Singapore strategy
Encyclopedia
The Singapore strategy was a strategy of the British Empire
between 1919 and 1941. It was a series of war plans that evolved over a twenty year period to deter or defeat aggression by the Empire of Japan
by basing a fleet of the Royal Navy
at Singapore
. Ideally, this fleet would be able to intercept and defeat a Japanese force heading south towards India or Australia. Such a fleet required a well-equipped base and Singapore was chosen as the most suitable location in 1919. Work continued on a naval base and its defences over the next two decades.
The Singapore strategy envisaged that a war with Japan would have three phases: while the garrison of Singapore defended the fortress, the fleet would make its way from home waters to Singapore, sally to relieve or recapture Hong Kong
, and blockade the Japanese home islands in order to force Japan to accept terms. The idea of invading Japan was rejected as impractical. Nor did British naval planners expect that the Japanese would willingly fight a decisive battle against the odds. However, they were aware of the impact of a blockade on an island nation at the heart of a maritime empire, and felt that economic pressure would suffice.
The Singapore strategy was the cornerstone of British Imperial defence policy in the Far East
during the 1920s and 1930s. By 1937, according to Captain
Stephen Roskill
, "the concept of the 'Main Fleet to Singapore' had, perhaps through constant repetition, assumed something of the inviolability of Holy Writ". A combination of financial, political and practical difficulties ensured that it could not be implemented. During the 1930s, the strategy came under sustained criticism in Britain and abroad, particularly in Australia, where the Singapore strategy was used as an excuse for parsimonious defence policies. The strategy ultimately led to the despatch of Force Z
to Singapore and the sinking of the Prince of Wales and Repulse
by Japanese air attack on 10 December 1941. The subsequent ignominious fall of Singapore was described by Winston Churchill
as "the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history".
's High Seas Fleet
that had challenged the Royal Navy
for supremacy was scuttled in Scapa Flow
in 1919. However, the Royal Navy was already facing serious challenges to its position as the world's most powerful fleet from two of its former allies, the United States Navy
and the Imperial Japanese Navy
. The United States' determination to create what Admiral of the Navy
George Dewey
called "a navy second to none" presaged a new maritime arms race
.
The US Navy was smaller than the Royal Navy in 1919, but ships laid down under its wartime construction program were still being launched, and their more recent construction gave the American ships a technological edge. The "two-power standard" of 1889 had called for a Royal Navy strong enough to take on any two other powers. In 1909, this had been scaled back to a policy of 60% superiority in dreadnought
s. Rising tensions over the US Navy's building program led to heated arguments between the First Sea Lord
, Admiral Sir Rosslyn Wemyss, and the Chief of Naval Operations
Admiral
William S. Benson
in March and April 1919. In 1920, the First Lord of the Admiralty Sir Walter Long announced a "one-power standard", under which the policy was to maintain a navy "not ... inferior in strength to the Navy of any other power". The one-power standard became official when it was publicly announced at the 1921 Imperial Conference
.
As far back as 1909 the government had directed that the United States was not to be regarded as a potential enemy. This decision was reaffirmed by Cabinet
in August 1919 in order to preclude the US Navy's building program from becoming a justification for Admiralty
initiating one of its own. Unlike the United States, Britain prepared no formal plans for a war against its ally, but naval strategists did consider the possibility. A war with the United States was expected to be primarily maritime in nature, since the two nations were separated by the Atlantic Ocean. However, no amount of sea power could prevent Canada from being overrun, and while the Royal Navy could bombard and raid the United States' coasts and cut off its maritime trade, this was not thought to give Britain a decisive advantage. On the other hand, if the United States obtained a lodgement
in Europe and did the same thing, it would be, in the words of Rear Admiral
Herbert Richmond
, "a very bad situation indeed".
The Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom and the Dominions
met at the 1921 Imperial Conference to determine a unified international policy, particularly the relationship with the United States and Japan. The most urgent issue was that of whether or not to renew the Anglo-Japanese Alliance
, which was due to expire on 13 July 1921. On one side were the Prime Minister of Australia
, Billy Hughes
, and the Prime Minister of New Zealand
, Bill Massey, who strongly favoured its renewal. Neither wanted their countries to be caught up in a war between the United States and Japan, and contrasted the generous assistance that Japan had rendered during the First World War with the United States' disengagement from international affairs in its aftermath. "The British Empire", declared Hughes, "must have a reliable friend in the Pacific". They were opposed by the Prime Minister of Canada
, Arthur Meighen
, on the grounds that the alliance would adversely affect the relationship with the United States, which Canada depended upon for its security. As a result, no decision to renew was reached, and the alliance was allowed to expire.
In 1919, Cabinet had propounded the "ten-year rule
", which held that, for planning purposes, no major war could be expected for ten years. In 1928, with the period of the ten-year rule about to expire, the Chancellor of the Exchequer
, Winston Churchill
, persuaded Cabinet to automatically renew the rule each year. The Washington Naval Treaty
in 1922 provided for a 5:5:3 ratio of capital ships of the British, United States and Japanese navies. Throughout the 1920s, the Royal Navy remained the world's largest navy, with a comfortable margin of superiority over Japan, which was regarded the most likely adversary. It was the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria that prompted the government to rescind the ten-year rule in 1932. Germany's willingness to limit the size of its navy, which led to the Anglo-German Naval Agreement
of 1935, was seen as signalling a sincere desire to avoid conflict with Britain. The provisions of the London Naval Treaty
of 1930 however restricted naval construction, resulting in a serious decline in the British shipbuilding industry.
The First Sea Lord, Sir Ernle Chatfield
, began in 1934 to press for a new naval build-up sufficient to fight both Japan and the strongest European power. He intended to accelerate construction to the maximum capacity of the shipyards. The Treasury soon became alarmed at the potential cost of the program, which was costed at between £88 and £104 million. By 1938, the Treasury was losing its fight to stop rearmament; politicians and the public were more afraid of being caught unprepared for war with Germany and Japan than of a major financial crisis in the more distant future.
, had asked Admiral Lord Jellicoe to draw up a scheme for the Empire's naval defence. Jellicoe set out on a tour of the Empire in the battlecruiser
in February 1919. He presented his report to the Australian government in August 1919. In a secret section of the report, he advised that the interests of the British Empire and Japan would inevitably clash. He called for the creation of a British Pacific Fleet strong enough to counter the Imperial Japanese Navy, which he believed would require 8 battleships, 8 battlecruisers, 4 aircraft carrier
s, 10 cruiser
s, 40 destroyer
s, 36 submarines and supporting auxiliaries.
Although he did not specify a location, Jellicoe noted that the fleet would require a major dockyard somewhere in the Far East. A paper entitled "The Naval Situation in the Far East" was considered by the Committee of Imperial Defence
in October 1919. In this paper the naval staff pointed out that maintaining the Anglo-Japanese Alliance
might lead to war between the British Empire and the United States. In 1920, the Admiralty issued War Memorandum (Eastern) 1920, a series of instructions in the event of a war with Japan. In it, the defence of Singapore was described as "absolutely essential". The strategy was presented to the Dominions
at the 1923 Imperial Conference.
War Memorandum (Eastern) 1920 envisaged that a war with Japan would have three phases. In the first phase, the garrison of Singapore would defend the fortress while the fleet made its way from home waters to Singapore. Next, the fleet would sally from Singapore and relieve or recapture Hong Kong
. The final phase would see the fleet blockade Japan and force it to accept terms.
Most planning focused on the first phase, which was seen as the most critical. This phase involved construction of defence works for Singapore. For the second phase, a naval base capable of supporting a fleet was required. While the United States had constructed a graving dock capable of taking battleship
s at Pearl Harbor
between 1909 and 1919, the Royal Navy had no such base east of Malta
. In April 1919, the Plans Division of the Admiralty
produced a paper which examined possible locations for a naval base in the Pacific in case of a war with the United States or Japan. Hong Kong was considered but regarded as too vulnerable, while Sydney
was regarded as secure but too far from Japan. Singapore
emerged as the best compromise location.
The estimate of the time that it would take for the fleet to reach Singapore after the outbreak of hostilities varied over time, and included the time to assemble, prepare and provision the ships. Initially, the estimate was 42 days, assuming reasonable advance warning. In 1938, it was increased to 70 days, with 14 more for reprovisioning. It was further increased in June 1939 to 90 days plus 15 for reprovisioning. Then in September 1939 it was set at 180 days.
To facilitate this movement, a series of oil storage facilities were constructed at Gibraltar
, Malta
, Port Said
, Port Sudan
, Aden
, Colombo
, Trincomalee
, Rangoon, Singapore and Hong Kong. A complicating factor was that the battleships could not traverse the Suez Canal
fully laden, so they would have to refuel on the other side. It was planned that Singapore would have storage for 1250000 LT of oil. Secret bases were established at Kamaran Bay
, Addu Atoll
and Nancowry
. It was estimated that the fleet would require 110000 LT of oil per month, which would be transported in 60 tankers
. Oil would be shipped in from the refineries
at Abadan
and Rangoon, supplemented by buying up the entire output of the Netherlands East Indies.
The third phase received the least consideration, but naval planners were aware that Singapore was too far from Japan to provide an adequate base for operations close to Japan. Moreover, the further the fleet proceeded from Singapore, the weaker it would become. If American assistance was forthcoming, there was the prospect of Manila
being used as a forward base. The idea of invading Japan and fighting its armies on its own soil was rejected as impractical. Nor did the naval planners expect that the Japanese would willingly fight a decisive battle against the odds. However, British naval planners were aware of the impact of a blockade on an island nation at the heart of a maritime empire, and felt that economic pressure would suffice.
Japan's vulnerability to blockade was studied. Using information supplied by the Board of Trade
and the naval attaché in Tokyo, the planners estimated that the British Empire accounted for around 27 per cent of Japan's imports. In most cases these imports could be replaced from sources in China and the United States. However, certain critical materials for which Japan relied heavily on imports were identified, including metals, machinery, chemicals, oil and rubber, and many of the best sources of these were under British control. Japan's access to neutral shipping could be restricted by refusing insurance to ships trading with Japan, and chartering ships to reduce the number of ships available for trade with Japan.
