|
Singapore Japanese Invasion, December 1941-February 1942
By the summer of 1941, Japan's relations with the
Western
powers had deteriorated so much that Japanese leaders saw
no point
in delaying plans for military operations in Southeast
Asia and the
Pacific. Japan's short-term goal was to secure the
necessary
supplies to complete its conquest of China by occupying
the
Southeast Asian territories controlled by France, Britain,
the
United States, and the Netherlands. Japan's long-term
plans called
for further expansion south to Australia and north from
Manchuria
into the Soviet Union.
Japanese air and naval attacks on British and United
States
bases in Malaya and the Philippines were coordinated with
the
December 7, 1941, assault on the United States Pacific
Fleet
Headquarters at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Japan's Southern
Army,
headquartered in Saigon, quickly moved from bases in
southern
Indochina and Hainan to attack southern Thailand and
northern
Malaya on December 8 and the Philippines on December 10.
The
Japanese easily captured British air bases in northern
Malaya and
soon controlled the air and sea-lanes in the South China
Sea as far
south as the Strait of Malacca. Naval landings were made
on the
Thai coast at Singora (present-day Songkhla) and Patani
and on the
Malayan coast at Kota Baharu. Also on December 10, the
Japanese
located and destroyed the Prince of Wales and the
Repulse, thereby eliminating the only naval threat
to their
Malaya campaign. The Thai government capitulated to a
Japanese
ultimatum to allow passage of Japanese troops through
Thailand in
return for Japanese assurances of respect for Thailand's
independence. This agreement enabled the Japanese to
establish land
lines to supply their forces in Burma and Malaya through
Thailand.
The prediction that Japan would conquer the Malay
Peninsula
before attempting an invasion of Singapore proved to be
correct.
Lieutenant General Yamashita Tomoyuki was placed in
command of the
Twenty-fifth Army comprising three of the best Japanese
divisions.
The Japanese used tactics developed specifically for the
operation
in northern Malaya. Tanks were deployed in frontal
assaults while
light infantry forces bypassed British defenses using
bicycles or
boats, thereby interdicting British efforts to deliver
badly needed
reinforcements, ammunition, food, and medical supplies.
Cut off
from their supply bases in southern Malaya and Singapore,
demoralized by the effectiveness of Japan's jungle
warfare, and
with no possibility that additional ground or air units
would
arrive in time to turn the tide of battle, the British
withdrew to
Singapore and prepared for the final siege. The Japanese
captured
Penang on December 18, 1941, and Kuala Lumpur on January
11, 1942.
The last British forces reached Singapore on January 27,
1942, and
on the same day a 55-meter gap was blown in the causeway
linking
Singapore and Johore.
In January 1942, London had provided an additional
infantry
division and delivered the promised Hurricane fighter
aircraft,
although the latter arrived in crates and without the
personnel to
assemble them. In the battle for Singapore, the British
had the
larger ground force, with 70,000 Commonwealth forces in
Singapore
facing 30,000 Japanese. The Japanese controlled the air,
however,
and intense bombing of military and civilian targets
hampered
British efforts to establish defensive positions and
created chaos
in a city whose population had been swollen by more than a
million
refugees from the Malay Peninsula. Yamashita began the
attack on
February 8. Units of the Fifth and Eighteenth Japanese
Divisions
used collapsible boats to cross the Johore Strait,
undetected by
the British, to Singapore's northwest coast. By February
13, the
Japanese controlled all of the island except the heavily
populated
southeastern sector. General Percival cabled Field
Marshall Sir
Archibald Wavell, British Supreme Commander in the Far
East,
informed him that the situation was hopeless, and received
London's
permission to surrender. On February 15, one week after
the first
Japanese troops had crossed the Johore Strait and landed
in
Singapore, Percival surrendered to Yamashita
(see
fig. 13).
Data as of December 1989
|
