BigDave1967
Banned
P-40s(with the Fighting Tigers in China and in Burma) could fight toe to toe with the best Japanese aircraft. Stupidly Japan didn't believe in putting armor on their fighter planes.
Save Singapore
- Thread starter Ris4history
- Start date
P-40s(with the Fighting Tigers in China and in Burma) could fight toe to toe with the best Japanese aircraft. Stupidly Japan didn't believe in putting armor on their fighter planes.
That's the key point there! Pre-War British planning assumed that if Italy entered the war on Germany's side the French would take the lead in the Med and if Japan subsequent joined in then the bulk of the RN Mediterranean Fleet would have been sent East to counter it. France's implosion and the resulting North Africa campaign meant that there weren't the forces to hold all theatres simultaneously. I can remember a discussion about the effects of Italian neutrality in which someone said that while Italy was an albatross around Germany's neck it was a big asset to Japan because it tied Britain down in the Med making Japan 's task easier.
It doesn't just render it highly vulnerable, I would argue by being able to use Sumatra as a base it would allow the Japanese to interdict the Strait of Malacca and render the Singapore Naval Base mostly useless. At that point a large part of the justification for defending it goes out the window. If you want to save Singapore then you also have to keep a fair section of the Malayan peninsula as well, if you want to save it as an effective base then either the Dutch or British need to hold Sumatra as well whilst doing that.
How many troops did the Italians contribute to regions like the Balkans or the Eastern Front though? I'm sure I can remember reading somewhere that it was a much larger number than the size of the Afrika Korps ever reached, to the extent that someone was arguing that overall it was Germany that let Italy down during the war. Now obviously simply counting bayonets isn't a completely true comparison since IIRC the DAK creamed off a larger percentage of trucks and vehicles in comparison to other formations of the Heer but if the Italians stay out the Germans have to replace them so it's swings and roundabouts.
As so many have said, with the NEI and Malaya not having the support bases to maintain their planes and ships, then Malaya and the NEI are doomed. What would have been needed would be a crash course in building up defenses as soon as Japan too over French Indo China. Build up the air bases, get more AA guns, and have troops trained for jungle fighting. Get more anti tank guns, machine guns, and artillery that can cover landing beaches. Newer and better trained pilots and bombardiers as well as newer planes. With that then it might be possible to hold Singapore, but Japan can always try to bring in more forces then the Allies might be able to commit.
I am afraid that is an utter fallacy. Singapore's guns were mainly in fully rotatable turrets that could shoot inland. Only one had a 180 degree arc that only covered seaward. Main issue was no AP ammo.
Not that coastal artillery would have mattered anyway. Lose Sumatra you lose Singapore. With the Japanese having such a large naval superiority in late 1941/early 1942, how are you going to stop them just dancing around and landing troops where they please in the NEI. You can't, in short, and that's why it all fell in the crapper.
David S Poepoe
Banned
I've read that the British lacked high explosive shells and all they had on hand were armour piercing.
http://www.avalanchepress.com/GunsOfSingapore.php
Entirely correct. The 9.2's had no HE either, only AP being manufactured in this caliber past the end of WW1.
I don't think Singapore could have been saved without a profound change in thinking and allocation of resources. Britain had already been at war with Germany for over two years by the time the Japanese attacked. Most resources that could be spared for overseas were sent to North Africa.
The number of prisoners shows that it wasn't lack of men. The problem was aircraft and the quality of the troops. It would have been difficult prior to December 1941 to justify sending significant air reinforcements to Malaya when the RAF was outnumbered in the Mediterranean and Malta was under siege.
Also Yamashita never called on the 55th Division to support him because it wasn't needed. Stronger British resistance would mean more Japanese come down the Peninsula.
BigDave1967
Banned
The World at War said that the Australian troops landed at Singapore right before the surrender to the Japanese weren't even trained. They landed and surrendered less than a week later.
The World at War said that the Australian troops landed at Singapore right before the surrender to the Japanese weren't even trained. They landed and surrendered less than a week later.
My grandfather was supposed to go to Singapore but his ship had a collision and had to return to the UK. The rest of the convoy went on to Singapore and into Japanese captivity.