The problem with enforcing a close blockade with ships was that warships loitering off the coast of Japan would be vulnerable to attack by aircraft and submarines. Blockading Japanese ports with small ships was a possibility, but this would first require the destruction or neutralisation of the Japanese fleet, and it was far from certain that the Japanese fleet would place itself in a position where it could be destroyed. A plan was adopted for a more distant blockade, whereby ships bound for Japan would be intercepted as they passed through the East Indies
or the Panama Canal
. This would not cut off Japan's trade with China or Korea, and probably not with the United States either. The effectiveness of such a blockade was therefore questionable.
Rear Admiral Sir Herbert Richmond
, the Commander in Chief, East Indies Station
, noted that the logic was suspiciously circular:
The 1919 plans incorporated a Mobile Naval Base Defence Organisation (MNBDO) which could develop and defend a forward base. The MNBDO had a strength of 7,000 and included a brigade
of antiaircraft artillery, a brigade of coastal artillery
and a battalion
of infantry, all drawn from the Royal Marines
. In one paper exercise, the Royal Marines occupied Nakagusuku Bay
unopposed and the MNBDO developed a major base there from which the fleet blockaded Japan. Actual fleet exercises were conducted in the Mediterranean in the 1920s to test the MNDBO concept. However, the Royal Marines were not greatly interested in amphibious warfare
, and lacking organisational backing, the techniques and tactics of amphibious warfare began to atrophy. By the 1930s the Admiralty was concerned that the United States and Japan were well ahead of Britain in this field and persuaded the Army and RAF to join with it in establishing the Inter-Service Training and Development Centre
, which opened in July 1938. Under its first commandant, Captain Loben Edward Harold Maund, it began investigating the problems of amphibious warfare, including the design of landing craft
.
Nor was this the only field in which the Royal Navy was lagging in the 1930s. In the 1920s, Colonel the Master of Sempill led a semi-official mission
to Japan to help the Imperial Japanese Navy establish an air arm. At the time the Royal Navy was the world leader in naval aviation. The Sempill mission taught advanced techniques such as carrier deck landing, conducted training with modern aircraft, and provided engines, ordnance and technical equipment. Within a decade, Japan had overtaken Britain. The Royal Navy pioneered the armoured flight deck, which enabled carriers to absorb damage, but resulted in limiting the number of aircraft that a carrier could operate. The Royal Navy had great faith in the ability of ships' antiaircraft batteries, and so saw little need for high performance fighters. To maximise the benefit of the small numbers of aircraft that could be carried, the Royal Navy developed multi-role aircraft such as the Blackburn Roc
, Fairey Fulmar
, Fairey Barracuda
, Blackburn Skua
and Fairey Swordfish
. As a result, the Royal Navy's aircraft were no match for their Japanese counterparts.
The possibility of Japan taking advantage of a war in Europe was foreseen. In June 1939, the Tientsin Incident
demonstrated another possibility: that Germany might attempt to take advantage of a war in the Far East. In the event of a worst-case scenario of simultaneous war with Germany, Italy and Japan, two approaches were considered. The first was to reduce the war to one against Germany and Japan only by knocking Italy out of the conflict as quickly as possible. The former First Sea Lord, Sir Reginald Drax
, who was brought out of retirement to advise on strategy, called for a "flying squadron" of four or five battleships, along with an aircraft carrier, some cruisers and destroyers, to be sent to Singapore. Such a force would be too small to fight the Japanese main fleet, but could protect British trade in the Indian Ocean against commerce raiders. Drax argued that a small, fast force would be better in this role than a large, slow one. When more ships became available, it could become the nucleus of a full-sized battle fleet. Chatfield, now Minister for Coordination of Defence
, disagreed with this concept. He felt that the flying squadron would become nothing more than a target for the Japanese fleet. Instead, he proposed that the Mediterranean be abandoned and the fleet sent to Singapore.
Following surveys, a site at Sembawang
was chosen for a naval base. The Straits Settlements
made a free gift of 2845 acres (1,151.3 ha) of land for the site. A sum of £250,000 for construction of the base was donated by Hong Kong in 1925. That exceeded the United Kingdom's contribution that year of £204,000 towards the floating dock. Another £2,000,000 was paid by the Federated Malay States
, and New Zealand
donated another £1,000,000. The contract for construction of the naval dockyard was awarded to the lowest bidder, Sir John Jackson Limited, for £3,700,000. The dockyard covered 21 square miles (54.4 km²) and had what was then the largest dry dock in the world, the third-largest floating dock, and enough fuel tanks to support the entire Royal Navy for six months.
To defend the naval base, heavy 15-inch naval guns were stationed at Johore battery
, Changi, and at Buona Vista
to deal with battleships. Medium BL 9.2 inch guns were provided for dealing with smaller attackers. Batteries of smaller calibre anti-aircraft guns and guns for dealing with raids were located at Fort Siloso
, Fort Canning
and Labrador
. Four of the five 15-inch guns were given an all-round (360°) traverse and subterranean magazines. Aviation was not neglected. Plans called for an air force of 18 flying boat
s, 18 reconnaissance fighters
, 18 torpedo bomber
s and 18 single-seat fighters to protect them. Royal Air Force
airfields were established at RAF Tengah and RAF Sembawang. Lord Trenchard argued that 30 torpedo bombers could replace the 15-inch guns. The First Sea Lord, Admiral of the Fleet Lord Beatty
, did not agree. A compromise was reached whereby the guns would be installed, but the issue was reconsidered when better torpedo planes became available. Test firings of 15-inch and 9.2-inch guns at Malta and Portsmouth
in 1926 indicated that greatly improved shells were required if the guns were to have a chance of hitting a battleship.
The King George VI dry dock was formally opened by the Governor of the Straits Settlements, Sir Shenton Thomas
, on 14 February 1938. Two squadrons of the Fleet Air Arm
provided a flypast
. The 42 vessels in attendance included three US Navy cruisers. The presence of this fleet gave an opportunity to conduct a series of naval, air and military exercises. The aircraft carrier was able to sail undetected to within 135 miles (217.3 km) of Singapore and launch a series of surprise raids on the RAF airfields. The local air commander, Air Vice-Marshal
Arthur Tedder, was greatly embarrassed. The local land commander, Major-General
Sir William Dobbie
, was no less disappointed by the performance of the anti-aircraft defences. Reports recommended the installation of radar
on the island, but this was not done until 1941. The naval defences worked better, but a landing party from was still able to capture the Raffles Hotel
. What most concerned Dobbie and Tedder was the possibility of the fleet being bypassed entirely by an overland invasion of Malaya
from Thailand
. Dobbie conducted an exercise in southern Malaya which demonstrated that the jungle was far from impassable. The Chiefs of Staff Committee
concluded that the Japanese would most likely land on the east coast of Malaya and advance on Singapore from the north.
government of Stanley Bruce
latched onto the Singapore strategy, which called for a reliance on the British navy, supported by a naval squadron as strong as Australia could afford. Between 1923 and 1929, £20,000,000 was spent on the Royal Australian Navy
(RAN), while the Australian Army
and the munitions industry received only £10,000,000 and the fledgling Royal Australian Air Force
(RAAF) just £2,400,000. The policy had the advantage of pushing responsibility for Australian defence onto Britain. Unlike New Zealand, Australia declined to contribute to the cost of the base at Singapore. In petitioning a parsimonious government for more funds, the Australian Army had to refute the Singapore strategy, "an apparently well-argued and well-founded strategic doctrine that had been endorsed at the highest levels of imperial decision-making".
An alternative policy was put forward in 1923 by Australian Labor Party
, which was in opposition
for all but two years of the 1920s and 1930s. It called for Australia's first line of defence to be a powerful air arm, supported by a well-equipped Army that could be rapidly expanded to meet an invasion threat. This, in turn, required a strong munitions industry. Labor politicians cited critics like Rear Admiral
William Freeland Fullam, who drew attention to the vulnerability of warships to aircraft, naval mine
s and submarine
s. The Labor Party's Albert Green noted in 1923 that when a battleship of the day cost £7,000,000 while an aircraft cost £2,500, there was a genuine cause for concern as to whether the battleship was a better investment than hundreds of aircraft, if the aircraft could sink battleships. The Labor Party's policy became indistinguishable from the Army's position.
In September 1926, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Wynter
gave a lecture to the United Services Institute
of Victoria entitled "The Strategical Inter-relationship of the Navy, the Army and the Air Force: an Australian View", which was published in the April 1927 edition of British Army Quarterly. In this article Wynter argued that war was most likely to break out in the Pacific at a time when Britain was involved in a crisis in Europe, which would prevent Britain from sending sufficient resources to Singapore. He contended that Singapore was vulnerable, especially to attack from the land and the air, and argued for a more balanced policy of building up the Army and RAAF rather than relying on the RAN. "Henceforward," wrote Australian official historian Lionel Wigmore, "the attitude of the leading thinkers in the Australian Army towards British assurances that an adequate fleet would be sent to Singapore at the critical time was (bluntly stated): 'We do not doubt that you are sincere in your beliefs but, frankly, we do not think you will be able to do it.
Frederick Shedden
wrote a paper putting the case for the Singapore strategy as a means of defending Australia. He argued that since Australia was also an island nation, it followed that it would also be vulnerable to a naval blockade. If Australia could be defeated without an invasion, the defence of Australia had to be a naval one. Colonel John Lavarack
, a fellow student of Shedden's in the Imperial Defence College class of 1928, disagreed. Lavarack responded that the vast coastline of Australia would make a naval blockade very difficult, and its considerable internal resources meant that it could resist economic pressure. When Richmond attacked the Labor Party's position in an article in British Army Quarterly in 1933, Lavarack wrote a rebuttal. In 1936, the leader of the opposition John Curtin
read an article by Wynter in the House of Representatives
. Wynter's outspoken criticism of the Singapore strategy led to his transfer to a junior post. Soon after the outbreak of war with Germany on 3 September 1939, Prime Minister
Robert Menzies
appointed a British officer, Lieutenant General Ernest Squires
, to replace Lavarack as Chief of the General Staff. Within months, the Chief of the Air Staff was replaced with a British officer as well.
