I would love to read your conjecture,
@jhungary .
From my own understanding and military analysis of the situation in British Malaya / Singapore during the formentioned time frame (1941-1942), most of the British Naval ships were recalled to defend Britain, leaving only 3 large warships to defend the British Orient. The battle cruiser Repulse was commanded by Captain W. G. Tennant, an older design but sported six 15" guns. The second ship was the battleship Prince of Wales, a ship practically fresh out of the docks (she was commissioned in March 1941), sporting ten 14" modern guns and good anti-aircraft defenses, but her total tonnage was limited by the treaty. The Prince of Wales was commanded by Captain J. C. Leach of the Royal Navy. The last large ship was the Indomitable, a 23,000-ton aircraft carrier with a compliment of 45 fighters. This force was designated "Force G" and sent underway to rendezvous in Singapore. These then were supported with 4 Destroyers and assorted smaller light destroyers.
During the Battle of Kuantan, these ships or otherwise known as "Force Z" were dispatched from Ceylon (Sri Lanka) to defend Singapore, only to turn aside and evade the Imperial Japanese Navy's Kido Butai during the initiating events. The 22nd Air Flotilla of the Nihon Kaigun (Imperial Japanese Navy) did spot the 2 capital ships, and were supported by a Destroyer Squadron. The HMS Repulse and her support destroyers were sunk during the engagement, with the HMS Prince of Whales , Britain's largest warship in the East, escaping into the Indian Ocean. It was later sunk by the Nihon Kaigun, as with other remaining Dutch vessels.
With naval supremacy, and practical air superiority, Japanese Operations into Singapore proper and Dutch Malaccas was ensured and could proceed unharassed. Thus the 25th Imperial Army , under command of Gen. Yamashita, supported by the Kaigun Tokubetsu Rikusentai (Imperial Naval Landing Force), and supported by the Emperor's Imperial Guards Division, initiated the pincer force attack / invasion of Singapore.
And in 7 days, the British Malaya Command was defeated. Over 138,000 British Soldiers yielded to the Imperial Army. It was, in British History, the most humiliating defeat of the British Empire.
I also would like to add some information for you and also to
@Lux de Veritas , who thinks that the Indians were not capable. During the Battle of the City of Jitra, the it was the 11th Indian Division that was tasked to defend the area of strategic interest. The 11th Indian Division was badly and poorly supplied, but managed to hold against what the Imperial Japanese Army considered its best , the Emperor's Imperial Guards Division. Despite being undermanned, poorly supplied and poorly armed, the 11th Indian Division managed to hold back advances of the Emperor's Imperial Guards Division for almost a day and a half.
A shift in tactics allowed the Japanese column to drive a deep wedge into the center of the British line of defense, and then the addition of a reinforcement force broke through the line. During the British retreat, there was much confusion due to the lack of a good communications system, and it was fueled by unorthodox tactics employed by the Japanese. I even read a book written by IJA veterans that noted how soldiers of the 11th Indian Division fought to the last man, many of whom were bayoneted to death by the Imperial Guards Division.
This is one thing that I admire about the Indians fighting spirit. While the British were keen to surrender en masse and English soldiers surrendered when enabled, Indians fought almost to the last man.
Was going to write an article on military intelligence today, but i would probably be wise to reply to your post first before i forgot to do so....hehe
Battle of Singapore is a well studied battle in Military Academy, when I was doing my OCS in the US, we have studied this battle in depth. Problem with the defence of Singapore was, it was a tiny island separated by a causeway from Malaya, therefore, there are no strategic depth you can talk of. Yes, indeed, in most of the case and most of the time, lack of depth can be easily compensated by a combine Naval and Air Power. but probably no then in WW2 and not with Royal Navy.
There is a belief that even the whole RN was to relocated to East Asia and fight the Japanese Navy, they would still lose as the RN was still a Battleship-centric Navy, while the IJN was more of a Carrier Centric Navy.
The RN at that time, would only have a tiny carrier force, much like the United States Navy, and the RN built their force on Battle Ship and Battle Cruiser like Nelson and Hood. It would be more than suffice when they face the Kriegsmarine, where their force is on U-boats and Fast battleship, but when you change it to the IJN, well, there are unilaterally no contest.
Imperial Japanese Navy is no doubt the best Navy at the start of WW2. With 11 Carrier Force and with equally strong battleship force, they are the reason why Japan can expand so quick during the first year of WW2 in the Pacific. Would there be a total RN and IJN engagement like the US did with the Japanese, I am pretty sure the Royal Navy would literally got blown out of the sea even if they devoted all their naval asset in the Pacific.
So, when you start the talking about the defence of Singapore, the Brits can takes Navy out of action. What left is the Strong Army and the joke of the Airforce.
So to defend Singapore, and to cover the lack of depth, you will need to start far from Singapore. Now, unlike other Island or places in the Pacific, Malaya is a not populated area, with low density city in the north, and you start getting population density below Kuala Lumpur, that is when an Army can take up a fight.
You see, whenever an invasion occur in a foreign land, the first thing you, as a defender to look at is to repel the landing, that's doesn't do well in Malaya as even with heavy resistance, without Navy and Air support. You cannot contest a landing. So what next is to prolong the defence so your enemy will starting to eat up their supply, that's when you strike, you try to hammer their supply line and impede their resupply. Cause when you impede their resupply, you impede the speed of the invasion, which buy you more time to learn from your mistake and bring up reinforcement.
Now, without a proper Navy and proper Air Force, it's impossible for the British to take advantage of the Japanese long supply line and try to hammer them. Even if they want to, what can they use to hammer the Japanese Supply line with? So to delay an invasion, hopefully buy time for you, you need to fight every inch and does not let goes with your momentum.
That was not the case in Malaya campaign. To be fair, that is the opposite of the case. The British High Command tried to resist the invasion in the early stage, But once the Japanese gone pass the Midland, the Brits was in tactical withdraw and abandoning big city like Kuala Lumpur and Malacca, both of which is easily defendable and can inflict heavy enemy casualty and also buy you the most time. Instead they put up a fight in Muar, which leads the Japanese unopposed to the gateway of Singapore. And the brits also pull out delay action such as Kampar but they decided not to continue with this in Kuala Lumpur and Malacca. Instead a tactical withdraw to Singapore.
Now, onto the Battle of Singapore itself, you started with nearly 90,000 defender versus about 36000 Japanese. Number wise you would think yeah, there is a tactical disadvantage for the Japanese. Well, truth is not necessarily so.
See, to defend an Island, you cannot just put 90,000 troop on one side and hope and prey that's where the enemy is attacking from, you need to spread them out so it will cover the whole island. And in the case with Singapore defence, virtually the Japanese attack can came from all direction, it could be from the beaches in the North East, or Mangrove in the North West, or you can even mount an sea-borne assault from the South, South East. So that 90,000 men must be spited to defend all 4 corners, while the Japanese can choose to attack just one.
That's would create a local force superiority for the Japanese in slight favour. What essentially happens was, by defending everywhere, you are weak everywhere, thus you are defending nowhere. Combine with the fact that they are fighting a losing battle from 2 months ago. Morale have to be in all time low. That's why the Brits surrender without even a fight.
So, in this sense, the Battle of Singapore is lost from the point they choose to bug instead of fighting in the midland, where they supposed to. When they reach the causeway, the battle was already over by then
but the fugly guy reminds me of a fukin zombie...