The fall of singapore can be attributed to 5 factors.
1: Inadequte training. Percival personally vetoed proposals for training in jungle warfare. There was also at least one Indian Brigade deployed with no combat training of any kind. There was also a general shortage of specialist personel required for organising units above batallion level within the British Army as a whole at the time
2: Shortages of equipment and supplies, specifically communications equipment, armour, transportation and air cover. The Japansese had these, which allowed them the mobility and screening required to consistently outmanouvre the British and concentrate their forces. This was exacerbated by tenuous supply lines.
3: Poor leadership. A.E Percival was a coward, how can you expect a man who can't stand up to vested business interests to stand up to the enemy. Percival vetoed the building of a defensive line in Johore and Singapore itself on the grounds seeing their construction would be bad for civilian morale. What this reallly meant that it would upset the business community if locals were involved in the defenses, as this would rob them of large pool of unemployed that was necessary to keep the workforce disciplined and wages low.
4 Inadequate defences. Most of the preexisting emplacements were oriented in the wrong direct (seaward) against the wrong threat (a seaborne invasion). There was a chance of improving defences against the actual enemy line of advance but this was squandered due to point 3.
5 Lack of naval support for supplies, reinforcements, intervention etc.
The British outnumbered the Japanese throughout the campaign. The biggest immediate problem was point 3 but even a competent commander couldn't have held out without major changes to the course of the war elsewhere.
1: Inadequte training. Percival personally vetoed proposals for training in jungle warfare. There was also at least one Indian Brigade deployed with no combat training of any kind. There was also a general shortage of specialist personel required for organising units above batallion level within the British Army as a whole at the time
2: Shortages of equipment and supplies, specifically communications equipment, armour, transportation and air cover. The Japansese had these, which allowed them the mobility and screening required to consistently outmanouvre the British and concentrate their forces. This was exacerbated by tenuous supply lines.
3: Poor leadership. A.E Percival was a coward, how can you expect a man who can't stand up to vested business interests to stand up to the enemy. Percival vetoed the building of a defensive line in Johore and Singapore itself on the grounds seeing their construction would be bad for civilian morale. What this reallly meant that it would upset the business community if locals were involved in the defenses, as this would rob them of large pool of unemployed that was necessary to keep the workforce disciplined and wages low.
4 Inadequate defences. Most of the preexisting emplacements were oriented in the wrong direct (seaward) against the wrong threat (a seaborne invasion). There was a chance of improving defences against the actual enemy line of advance but this was squandered due to point 3.
5 Lack of naval support for supplies, reinforcements, intervention etc.
The British outnumbered the Japanese throughout the campaign. The biggest immediate problem was point 3 but even a competent commander couldn't have held out without major changes to the course of the war elsewhere.
And for how long, I doubt stopping that one convoy suddenly changes the whole game although given how much of a shoe string the Japanese were operating on, it would still be interesting to look into this further.
I read somewhere that British troops were forbidden from digging defensive emplacements on a golf course at one point although I will admit that could be one of those urban legends that gets passed around.
A month? the only comparable I am aware of is the March 1942 USN carrier raid on a Japanese convoy with the second lift of combat forces for their New Guinea invasion. Only one cargo ship was sunk, but the captains scattered the convoy fleeing the attack & area. It took 3-5 weeks to get the same cargo ships reorganized and to their destination.
The question is not how long the thwarting of the invasion of Sumatra would give the allies, but how long do they need. You know better than most the timings in this part of the war, Sommerville would be in the bay of Bengal 7 weeks after the invasion of sumatra. Is 7 weeks long enough to arrange another invasion considering all the other things that are happening?
Yeah. I originally wrote "indefensible" instead of "highly vulnerable", but then I considered that a powerful modern air defence system in southern Malaya might have have been able to suppressed Japanese air bases in Sumatra, and interdict their resupply, and kept Singapore as a viable base, in much the same way that Malta was an effective offensive base following the defeat of the Axis aerial attacks in May-June 1942. But, of course, Malta was still besieged and starving...