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With war with Germany now a reality, Menzies sent Richard Casey
to London to seek reassurances about the defence of Australia in the event that Australian forces were sent to Europe or the Middle East. In November, Australia and New Zealand were given reassurances that Singapore would not be allowed to fall, and that in the event of war with Japan, the defence of the Far East would take priority over the Mediterranean. This seemed possible as the Kriegsmarine
, the German Navy, was relatively small and France was an ally. Brice, now Australian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, and Casey met with British Cabinet ministers on 20 November and left with the impression that, despite the reassurances, the Royal Navy was not strong enough to deal with simultaneous crises in Europe, the Mediterranean and the Far East.
During 1940, the situation slowly but inexorably slid towards a worst-case scenario. In June, Italy joined the war on Germany's side and France was knocked out. The Chiefs of Staff Committee now reported:
There remained the prospect of American assistance. In secret talks in Washington, D.C., in June 1939, the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral William D. Leahy
, raised the possibility of an American fleet being sent to Singapore. In April 1940, the American naval attaché in London, Captain Alan Kirk, approached the Vice Chief of the Naval Staff, Vice-Admiral
Sir Thomas Phillips
, to ask if, in the event of the United States Fleet
being sent to the Far East, the docking facilities at Singapore could be made available, as those at Subic Bay
were inadequate. He received full assurances that they would be. Hopes for American assistance were dashed at the Arcadia Conference
in Washington D.C. in February 1941. The US Navy was primarily focused on the Atlantic. The American chiefs envisaged relieving British warships in the Atlantic and Mediterranean so a British fleet could be sent to the Far East.
In July 1941, the Japanese occupied Cam Ranh Bay
, which the British fleet had hoped to use on its northward drive. This put the Japanese uncomfortably close to Singapore. As diplomatic relations with Japan worsened, in August 1941, the Admiralty and the Chiefs of Staff began considering what ships could be sent. At this time there were only two battleships in the Home Fleet, and , two with Force H
at Gibraltar
, and , and three with the Mediterranean Fleet
at Alexandria
, , and . The Chiefs of Staff decided to recommend sending Barham to the Far East, followed by four Revenge-class battleships
, but Barham was sunk by a German U-boat
in November 1941.
Winston Churchill, now the Prime Minister
, noted that since the German battleship Tirpitz
was tying up a superior British fleet, a small British fleet at Singapore might have a similar disproportionate effect on the Japanese. The Foreign Office expressed the opinion that the presence of modern battleships at Singapore might deter Japan from entering the war. In October 1941, the Admiralty therefore ordered to depart for Singapore, where it would be joined by . The carrier was to join them, but it ran aground off Jamaica
on 3 November, and no other carrier was available.
In August 1940, the Chiefs of Staff Committee reported that the force necessary to hold Malaya and Singapore in the absence of a fleet was 336 first-line aircraft and a garrison of nine brigades. Churchill then sent reassurances to the prime ministers of Australia and New Zealand that, if they were attacked, their defence would be a priority second only to that of the British Isles
. A defence conference was held in Singapore in October 1940. Representatives from all three services attended, including Vice-Admiral Sir Geoffrey Layton
(Commander in Chief, China Station
); the General Officer Commanding Malaya Command
, Lieutenant General Lionel Bond; and Air Officer Commanding the RAF in the Far East, Air Marshal John Tremayne Babington. Australia was represented by its three deputy service chiefs, Captain Joseph Burnett
, Major General John Northcott
and Air Commodore William Bostock
. Over ten days, they discussed the situation in the Far East. They estimated that the air defence of Burma and Malaya would require a minimum of 582 aircraft. By 7 December 1941, there were only 164 first-line aircraft on hand in Malaya and Singapore, and all the fighters were the obsolete Brewster F2A Buffalo. The land forces situation was not much better. There were only 31 battalions of infantry of the 48 required, and instead of two tank regiments, there were no tanks at all. Moreover, many of the units on hand were poorly trained and equipped. Yet during 1941 Britain had sent 676 aircraft and 446 tanks to the Soviet Union
.
On 8 December 1941, the Japanese occupied the Shanghai International Settlement
. A couple of hours later, landings began at Kota Bharu
in Malaya. An hour after that, the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor
. On 10 December, Prince of Wales and Repulse were sunk by Japanese air attack
. After the disastrous Malayan Campaign, Singapore surrendered on 15 February 1942. During the final stages of the campaign, the 15-inch and 9.2-inch guns had bombarded targets at Johore Bahru, RAF Tengah and Bukit Timah
.
as "the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history". It was a profound blow to the prestige and morale of the British Empire. The promised fleet had not been sent, and the fortress that had been declared "impregnable" had been quickly captured. Nearly 139,000 troops were lost, of whom about 130,000 were captured. The 38,000 British casualties included most of the 18th Infantry Division, which was ordered to Malaya in January. There were also 18,000 Australian casualties, including most of the Australian 8th Division, and 14,000 local troops; but the majority of the defenders—some 67,000 of them—were from British India. About 40,000 of the Indian prisoners of war subsequently joined the Japanese-sponsored Indian National Army
.
Richmond, in a 1942 article in The Fortnightly Review, charged that the loss of Singapore illustrated "the folly of not providing adequately for the command of the sea in a two-ocean war". He now argued that the Singapore strategy had been totally unrealistic. Privately he blamed politicians who had allowed Britain's sea power to be run down. The resources provided for the defence of Malaya were inadequate to hold Singapore, and the manner in which those resources were employed was frequently wasteful, inefficient and ineffective.
The disaster had both political and military dimensions. In parliament, Churchill suggested that an official inquiry into the disaster should be held after the war. When this wartime speech was published in 1946, the Australian government asked if the British government still intended to conduct the inquiry. The Joint Planning Staff considered the matter, and recommended that no inquiry be held, as it would not be possible to restrict its focus to the events surrounding the fall of Singapore, and it would inevitably have to examine the political, diplomatic and military circumstances of the Singapore strategy over a period of many years. Prime Minister Clement Attlee
accepted this advice. No inquiry was ever held.
In Australia and New Zealand, after years of reassurances, there was a feeling of betrayal. "In the end," wrote one historian, "no matter how you cut it, the British let them down." The political fallout would be felt for decades to come. In a speech in the Australian House of Representatives
in 1992, Prime Minister Paul Keating
reignited the debate:
A fleet was necessary for the defeat of Japan, and eventually a sizeable one, the British Pacific Fleet
, did go to the Far East, where it fought alongside the United States Pacific Fleet
. The closer relations that developed between the two navies prior to the outbreak of war with Japan, and the alliance that developed from it afterwards, became the most positive and enduring strategic legacy of the Singapore strategy.
The Singapore Naval Base suffered little damage in the fighting and became the Imperial Japanese Navy's most important facility outside of the Japanese home islands. The Royal Navy took possession of it again in 1945, and continued to use it until 8 December 1968, when it was handed over to the Government of Singapore
. Sembawang Shipyard
subsequently became the basis of a successful ship repair industry.
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
between 1919 and 1941. It was a series of war plans that evolved over a twenty year period to deter or defeat aggression by the Empire of Japan
Empire of Japan
The Empire of Japan is the name of the state of Japan that existed from the Meiji Restoration on 3 January 1868 to the enactment of the post-World War II Constitution of...
by basing a fleet of the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
at Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
. Ideally, this fleet would be able to intercept and defeat a Japanese force heading south towards India or Australia. Such a fleet required a well-equipped base and Singapore was chosen as the most suitable location in 1919. Work continued on a naval base and its defences over the next two decades.
The Singapore strategy envisaged that a war with Japan would have three phases: while the garrison of Singapore defended the fortress, the fleet would make its way from home waters to Singapore, sally to relieve or recapture Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
, and blockade the Japanese home islands in order to force Japan to accept terms. The idea of invading Japan was rejected as impractical. Nor did British naval planners expect that the Japanese would willingly fight a decisive battle against the odds. However, they were aware of the impact of a blockade on an island nation at the heart of a maritime empire, and felt that economic pressure would suffice.
The Singapore strategy was the cornerstone of British Imperial defence policy in the Far East
Far East
The Far East is an English term mostly describing East Asia and Southeast Asia, with South Asia sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons.The term came into use in European geopolitical discourse in the 19th century,...
during the 1920s and 1930s. By 1937, according to Captain
Captain (Royal Navy)
Captain is a senior officer rank of the Royal Navy. It ranks above Commander and below Commodore and has a NATO ranking code of OF-5. The rank is equivalent to a Colonel in the British Army or Royal Marines and to a Group Captain in the Royal Air Force. The rank of Group Captain is based on the...
Stephen Roskill
Stephen Roskill
Captain Stephen Wentworth Roskill, CBE, DSC, FBA, DLitt was a career officer in the Royal Navy, serving during the Second World War and, after his enforced medical retirement, served as the official historian of the Royal Navy from 1949 to 1960...
, "the concept of the 'Main Fleet to Singapore' had, perhaps through constant repetition, assumed something of the inviolability of Holy Writ". A combination of financial, political and practical difficulties ensured that it could not be implemented. During the 1930s, the strategy came under sustained criticism in Britain and abroad, particularly in Australia, where the Singapore strategy was used as an excuse for parsimonious defence policies. The strategy ultimately led to the despatch of Force Z
Force Z
Force Z was an Allied naval detachment consisting of the battleship , the battlecruiser , and four destroyers, , , , and . Initially an aircraft carrier HMS Indomitable was included, but she ran aground in the Caribbean, and was not replaced by HMS Hermes which was regarded as too slow.A renamed...
to Singapore and the sinking of the Prince of Wales and Repulse
Sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse
The sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse was a Second World War naval engagement that took place north of Singapore, off the east coast of Malaya, near Kuantan, Pahang where the British Royal Navy battleship HMS Prince of Wales and battlecruiser HMS Repulse were sunk by land-based bombers and...
by Japanese air attack on 10 December 1941. The subsequent ignominious fall of Singapore was described by Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
as "the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history".
