February 14th 1921, 1814hrs GMT
Bandon, County Cork
Ireland
Major Arthur Ernest Percival entered the restaurant. The warmth of it's inside granted him a respite from the cold rain that fell outside. A waitress approached Percival and showed him to his table. Because Percival was a regular patron of the restaurant, the owner ensured that there was a table reserved for him.
"No need for the menu" said Percival to the waitress as he settled down. "I'll be having the usual."
The waitress acknowledged Percival's order with a nod and went off to pass on his order to the cook. The 'usual' that Percival ordered was a dish of beef and potato. He never seemed to get tired of eating the same old thing day after day after day.
While Percival waited for his dinner to arrive. He made a mental note to himself to personally interrogate the two IRA terrorists his boys picked up earlier today. From what he knew so far, there was going to be another raid or bombing by the IRA. The problem was, he didn't know if it was the former or the latter. He also didn't know where and when it would take place. The least he could do was to heighten the unit's vigilance for the week ahead.
Percival's thoughts were interrupted by the shattering of glass, followed by a thud on the ground which came before an explosion. He was tipped backwards as the force of the blast and small pieces of shrapnel slammed into his body. As he lay on the ground, Percival heard screams and gunfire. Vision was blurred. The pain from the shrapnel wounds in Percival's chest crept up to him. The gunfire stopped as sudden as it started. Seconds later, three men surrounded the grieviously wounded commander of Bandon's security force.
"Is he the one we're looking for?" queried one of them to the other in thick Irish brogue.
"Yes, he's the one" said another one of the men.
"Good, let's finish him off and collect that £1000 bounty." said the man with the thick Irish brogue.
He took out a revolver, pointed it at Percival's temple and fired. Percival didn't feel anything. The last thing he heard was the sound of a slamming door. After that, darkness engulfed him.
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This is an excerpt from Singapore Slim: An Unofficial War Biography Of William J. Slim.
His performance at Staff College resulted in his appointment first to Army Headquarters India in Delhi and then to Staff College, Camberley in England (as a General Staff Officer, Second Grade), where he taught from 1934 to 1936.
Slim's teaching stint in the Staff College was abruptly interrupted by his appointment to Singapore as General Staff Officer, First Grade in 1936. He served as General Dobbie's Chief of Staff.*It was through a report that Slim wrote for Dobbie, then head of Malaya Command, that the former realized that Singapore was not the 'impregnable fortress' that it was reputed to be.*
The report, titled "Recommendations for the improvement of Singapore's defences", stated that for all of Singapore's seaward defences, she could be attacked over land through the Malayan peninsula. Conventional wisdom at that time stated that Malaya's dense jungles would prevent an invasion over land. To disprove that statement and to prove his point, Slim organized an excercise involving the jungle warfare trained troops of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and garrison troops. Through the excercise, he proved that Singapore was vulnerable to a land attack and that British troops needed to have jungle warfare capabilities to be able to counter such an invasion.
Slim also noted that the state of many of the troops in Singapore was a problem. Because of her status as a 'important but backwater colony', Singapore received a combination of low quality troops and aircraft to garrison the port. His recommendation that training regimes be implemented for the Army and RAF units stationed in Malaya fell on deaf ears; no one felt the need to train an army in a period of peace. Despite this, Slim was promoted to Colonel in recognition of his contributions to the building up of Singapore's defence plans.
On 8 June 1939, he was promoted to the tempoary rank of brigadier and appointed head of the Senior Officers' School at Belgaum, India. Within months from this date, the Second World War broke out. Slim would take away valuable lessons from the deserts of Africa that would help in the defence of Singapore.
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February 18th 1941
HQ Malaya Command
Command House, Singapore
Major General William Joseph Slim had been back in Singapore for barely a week and the amount of reports that told of neglect for Singapore’s defences was piling up on his desk. Abandonment of the Johore line courtesy of his predecessor Sir Lionel Bond, troops ill equipped to handle jungle warfare, refusal of the civilian authorities to construct miscellaneous military structures and the lack of coordination between the RAF and the Army. You name it, they were all there.
Of the reports he received, he found Bond’s cancellation of the construction of the Johore defences most confusing. This was because Bond advocated a close defence of Southern Johore, and the Singapore Island. That would have possibly included a defence line running from Mersing to Muar as the first obstacle to an invasion. Slim had totally no idea as to why Bond cancelled Dobbie’s pet project.
As for the other reports, they were just frightening. No one had followed the recommendations that Slim made in his report to Dobbie regarding the improvement of Singapore’s defences. The exercise conducted by him to prove that the jungle was not neutral probably didn’t get into the heads of anyone. His other recommendation to have training regimes for the garrison to enhance their readiness status was ignored as usual. RAF units in Singapore were still operating second grade aircraft and worse of all, there were no tanks.
A stroll in the city at night in civvies showed him the cause of all the lack of defences. Everyone was in the ‘Business as Usual’ mood. There were parties and orgies all over the place. Rationing and blackout regulations didn’t exist and his soldiers were roaming around the street drunk.
Evidently, the government was living in denial that there was a war going on and that there was a titanic life and death struggle on Europe and in the Mediterranean. Britannia’s colonies in the Far East were pretending that no war existed, apart from the odd recruitment drive and advertisements that told her subjects to support the war. When Slim got back to the Command House, he knew that a lot of work had to be done to undo many years worth of damage.
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Yes, I moved my Singapore Slim thread and retitled it. Comments? Critique?