutting the USN any slack either, but that outfit's faults lay at Bu-Ord, Bu_Air, and Bu-ships. The actual fighting at the strategic and op-art level was outstanding. Tactics? Uhm… Let's say that it takes a year of war for the USN to figure it out. But the RN? Bolos across the board at the Op-art and strategic levels and Java Sea, Sri-Lanka and Andaman Islands kind of make me happy it was the USN and the Australians that fought the CTF engagements and later surface actions of CARTWHEEL. The RN was completely outclassed.
BTW as to force on force naval in the Sickle? Mainly Japanese RIKKOs and air power chasing off Allied surface squadrons. Force Z actions would negate the Bluff Fleet. That could fly out of Hainan Island and kibosh the RN in the South China Sea.
Everything else was convoy escort and land-based air covered. (About 300 aircraft, split between fighters and bombers. Yes that small a force!)
Look, Britain doesn't need to be able to whip the Kido Butai in the South China Sea! They just need to keep Japan from conquering all of Malaya and Singapore. To hold on until they can redeploy more forces and build up capabilities.
How? How can they cram more into the Singapore Bastion Defense Scheme? They already poured more into it, than they ever could long-term sustain or ever expected to deploy.
That's it.
Japan loses if it can't conquer Singapore.
Because so long as Britain can keep a foothold there, the Thais are not going to feel safe aligning with Japan. And, more to the point, it won't be able to secure the oil facilities in the DEI, which will all be in range of British air attack from RAF air bases in Singapore and southern Malaya. Even if they've magically conquered the Philippines at the same time.
How is Britain going to stop them? Oh, here is the Royal Navy? We also have 150,000 + troops in Malaysia and you only have 52,000? It does not work that way.
Where's your air cover? Where's your defense in depth? To hold Singapore it means the British have to extend out to deny the SLOCs all the way to Hainan Island. Guess who is the only one who has that kind of reach or the geographical position to do that? Better be nice to President Quezon and
not irritate General MacArthur.
The Marquess of Linlithgow (
Bengal famine of 1943) sure does not fit that bill, the asshole.
Guess what I 'think' the ultimate fail point of the whole ramshackle British position is?
C.W.H.Pulford. The RAF was the critical fail for the British in Malaya and frankly in Burma, too.
I am not talking about the 1938 Act, but the
1940 Act (the Vinson-Walsh Act). THAT was the one that authorized the avalanche.
The 1938 act was the kibosh to the naval treaties. After that, the brakes were off.
The 1938 buildout does create problems for Japan, and takes away all the advantage they'd built up in battleship construction; but it was the 1940 Act which was the recipe for total American naval dominance in the Pacific.
I argue that the 1940 act was unbalanced in that it did not provide enough ASW or fleet trains assets. Sometimes you need to think about the tail on the alligator. No tail and that alligator cannot move.
No, I don't see that at all. What triggers the war? FDR isn't going to launch war on Japan on his own hook. There simply wasn't the support in Congress for that.
Here. You'll have to go through the archives. Trace the mobilization history up to Pearl Harbor. Without consulting Congress, FDR acted to take and control sovereign territories of foreign states before formal states of war occurred. Specifically Greenland and Iceland were placed under defacto US control. I would not have put it past FDR to make "friendly arrangements" with the DEI and possibly Australia to fortify and reinforce them under a similar arrangement. The Japanese beat him to the punch in the DEI before the negotiations were complete.
Some think, the Curtin government came to such an "understanding" with the Americans anyway. Shrug. I think the Australians are one hello of a fine bunch of people who sort of swung that barn door; themserlves. They finally acted in their interests which after 1942 were not British interests. I count Coral Sea as the moment when that happened and when the UK ceased to matter in the Pacific War. Kind of harsh, but think about it? Sri Lanka is a defeat after the Singapore disaster. Coral Sea, right next to Australia is a victory. London lied to Canberra about Sri Lanka, and after so many other lies... what is Curtin now to do?
It was what it was.