Origins
After the First World War, the Imperial German NavyKaiserliche Marine
The Imperial German Navy was the German Navy created at the time of the formation of the German Empire. It existed between 1871 and 1919, growing out of the small Prussian Navy and Norddeutsche Bundesmarine, which primarily had the mission of coastal defense. Kaiser Wilhelm II greatly expanded...
's High Seas Fleet
High Seas Fleet
The High Seas Fleet was the battle fleet of the German Empire and saw action during World War I. The formation was created in February 1907, when the Home Fleet was renamed as the High Seas Fleet. Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz was the architect of the fleet; he envisioned a force powerful enough to...
that had challenged the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
for supremacy was scuttled in Scapa Flow
Scuttling of the German fleet in Scapa Flow
The scuttling of the German fleet took place at the Royal Navy's base at Scapa Flow, in Scotland, after the end of the First World War. The High Seas Fleet had been interned there under the terms of the Armistice whilst negotiations took place over the fate of the ships...
in 1919. However, the Royal Navy was already facing serious challenges to its position as the world's most powerful fleet from two of its former allies, the United States Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
and the Imperial Japanese Navy
Imperial Japanese Navy
The Imperial Japanese Navy was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1869 until 1947, when it was dissolved following Japan's constitutional renunciation of the use of force as a means of settling international disputes...
. The United States' determination to create what Admiral of the Navy
Admiral of the Navy
Admiral of the navy is a senior-most rank of a naval service.Some navies use the term admiral of the navy as a title bestowed upon a fleet admiral or other senior naval official...
George Dewey
George Dewey
George Dewey was an admiral of the United States Navy. He is best known for his victory at the Battle of Manila Bay during the Spanish-American War...
called "a navy second to none" presaged a new maritime arms race
Arms race
The term arms race, in its original usage, describes a competition between two or more parties for the best armed forces. Each party competes to produce larger numbers of weapons, greater armies, or superior military technology in a technological escalation...
.
The US Navy was smaller than the Royal Navy in 1919, but ships laid down under its wartime construction program were still being launched, and their more recent construction gave the American ships a technological edge. The "two-power standard" of 1889 had called for a Royal Navy strong enough to take on any two other powers. In 1909, this had been scaled back to a policy of 60% superiority in dreadnought
Dreadnought
The dreadnought was the predominant type of 20th-century battleship. The first of the kind, the Royal Navy's had such an impact when launched in 1906 that similar battleships built after her were referred to as "dreadnoughts", and earlier battleships became known as pre-dreadnoughts...
s. Rising tensions over the US Navy's building program led to heated arguments between the First Sea Lord
First Sea Lord
The First Sea Lord is the professional head of the Royal Navy and the whole Naval Service; it was formerly known as First Naval Lord. He also holds the title of Chief of Naval Staff, and is known by the abbreviations 1SL/CNS...
, Admiral Sir Rosslyn Wemyss, and the Chief of Naval Operations
Chief of Naval Operations
The Chief of Naval Operations is a statutory office held by a four-star admiral in the United States Navy, and is the most senior uniformed officer assigned to serve in the Department of the Navy. The office is a military adviser and deputy to the Secretary of the Navy...
Admiral
Admiral (United States)
In the United States Navy, the United States Coast Guard and the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, admiral is a four-star flag officer rank, with the pay grade of O-10. Admiral ranks above vice admiral and below Fleet Admiral in the Navy; the Coast Guard and the Public Health...
William S. Benson
William S. Benson
William Shepherd Benson was an Admiral in the United States Navy and the first Chief of Naval Operations , holding the post throughout World War I.-Biography:...
in March and April 1919. In 1920, the First Lord of the Admiralty Sir Walter Long announced a "one-power standard", under which the policy was to maintain a navy "not ... inferior in strength to the Navy of any other power". The one-power standard became official when it was publicly announced at the 1921 Imperial Conference
1921 Imperial Conference
The Imperial Conference of 1921 met in London.At that meeting Canadian Prime Minister Meighen pushed the United Kingdom not to renew the Anglo-Japanese alliance. The opposite side Australia argued to renew it....
.
As far back as 1909 the government had directed that the United States was not to be regarded as a potential enemy. This decision was reaffirmed by Cabinet
Cabinet of the United Kingdom
The Cabinet of the United Kingdom is the collective decision-making body of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, composed of the Prime Minister and some 22 Cabinet Ministers, the most senior of the government ministers....
in August 1919 in order to preclude the US Navy's building program from becoming a justification for Admiralty
Admiralty
The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the Kingdom of England, and later in the United Kingdom, responsible for the command of the Royal Navy...
initiating one of its own. Unlike the United States, Britain prepared no formal plans for a war against its ally, but naval strategists did consider the possibility. A war with the United States was expected to be primarily maritime in nature, since the two nations were separated by the Atlantic Ocean. However, no amount of sea power could prevent Canada from being overrun, and while the Royal Navy could bombard and raid the United States' coasts and cut off its maritime trade, this was not thought to give Britain a decisive advantage. On the other hand, if the United States obtained a lodgement
Lodgement
A lodgement is an enclave taken by and defended by force of arms against determined opposition made by increasing the size of a bridgehead, beachhead or airheadOxford English Dictionary lodgement, lodgment "3. The action of establishing oneself or making good a position on an enemy's ground, or...
in Europe and did the same thing, it would be, in the words of Rear Admiral
Rear Admiral (Royal Navy)
Rear Admiral is a flag officer rank of the British Royal Navy. It is immediately superior to Commodore and is subordinate to Vice Admiral. It is a two-star rank and has a NATO ranking code of OF-7....
Herbert Richmond
Herbert Richmond
Admiral Sir Herbert William Richmond KCB was a prominent naval officer, who also served as Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History at Cambridge University and Master of Downing College, Cambridge...
, "a very bad situation indeed".
The Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom and the Dominions
Commonwealth Realm
A Commonwealth realm is a sovereign state within the Commonwealth of Nations that has Elizabeth II as its monarch and head of state. The sixteen current realms have a combined land area of 18.8 million km² , and a population of 134 million, of which all, except about two million, live in the six...
met at the 1921 Imperial Conference to determine a unified international policy, particularly the relationship with the United States and Japan. The most urgent issue was that of whether or not to renew the Anglo-Japanese Alliance
Anglo-Japanese Alliance
The first was signed in London at what is now the Lansdowne Club, on January 30, 1902, by Lord Lansdowne and Hayashi Tadasu . A diplomatic milestone for its ending of Britain's splendid isolation, the alliance was renewed and extended in scope twice, in 1905 and 1911, before its demise in 1921...
, which was due to expire on 13 July 1921. On one side were the Prime Minister of Australia
Prime Minister of Australia
The Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia is the highest minister of the Crown, leader of the Cabinet and Head of Her Majesty's Australian Government, holding office on commission from the Governor-General of Australia. The office of Prime Minister is, in practice, the most powerful...
, Billy Hughes
Billy Hughes
William Morris "Billy" Hughes, CH, KC, MHR , Australian politician, was the seventh Prime Minister of Australia from 1915 to 1923....
, and the Prime Minister of New Zealand
Prime Minister of New Zealand
The Prime Minister of New Zealand is New Zealand's head of government consequent on being the leader of the party or coalition with majority support in the Parliament of New Zealand...
, Bill Massey, who strongly favoured its renewal. Neither wanted their countries to be caught up in a war between the United States and Japan, and contrasted the generous assistance that Japan had rendered during the First World War with the United States' disengagement from international affairs in its aftermath. "The British Empire", declared Hughes, "must have a reliable friend in the Pacific". They were opposed by the Prime Minister of Canada
Prime Minister of Canada
The Prime Minister of Canada is the primary minister of the Crown, chairman of the Cabinet, and thus head of government for Canada, charged with advising the Canadian monarch or viceroy on the exercise of the executive powers vested in them by the constitution...
, Arthur Meighen
Arthur Meighen
Arthur Meighen, PC, QC was a Canadian lawyer and politician. He served two terms as the ninth Prime Minister of Canada: from July 10, 1920 to December 29, 1921; and from June 29 to September 25, 1926. He was the first Prime Minister born after Confederation, and the only one to represent a riding...
, on the grounds that the alliance would adversely affect the relationship with the United States, which Canada depended upon for its security. As a result, no decision to renew was reached, and the alliance was allowed to expire.
In 1919, Cabinet had propounded the "ten-year rule
Ten Year Rule
The Ten Year Rule was a British government guideline, first adopted in August 1919, that the armed forces should draft their estimates "on the assumption that the British Empire would not be engaged in any great war during the next ten years"....
", which held that, for planning purposes, no major war could be expected for ten years. In 1928, with the period of the ten-year rule about to expire, the Chancellor of the Exchequer
Chancellor of the Exchequer
The Chancellor of the Exchequer is the title held by the British Cabinet minister who is responsible for all economic and financial matters. Often simply called the Chancellor, the office-holder controls HM Treasury and plays a role akin to the posts of Minister of Finance or Secretary of the...
, Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
, persuaded Cabinet to automatically renew the rule each year. The Washington Naval Treaty
Washington Naval Treaty
The Washington Naval Treaty, also known as the Five-Power Treaty, was an attempt to cap and limit, and "prevent 'further' costly escalation" of the naval arms race that had begun after World War I between various International powers, each of which had significant naval fleets. The treaty was...
in 1922 provided for a 5:5:3 ratio of capital ships of the British, United States and Japanese navies. Throughout the 1920s, the Royal Navy remained the world's largest navy, with a comfortable margin of superiority over Japan, which was regarded the most likely adversary. It was the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria that prompted the government to rescind the ten-year rule in 1932. Germany's willingness to limit the size of its navy, which led to the Anglo-German Naval Agreement
Anglo-German Naval Agreement
The Anglo-German Naval Agreement of June 18, 1935 was a bilateral agreement between the United Kingdom and German Reich regulating the size of the Kriegsmarine in relation to the Royal Navy. The A.G.N.A fixed a ratio whereby the total tonnage of the Kriegsmarine was to be 35% of the total tonnage...
of 1935, was seen as signalling a sincere desire to avoid conflict with Britain. The provisions of the London Naval Treaty
London Naval Treaty
The London Naval Treaty was an agreement between the United Kingdom, the Empire of Japan, France, Italy and the United States, signed on April 22, 1930, which regulated submarine warfare and limited naval shipbuilding. Ratifications were exchanged in London on October 27, 1930, and the treaty went...
of 1930 however restricted naval construction, resulting in a serious decline in the British shipbuilding industry.
The First Sea Lord, Sir Ernle Chatfield
Ernle Chatfield, 1st Baron Chatfield
Admiral of the Fleet The Rt Hon. Sir Alfred Ernle Montacute Chatfield, 1st Baron Chatfield, GCB, OM, KCMG, CVO, PC was a Royal Navy officer and held the position of First Sea Lord from 1933 to 1939...
, began in 1934 to press for a new naval build-up sufficient to fight both Japan and the strongest European power. He intended to accelerate construction to the maximum capacity of the shipyards. The Treasury soon became alarmed at the potential cost of the program, which was costed at between £88 and £104 million. By 1938, the Treasury was losing its fight to stop rearmament; politicians and the public were more afraid of being caught unprepared for war with Germany and Japan than of a major financial crisis in the more distant future.
Plans
In November 1918, the Australian Minister for the Navy, Sir Joseph CookJoseph Cook
Sir Joseph Cook, GCMG was an Australian politician and the sixth Prime Minister of Australia. Born as Joseph Cooke and working in the coal mines of Silverdale, Staffordshire during his early life, he emigrated to Lithgow, New South Wales during the late 1880s, and became General-Secretary of the...
, had asked Admiral Lord Jellicoe to draw up a scheme for the Empire's naval defence. Jellicoe set out on a tour of the Empire in the battlecruiser
Battlecruiser
Battlecruisers were large capital ships built in the first half of the 20th century. They were developed in the first decade of the century as the successor to the armoured cruiser, but their evolution was more closely linked to that of the dreadnought battleship...
in February 1919. He presented his report to the Australian government in August 1919. In a secret section of the report, he advised that the interests of the British Empire and Japan would inevitably clash. He called for the creation of a British Pacific Fleet strong enough to counter the Imperial Japanese Navy, which he believed would require 8 battleships, 8 battlecruisers, 4 aircraft carrier
Aircraft carrier
An aircraft carrier is a warship designed with a primary mission of deploying and recovering aircraft, acting as a seagoing airbase. Aircraft carriers thus allow a naval force to project air power worldwide without having to depend on local bases for staging aircraft operations...
s, 10 cruiser
Cruiser
A cruiser is a type of warship. The term has been in use for several hundreds of years, and has had different meanings throughout this period...
s, 40 destroyer
Destroyer
In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast and maneuverable yet long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against smaller, powerful, short-range attackers. Destroyers, originally called torpedo-boat destroyers in 1892, evolved from...
s, 36 submarines and supporting auxiliaries.
Although he did not specify a location, Jellicoe noted that the fleet would require a major dockyard somewhere in the Far East. A paper entitled "The Naval Situation in the Far East" was considered by the Committee of Imperial Defence
Committee of Imperial Defence
The Committee of Imperial Defence was an important ad hoc part of the government of the United Kingdom and the British Empire from just after the Second Boer War until the start of World War II...
in October 1919. In this paper the naval staff pointed out that maintaining the Anglo-Japanese Alliance
Anglo-Japanese Alliance
The first was signed in London at what is now the Lansdowne Club, on January 30, 1902, by Lord Lansdowne and Hayashi Tadasu . A diplomatic milestone for its ending of Britain's splendid isolation, the alliance was renewed and extended in scope twice, in 1905 and 1911, before its demise in 1921...
might lead to war between the British Empire and the United States. In 1920, the Admiralty issued War Memorandum (Eastern) 1920, a series of instructions in the event of a war with Japan. In it, the defence of Singapore was described as "absolutely essential". The strategy was presented to the Dominions
Commonwealth Realm
A Commonwealth realm is a sovereign state within the Commonwealth of Nations that has Elizabeth II as its monarch and head of state. The sixteen current realms have a combined land area of 18.8 million km² , and a population of 134 million, of which all, except about two million, live in the six...
at the 1923 Imperial Conference.
War Memorandum (Eastern) 1920 envisaged that a war with Japan would have three phases. In the first phase, the garrison of Singapore would defend the fortress while the fleet made its way from home waters to Singapore. Next, the fleet would sally from Singapore and relieve or recapture Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
. The final phase would see the fleet blockade Japan and force it to accept terms.
Most planning focused on the first phase, which was seen as the most critical. This phase involved construction of defence works for Singapore. For the second phase, a naval base capable of supporting a fleet was required. While the United States had constructed a graving dock capable of taking battleship
Battleship
A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of heavy caliber guns. Battleships were larger, better armed and armored than cruisers and destroyers. As the largest armed ships in a fleet, battleships were used to attain command of the sea and represented the apex of a...
s at Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor, known to Hawaiians as Puuloa, is a lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet...
between 1909 and 1919, the Royal Navy had no such base east of Malta
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
. In April 1919, the Plans Division of the Admiralty
Admiralty
The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the Kingdom of England, and later in the United Kingdom, responsible for the command of the Royal Navy...
produced a paper which examined possible locations for a naval base in the Pacific in case of a war with the United States or Japan. Hong Kong was considered but regarded as too vulnerable, while Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
was regarded as secure but too far from Japan. Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
emerged as the best compromise location.
The estimate of the time that it would take for the fleet to reach Singapore after the outbreak of hostilities varied over time, and included the time to assemble, prepare and provision the ships. Initially, the estimate was 42 days, assuming reasonable advance warning. In 1938, it was increased to 70 days, with 14 more for reprovisioning. It was further increased in June 1939 to 90 days plus 15 for reprovisioning. Then in September 1939 it was set at 180 days.
To facilitate this movement, a series of oil storage facilities were constructed at Gibraltar
Gibraltar
Gibraltar is a British overseas territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance of the Mediterranean. A peninsula with an area of , it has a northern border with Andalusia, Spain. The Rock of Gibraltar is the major landmark of the region...
, Malta
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
, Port Said
Port Said
Port Said is a city that lies in north east Egypt extending about 30 km along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, north of the Suez Canal, with an approximate population of 603,787...
, Port Sudan
Port Sudan
Port Sudan is the capital of Red Sea State, Sudan; it has 489,725 residents . Located on the Red Sea, it is the Republic of Sudan's main port city.-History:...
, Aden
Aden
Aden is a seaport city in Yemen, located by the eastern approach to the Red Sea , some 170 kilometres east of Bab-el-Mandeb. Its population is approximately 800,000. Aden's ancient, natural harbour lies in the crater of an extinct volcano which now forms a peninsula, joined to the mainland by a...
, Colombo
Colombo
Colombo is the largest city of Sri Lanka. It is located on the west coast of the island and adjacent to Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte, the capital of Sri Lanka. Colombo is often referred to as the capital of the country, since Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte is a satellite city of Colombo...
, Trincomalee
Trincomalee
Trincomalee is a port city in Eastern Province, Sri Lanka and lies on the east coast of the island, about 113 miles south of Jaffna. It has a population of approximately 100,000 . The city is built on a peninsula, which divides the inner and outer harbours. Overlooking the Kottiyar Bay,...
, Rangoon, Singapore and Hong Kong. A complicating factor was that the battleships could not traverse the Suez Canal
Suez Canal
The Suez Canal , also known by the nickname "The Highway to India", is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Opened in November 1869 after 10 years of construction work, it allows water transportation between Europe and Asia without navigation...
fully laden, so they would have to refuel on the other side. It was planned that Singapore would have storage for 1250000 LT of oil. Secret bases were established at Kamaran Bay
Kamaran
Kamaran Island is the largest Yemen-controlled island in the Red Sea. The island is long and wide and is strategically located at the southern end of the Red Sea....
, Addu Atoll
Addu Atoll
Addu City is a city in Maldives consisting of the inhabited islands of the southernmost atoll of the archipelago....
and Nancowry
Nancowry
Nancowry refers both to a single island and to the group of adjoining islands that make up the central part of the Nicobar Islands chain, located in the northeast Indian Ocean between the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea....
. It was estimated that the fleet would require 110000 LT of oil per month, which would be transported in 60 tankers
Tanker (ship)
A tanker is a ship designed to transport liquids in bulk. Major types of tankship include the oil tanker, the chemical tanker, and the liquefied natural gas carrier.-Background:...
. Oil would be shipped in from the refineries
Oil refinery
An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where crude oil is processed and refined into more useful petroleum products, such as gasoline, diesel fuel, asphalt base, heating oil, kerosene, and liquefied petroleum gas...
at Abadan
Abadan Refinery
The Abadan refinery was located in Abadan near the coast of the Persian Gulf. It was completed in 1912 and was one of world's largest oil refineries when it was destroyed in 1980 by Iraq in the Iraq-Iran war. Its nationalisation in 1951 prompted the Abadan Crisis and ultimately the toppling of the...
and Rangoon, supplemented by buying up the entire output of the Netherlands East Indies.
The third phase received the least consideration, but naval planners were aware that Singapore was too far from Japan to provide an adequate base for operations close to Japan. Moreover, the further the fleet proceeded from Singapore, the weaker it would become. If American assistance was forthcoming, there was the prospect of Manila
Manila
Manila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities forming Metro Manila.Manila is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay and is bordered by Navotas and Caloocan to the north, Quezon City to the northeast, San Juan and Mandaluyong to the east, Makati on the southeast,...
being used as a forward base. The idea of invading Japan and fighting its armies on its own soil was rejected as impractical. Nor did the naval planners expect that the Japanese would willingly fight a decisive battle against the odds. However, British naval planners were aware of the impact of a blockade on an island nation at the heart of a maritime empire, and felt that economic pressure would suffice.
Japan's vulnerability to blockade was studied. Using information supplied by the Board of Trade
Board of Trade
The Board of Trade is a committee of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom, originating as a committee of inquiry in the 17th century and evolving gradually into a government department with a diverse range of functions...
and the naval attaché in Tokyo, the planners estimated that the British Empire accounted for around 27 per cent of Japan's imports. In most cases these imports could be replaced from sources in China and the United States. However, certain critical materials for which Japan relied heavily on imports were identified, including metals, machinery, chemicals, oil and rubber, and many of the best sources of these were under British control. Japan's access to neutral shipping could be restricted by refusing insurance to ships trading with Japan, and chartering ships to reduce the number of ships available for trade with Japan.
The problem with enforcing a close blockade with ships was that warships loitering off the coast of Japan would be vulnerable to attack by aircraft and submarines. Blockading Japanese ports with small ships was a possibility, but this would first require the destruction or neutralisation of the Japanese fleet, and it was far from certain that the Japanese fleet would place itself in a position where it could be destroyed. A plan was adopted for a more distant blockade, whereby ships bound for Japan would be intercepted as they passed through the East Indies
East Indies
East Indies is a term used by Europeans from the 16th century onwards to identify what is now known as Indian subcontinent or South Asia, Southeastern Asia, and the islands of Oceania, including the Malay Archipelago and the Philippines...
or the Panama Canal
Panama Canal
The Panama Canal is a ship canal in Panama that joins the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean and is a key conduit for international maritime trade. Built from 1904 to 1914, the canal has seen annual traffic rise from about 1,000 ships early on to 14,702 vessels measuring a total of 309.6...
. This would not cut off Japan's trade with China or Korea, and probably not with the United States either. The effectiveness of such a blockade was therefore questionable.
Rear Admiral Sir Herbert Richmond
Herbert Richmond
Admiral Sir Herbert William Richmond KCB was a prominent naval officer, who also served as Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History at Cambridge University and Master of Downing College, Cambridge...
, the Commander in Chief, East Indies Station
East Indies Station
The East Indies Station was a formation of the British Royal Navy from 1865 to 1941.From 1831 to 1865 the East Indies and the China Station were a single command known as the East Indies and China Station...
, noted that the logic was suspiciously circular:
The 1919 plans incorporated a Mobile Naval Base Defence Organisation (MNBDO) which could develop and defend a forward base. The MNBDO had a strength of 7,000 and included a brigade
Brigade
A brigade is a major tactical military formation that is typically composed of two to five battalions, plus supporting elements depending on the era and nationality of a given army and could be perceived as an enlarged/reinforced regiment...
of antiaircraft artillery, a brigade of coastal artillery
Coastal artillery
Coastal artillery is the branch of armed forces concerned with operating anti-ship artillery or fixed gun batteries in coastal fortifications....
and a battalion
Battalion
A battalion is a military unit of around 300–1,200 soldiers usually consisting of between two and seven companies and typically commanded by either a Lieutenant Colonel or a Colonel...
of infantry, all drawn from the Royal Marines
Royal Marines
The Corps of Her Majesty's Royal Marines, commonly just referred to as the Royal Marines , are the marine corps and amphibious infantry of the United Kingdom and, along with the Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary, form the Naval Service...
. In one paper exercise, the Royal Marines occupied Nakagusuku Bay
Nakagusuku Bay
is a bay off the southern coast of Okinawa Island in Japan, at .American soldiers nicknamed the bay Buckner Bay, after General Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr....
unopposed and the MNBDO developed a major base there from which the fleet blockaded Japan. Actual fleet exercises were conducted in the Mediterranean in the 1920s to test the MNDBO concept. However, the Royal Marines were not greatly interested in amphibious warfare
Amphibious warfare
Amphibious warfare is the use of naval firepower, logistics and strategy to project military power ashore. In previous eras it stood as the primary method of delivering troops to non-contiguous enemy-held terrain...
, and lacking organisational backing, the techniques and tactics of amphibious warfare began to atrophy. By the 1930s the Admiralty was concerned that the United States and Japan were well ahead of Britain in this field and persuaded the Army and RAF to join with it in establishing the Inter-Service Training and Development Centre
Inter-Service Training and Development Centre
The Inter-Service Training and Development Centre was a department under the British Chiefs of Staff set up prior to World War II for the purpose of developing methods and equipment to use in Combined Operations....
, which opened in July 1938. Under its first commandant, Captain Loben Edward Harold Maund, it began investigating the problems of amphibious warfare, including the design of landing craft
Landing craft
Landing craft are boats and seagoing vessels used to convey a landing force from the sea to the shore during an amphibious assault. Most renowned are those used to storm the beaches of Normandy, the Mediterranean, and many Pacific islands during WWII...
.
Nor was this the only field in which the Royal Navy was lagging in the 1930s. In the 1920s, Colonel the Master of Sempill led a semi-official mission
Sempill Mission
The Sempill Mission was a British aeronaval technical mission led by Captain the Master of Sempill and sent to Japan in September 1921, with the objective of helping the Imperial Japanese Navy develop its aeronaval forces...
to Japan to help the Imperial Japanese Navy establish an air arm. At the time the Royal Navy was the world leader in naval aviation. The Sempill mission taught advanced techniques such as carrier deck landing, conducted training with modern aircraft, and provided engines, ordnance and technical equipment. Within a decade, Japan had overtaken Britain. The Royal Navy pioneered the armoured flight deck, which enabled carriers to absorb damage, but resulted in limiting the number of aircraft that a carrier could operate. The Royal Navy had great faith in the ability of ships' antiaircraft batteries, and so saw little need for high performance fighters. To maximise the benefit of the small numbers of aircraft that could be carried, the Royal Navy developed multi-role aircraft such as the Blackburn Roc
Blackburn Roc
|-See also:-References:NotesBibliography* Brew, Alec. The Turret Fighters: Defiant and Roc. Ramsbury, Marlborough, Wiltshire, UK: Crowood Press, 2002. ISBN 1-86126-497-6....
, Fairey Fulmar
Fairey Fulmar
The Fairey Fulmar was a British carrier-borne fighter aircraft that served with the Fleet Air Arm during the Second World War. A total of 600 were built by Fairey Aviation at its Stockport factory between January 1940 and December 1942...
, Fairey Barracuda
Fairey Barracuda
The Fairey Barracuda was a British carrier-borne torpedo- and dive bomber used during the Second World War, the first of its type used by the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm to be fabricated entirely from metal. It was introduced as a replacement for the Fairey Swordfish and Fairey Albacore biplanes...
, Blackburn Skua
Blackburn Skua
The Blackburn B-24 Skua was a carrier-based low-wing, two-seater, single-radial engine aircraft operated by the British Fleet Air Arm which combined the functions of a dive bomber and fighter. It was designed in the mid-1930s, and saw service in the early part of the Second World War...
and Fairey Swordfish
Fairey Swordfish
The Fairey Swordfish was a torpedo bomber built by the Fairey Aviation Company and used by the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy during the Second World War...
. As a result, the Royal Navy's aircraft were no match for their Japanese counterparts.
The possibility of Japan taking advantage of a war in Europe was foreseen. In June 1939, the Tientsin Incident
Tientsin Incident
was an international incident created by a blockade by the Imperial Japanese Army's Japanese Northern China Area Army of the British settlements in the north China treaty port of Tianjin in June 1939...
demonstrated another possibility: that Germany might attempt to take advantage of a war in the Far East. In the event of a worst-case scenario of simultaneous war with Germany, Italy and Japan, two approaches were considered. The first was to reduce the war to one against Germany and Japan only by knocking Italy out of the conflict as quickly as possible. The former First Sea Lord, Sir Reginald Drax
Reginald Drax
Admiral The Hon. Sir Reginald Aylmer Ranfurly Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax, KCB, DSO, JP, DL was a British admiral...
, who was brought out of retirement to advise on strategy, called for a "flying squadron" of four or five battleships, along with an aircraft carrier, some cruisers and destroyers, to be sent to Singapore. Such a force would be too small to fight the Japanese main fleet, but could protect British trade in the Indian Ocean against commerce raiders. Drax argued that a small, fast force would be better in this role than a large, slow one. When more ships became available, it could become the nucleus of a full-sized battle fleet. Chatfield, now Minister for Coordination of Defence
Minister for Coordination of Defence
The position of Minister for Coordination of Defence was a British Cabinet-level position established in 1936 to oversee and co-ordinate the rearmament of Britain's defences....
, disagreed with this concept. He felt that the flying squadron would become nothing more than a target for the Japanese fleet. Instead, he proposed that the Mediterranean be abandoned and the fleet sent to Singapore.
Base development
Sembawang
Sembawang is an area in the Northern-most portion of Singapore, encompassing the largest land mass within the Sembawang Group Representation Constituency. The incumbent Member of Parliament for the Sembawang Constituency is Khaw Boon Wan. The constituency jurisdiction extends into the Woodlands...
was chosen for a naval base. The Straits Settlements
Straits Settlements
The Straits Settlements were a group of British territories located in Southeast Asia.Originally established in 1826 as part of the territories controlled by the British East India Company, the Straits Settlements came under direct British control as a crown colony on 1 April 1867...
made a free gift of 2845 acres (1,151.3 ha) of land for the site. A sum of £250,000 for construction of the base was donated by Hong Kong in 1925. That exceeded the United Kingdom's contribution that year of £204,000 towards the floating dock. Another £2,000,000 was paid by the Federated Malay States
Federated Malay States
The Federated Malay States was a federation of four protected states in the Malay Peninsula—Selangor, Perak, Negeri Sembilan and Pahang—established by the British government in 1895, which lasted until 1946, when they, together with the Straits Settlements and the Unfederated Malay...
, and New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
donated another £1,000,000. The contract for construction of the naval dockyard was awarded to the lowest bidder, Sir John Jackson Limited, for £3,700,000. The dockyard covered 21 square miles (54.4 km²) and had what was then the largest dry dock in the world, the third-largest floating dock, and enough fuel tanks to support the entire Royal Navy for six months.
To defend the naval base, heavy 15-inch naval guns were stationed at Johore battery
Johore battery
The Johore Battery was a set of three large naval guns installed in Changi, Singapore, by the British in the second half of the 1930s, to defend the approaches to the Naval Base at Sembawang.- History :...
, Changi, and at Buona Vista
Buona Vista
Buona Vista is a neighbourhood and subdivision of the city-state of Singapore, but is often referenced as a town. As a major subdivision, it is served by the Buona Vista MRT Station which links it up with the MRT system. It also has a bus terminal.-Geography:...
to deal with battleships. Medium BL 9.2 inch guns were provided for dealing with smaller attackers. Batteries of smaller calibre anti-aircraft guns and guns for dealing with raids were located at Fort Siloso
Fort Siloso
Fort Siloso is the sole restored coastal gun battery from the twelve such batteries which made up "Fortress Singapore" at the start of World War II...
, Fort Canning
Fort Canning
Fort Canning is a small hill slightly more than 60 metres high in the southeast portion of the island city-state of Singapore, within the Central Area that forms Singapore's central business district...
and Labrador
Fort Pasir Panjang
Fort Pasir Panjang or Labrador Battery is located within the lush Labrador Park at the southern tip of Singapore island. It was one of the 11 coastal artillery forts built by the British in the 19th century to defend the western passageway into Keppel Harbour against piracy and foreign naval powers...
. Four of the five 15-inch guns were given an all-round (360°) traverse and subterranean magazines. Aviation was not neglected. Plans called for an air force of 18 flying boat
Flying boat
A flying boat is a fixed-winged seaplane with a hull, allowing it to land on water. It differs from a float plane as it uses a purpose-designed fuselage which can float, granting the aircraft buoyancy. Flying boats may be stabilized by under-wing floats or by wing-like projections from the fuselage...
s, 18 reconnaissance fighters
Fighter aircraft
A fighter aircraft is a military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat with other aircraft, as opposed to a bomber, which is designed primarily to attack ground targets...
, 18 torpedo bomber
Torpedo bomber
A torpedo bomber is a bomber aircraft designed primarily to attack ships with aerial torpedoes which could also carry out conventional bombings. Torpedo bombers existed almost exclusively prior to and during World War II when they were an important element in many famous battles, notably the...
s and 18 single-seat fighters to protect them. Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
airfields were established at RAF Tengah and RAF Sembawang. Lord Trenchard argued that 30 torpedo bombers could replace the 15-inch guns. The First Sea Lord, Admiral of the Fleet Lord Beatty
David Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty
Admiral of the Fleet David Richard Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty, GCB, OM, GCVO, DSO was an admiral in the Royal Navy...
, did not agree. A compromise was reached whereby the guns would be installed, but the issue was reconsidered when better torpedo planes became available. Test firings of 15-inch and 9.2-inch guns at Malta and Portsmouth
Portsmouth
Portsmouth is the second largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is notable for being the United Kingdom's only island city; it is located mainly on Portsea Island...
in 1926 indicated that greatly improved shells were required if the guns were to have a chance of hitting a battleship.
The King George VI dry dock was formally opened by the Governor of the Straits Settlements, Sir Shenton Thomas
Shenton Thomas
Sir Thomas Shenton Whitelegge Thomas, GCMG, GCStJ was the last Governor of the Straits Settlements, 1934–1942 during which time World War II began. He died at age 82...
, on 14 February 1938. Two squadrons of the Fleet Air Arm
Fleet Air Arm
The Fleet Air Arm is the branch of the British Royal Navy responsible for the operation of naval aircraft. The Fleet Air Arm currently operates the AgustaWestland Merlin, Westland Sea King and Westland Lynx helicopters...
provided a flypast
Flypast
Flypast is a term used in the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth, and other countries to denote ceremonial or honorific flights by groups of aircraft and, rarely, by a single aircraft...
. The 42 vessels in attendance included three US Navy cruisers. The presence of this fleet gave an opportunity to conduct a series of naval, air and military exercises. The aircraft carrier was able to sail undetected to within 135 miles (217.3 km) of Singapore and launch a series of surprise raids on the RAF airfields. The local air commander, Air Vice-Marshal
Air Vice-Marshal
Air vice-marshal is a two-star air-officer rank which originated in and continues to be used by the Royal Air Force. The rank is also used by the air forces of many countries which have historical British influence and it is sometimes used as the English translation of an equivalent rank in...
Arthur Tedder, was greatly embarrassed. The local land commander, Major-General
Major-General (United Kingdom)
Major general is a senior rank in the British Army. Since 1996 the highest position within the Royal Marines is the Commandant General Royal Marines who holds the rank of major general...
Sir William Dobbie
William Dobbie
Lieutenant-General Sir William George Shedden Dobbie GCMG, KCB, DSO was a British Army veteran of the Second Boer War, and First and Second World Wars.-Early life:...
, was no less disappointed by the performance of the anti-aircraft defences. Reports recommended the installation of radar
Radar
Radar is an object-detection system which uses radio waves to determine the range, altitude, direction, or speed of objects. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain. The radar dish or antenna transmits pulses of radio...
on the island, but this was not done until 1941. The naval defences worked better, but a landing party from was still able to capture the Raffles Hotel
Raffles Hotel
Raffles Hotel is a colonial-style hotel in Singapore, and one of the world's most famous hotels. The hotel was established by the famous Armenian Sarkies Brothers. Opened in 1887, it was named after Singapore's founder Sir Stamford Raffles. Managed by Fairmont Raffles Hotels International, it is...
. What most concerned Dobbie and Tedder was the possibility of the fleet being bypassed entirely by an overland invasion of Malaya
British Malaya
British Malaya loosely described a set of states on the Malay Peninsula and the Island of Singapore that were brought under British control between the 18th and the 20th centuries...
from Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
. Dobbie conducted an exercise in southern Malaya which demonstrated that the jungle was far from impassable. The Chiefs of Staff Committee
Chiefs of Staff Committee
The Chiefs of Staff Committee is composed of the most senior military personnel in the British Armed Forces.-History:The Chiefs of Staff Committee was initially established as a sub-committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence in 1923. It remained as such until the abolition of the CID upon the...
concluded that the Japanese would most likely land on the east coast of Malaya and advance on Singapore from the north.
Australia
In Australia the conservative Nationalist Party of AustraliaNationalist Party of Australia
The Nationalist Party of Australia was an Australian political party. It was formed on 17 February 1917 from a merger between the conservative Commonwealth Liberal Party and the National Labor Party, the name given to the pro-conscription defectors from the Australian Labor Party led by Prime...
government of Stanley Bruce
Stanley Bruce
Stanley Melbourne Bruce, 1st Viscount Bruce of Melbourne, CH, MC, FRS, PC , was an Australian politician and diplomat, and the eighth Prime Minister of Australia. He was the second Australian granted an hereditary peerage of the United Kingdom, but the first whose peerage was formally created...
latched onto the Singapore strategy, which called for a reliance on the British navy, supported by a naval squadron as strong as Australia could afford. Between 1923 and 1929, £20,000,000 was spent on the Royal Australian Navy
Royal Australian Navy
The Royal Australian Navy is the naval branch of the Australian Defence Force. Following the Federation of Australia in 1901, the ships and resources of the separate colonial navies were integrated into a national force: the Commonwealth Naval Forces...
(RAN), while the Australian Army
Australian Army
The Australian Army is Australia's military land force. It is part of the Australian Defence Force along with the Royal Australian Navy and the Royal Australian Air Force. While the Chief of Defence commands the Australian Defence Force , the Army is commanded by the Chief of Army...
and the munitions industry received only £10,000,000 and the fledgling Royal Australian Air Force
Royal Australian Air Force
The Royal Australian Air Force is the air force branch of the Australian Defence Force. The RAAF was formed in March 1921. It continues the traditions of the Australian Flying Corps , which was formed on 22 October 1912. The RAAF has taken part in many of the 20th century's major conflicts...
(RAAF) just £2,400,000. The policy had the advantage of pushing responsibility for Australian defence onto Britain. Unlike New Zealand, Australia declined to contribute to the cost of the base at Singapore. In petitioning a parsimonious government for more funds, the Australian Army had to refute the Singapore strategy, "an apparently well-argued and well-founded strategic doctrine that had been endorsed at the highest levels of imperial decision-making".
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
, which was in opposition
Opposition (parliamentary)
Parliamentary opposition is a form of political opposition to a designated government, particularly in a Westminster-based parliamentary system. Note that this article uses the term government as it is used in Parliamentary systems, i.e. meaning the administration or the cabinet rather than the state...
for all but two years of the 1920s and 1930s. It called for Australia's first line of defence to be a powerful air arm, supported by a well-equipped Army that could be rapidly expanded to meet an invasion threat. This, in turn, required a strong munitions industry. Labor politicians cited critics like Rear Admiral
Rear admiral (United States)
Rear admiral is a naval commissioned officer rank above that of a commodore and captain, and below that of a vice admiral. The uniformed services of the United States are unique in having two grades of rear admirals.- Rear admiral :...
William Freeland Fullam, who drew attention to the vulnerability of warships to aircraft, naval mine
Naval mine
A naval mine is a self-contained explosive device placed in water to destroy surface ships or submarines. Unlike depth charges, mines are deposited and left to wait until they are triggered by the approach of, or contact with, an enemy vessel...
s and submarine
Submarine
A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...
s. The Labor Party's Albert Green noted in 1923 that when a battleship of the day cost £7,000,000 while an aircraft cost £2,500, there was a genuine cause for concern as to whether the battleship was a better investment than hundreds of aircraft, if the aircraft could sink battleships. The Labor Party's policy became indistinguishable from the Army's position.
In September 1926, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Wynter
Henry Wynter
Lieutenant General Henry Douglas Wynter, CB, CMG, DSO was a regular Australian Army officer who rose to the rank of lieutenant general during World War II...
gave a lecture to the United Services Institute
Royal United Services Institute
The Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies , officially still known by its old name, the Royal United Services Institution, is a British defence and security think tank. It was founded in 1831 by The Duke of Wellington.RUSI describes itself asIt won Prospect Magazine's...
of Victoria entitled "The Strategical Inter-relationship of the Navy, the Army and the Air Force: an Australian View", which was published in the April 1927 edition of British Army Quarterly. In this article Wynter argued that war was most likely to break out in the Pacific at a time when Britain was involved in a crisis in Europe, which would prevent Britain from sending sufficient resources to Singapore. He contended that Singapore was vulnerable, especially to attack from the land and the air, and argued for a more balanced policy of building up the Army and RAAF rather than relying on the RAN. "Henceforward," wrote Australian official historian Lionel Wigmore, "the attitude of the leading thinkers in the Australian Army towards British assurances that an adequate fleet would be sent to Singapore at the critical time was (bluntly stated): 'We do not doubt that you are sincere in your beliefs but, frankly, we do not think you will be able to do it.
Frederick Shedden
Frederick Shedden
Sir Frederick Geoffrey Shedden KCMG OBE was Secretary of Australia's Department of Defence from 1937 to 1956.He was the subject of a biography: by David Horner.-Honours:...
wrote a paper putting the case for the Singapore strategy as a means of defending Australia. He argued that since Australia was also an island nation, it followed that it would also be vulnerable to a naval blockade. If Australia could be defeated without an invasion, the defence of Australia had to be a naval one. Colonel John Lavarack
John Lavarack
Lieutenant General Sir John Dudley Lavarack KCMG, KCVO, KBE, CB, DSO was an Australian soldier who was Governor of Queensland from 1 October 1946 to 4 December 1957, the first Australian-born governor of that state....
, a fellow student of Shedden's in the Imperial Defence College class of 1928, disagreed. Lavarack responded that the vast coastline of Australia would make a naval blockade very difficult, and its considerable internal resources meant that it could resist economic pressure. When Richmond attacked the Labor Party's position in an article in British Army Quarterly in 1933, Lavarack wrote a rebuttal. In 1936, the leader of the opposition John Curtin
John Curtin
John Joseph Curtin , Australian politician, served as the 14th Prime Minister of Australia. Labor under Curtin formed a minority government in 1941 after the crossbench consisting of two independent MPs crossed the floor in the House of Representatives, bringing down the Coalition minority...
read an article by Wynter in the House of Representatives
Australian House of Representatives
The House of Representatives is one of the two houses of the Parliament of Australia; it is the lower house; the upper house is the Senate. Members of Parliament serve for terms of approximately three years....
. Wynter's outspoken criticism of the Singapore strategy led to his transfer to a junior post. Soon after the outbreak of war with Germany on 3 September 1939, Prime Minister
Prime Minister of Australia
The Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia is the highest minister of the Crown, leader of the Cabinet and Head of Her Majesty's Australian Government, holding office on commission from the Governor-General of Australia. The office of Prime Minister is, in practice, the most powerful...
Robert Menzies
Robert Menzies
Sir Robert Gordon Menzies, , Australian politician, was the 12th and longest-serving Prime Minister of Australia....
appointed a British officer, Lieutenant General Ernest Squires
Ernest Squires
Lieutenant General Ernest Ker Squires CB, DSO, MC was a senior officer in the Australian Army who served as Chief of the General Staff .-Military career:...
, to replace Lavarack as Chief of the General Staff. Within months, the Chief of the Air Staff was replaced with a British officer as well.
Outcome
Richard Casey, Baron Casey
Richard Gardiner Casey, Baron Casey KG GCMG CH DSO MC KStJ PC was an Australian politician, diplomat and the 16th Governor-General of Australia.-Early life:...
to London to seek reassurances about the defence of Australia in the event that Australian forces were sent to Europe or the Middle East. In November, Australia and New Zealand were given reassurances that Singapore would not be allowed to fall, and that in the event of war with Japan, the defence of the Far East would take priority over the Mediterranean. This seemed possible as the Kriegsmarine
Kriegsmarine
The Kriegsmarine was the name of the German Navy during the Nazi regime . It superseded the Kaiserliche Marine of World War I and the post-war Reichsmarine. The Kriegsmarine was one of three official branches of the Wehrmacht, the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany.The Kriegsmarine grew rapidly...
, the German Navy, was relatively small and France was an ally. Brice, now Australian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, and Casey met with British Cabinet ministers on 20 November and left with the impression that, despite the reassurances, the Royal Navy was not strong enough to deal with simultaneous crises in Europe, the Mediterranean and the Far East.
During 1940, the situation slowly but inexorably slid towards a worst-case scenario. In June, Italy joined the war on Germany's side and France was knocked out. The Chiefs of Staff Committee now reported:
There remained the prospect of American assistance. In secret talks in Washington, D.C., in June 1939, the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral William D. Leahy
William D. Leahy
Fleet Admiral William Daniel Leahy was an American naval officer, building his reputation through administration and staff work. As Chief of Naval Operations he was the senior officer in Navy, overseeing the preparations for war. After retiring from the Navy he was appointed by his close friend...
, raised the possibility of an American fleet being sent to Singapore. In April 1940, the American naval attaché in London, Captain Alan Kirk, approached the Vice Chief of the Naval Staff, Vice-Admiral
Vice Admiral (Royal Navy)
Vice admiral is a flag officer rank of the British Royal Navy. It equates to the NATO rank code OF-8 and is immediately superior to rear admiral and is subordinate to the full admiral rank.The Royal Navy has had vice admirals since at least the 16th century...
Sir Thomas Phillips
Thomas Phillips (Naval officer)
Admiral Sir Thomas "Tom" Spencer Vaughan Phillips GBE, KCB, DSO was a World War II admiral in the Royal Navy. He was nicknamed "Tom Thumb" due to his short stature. He is best known for his command of Force Z during the Japanese invasion of Malaya, where he went down with his flagship, the...
, to ask if, in the event of the United States Fleet
United States Fleet
The United States Fleet was an organization in the United States Navy from 1922 until after World War II. The abbreviation CINCUS, pronounced "sink us", was used for Commander-in-Chief, United States Fleet. This title was disposed of and officially replaced by COMINCH in December 1941 . This...
being sent to the Far East, the docking facilities at Singapore could be made available, as those at Subic Bay
Subic Bay
Subic Bay is a bay forming part of Luzon Sea on the west coast of the island of Luzon in Zambales, Philippines, about 100 kilometers northwest of Manila Bay. Its shores were formerly the site of a major United States Navy facility named U.S...
were inadequate. He received full assurances that they would be. Hopes for American assistance were dashed at the Arcadia Conference
Arcadia Conference
The First Washington Conference, also known as the Arcadia Conference , was held in Washington, D.C. from December 22, 1941 to January 14, 1942. It was the first meeting on military strategy between the heads of government of the United Kingdom and the United States following the United States'...
in Washington D.C. in February 1941. The US Navy was primarily focused on the Atlantic. The American chiefs envisaged relieving British warships in the Atlantic and Mediterranean so a British fleet could be sent to the Far East.
Cam Ranh Bay
Cam Ranh Bay is a deep-water bay in Vietnam in the province of Khánh Hòa. It is located at an inlet of the South China Sea situated on the southeastern coast of Vietnam, between Phan Rang and Nha Trang, approximately 290 kilometers / 180 miles northeast of Hồ Chí Minh City / Saigon.Cam Ranh is...
, which the British fleet had hoped to use on its northward drive. This put the Japanese uncomfortably close to Singapore. As diplomatic relations with Japan worsened, in August 1941, the Admiralty and the Chiefs of Staff began considering what ships could be sent. At this time there were only two battleships in the Home Fleet, and , two with Force H
Force H
Force H was a British naval formation during the Second World War. It was formed in 1940 to replace French naval power in the western Mediterranean that had been removed by the French armistice with Nazi Germany....
at Gibraltar
Gibraltar
Gibraltar is a British overseas territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance of the Mediterranean. A peninsula with an area of , it has a northern border with Andalusia, Spain. The Rock of Gibraltar is the major landmark of the region...
, and , and three with the Mediterranean Fleet
Mediterranean Fleet
Several countries have or have had a Mediterranean Fleet in their navy. See:* Mediterranean Fleet * French Mediterranean Fleet* Mediterranean Squadron * United States Sixth Fleet...
at Alexandria
Alexandria
Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...
, , and . The Chiefs of Staff decided to recommend sending Barham to the Far East, followed by four Revenge-class battleships
Revenge class battleship
The Revenge class battleships were five battleships of the Royal Navy, ordered as World War I loomed on the horizon, and launched in 1914–1916...
, but Barham was sunk by a German U-boat
U-boat
U-boat is the anglicized version of the German word U-Boot , itself an abbreviation of Unterseeboot , and refers to military submarines operated by Germany, particularly in World War I and World War II...
in November 1941.
Winston Churchill, now the Prime Minister
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...
, noted that since the German battleship Tirpitz
German battleship Tirpitz
Tirpitz was the second of two s built for the German Kriegsmarine during World War II. Named after Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, the architect of the Imperial Navy, the ship was laid down at the Kriegsmarinewerft in Wilhelmshaven in November 1936 and launched two and a half years later in April...
was tying up a superior British fleet, a small British fleet at Singapore might have a similar disproportionate effect on the Japanese. The Foreign Office expressed the opinion that the presence of modern battleships at Singapore might deter Japan from entering the war. In October 1941, the Admiralty therefore ordered to depart for Singapore, where it would be joined by . The carrier was to join them, but it ran aground off Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
on 3 November, and no other carrier was available.
In August 1940, the Chiefs of Staff Committee reported that the force necessary to hold Malaya and Singapore in the absence of a fleet was 336 first-line aircraft and a garrison of nine brigades. Churchill then sent reassurances to the prime ministers of Australia and New Zealand that, if they were attacked, their defence would be a priority second only to that of the British Isles
British Isles
The British Isles are a group of islands off the northwest coast of continental Europe that include the islands of Great Britain and Ireland and over six thousand smaller isles. There are two sovereign states located on the islands: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and...
. A defence conference was held in Singapore in October 1940. Representatives from all three services attended, including Vice-Admiral Sir Geoffrey Layton
Geoffrey Layton
Admiral Sir Geoffrey Layton GBE, KCB, KCMG, DSO , was a British Royal Navy officer.-Early life and career:...
(Commander in Chief, China Station
China Station
The China Station was a historical formation of the British Royal Navy. It was formally the units and establishments responsible to the Commander-in-Chief, China....
); the General Officer Commanding Malaya Command
Malaya Command
The Malaya Command was a command of British Commonwealth forces formed in the 1920s for the coordination of the defences of Malaya and Singapore.-History:...
, Lieutenant General Lionel Bond; and Air Officer Commanding the RAF in the Far East, Air Marshal John Tremayne Babington. Australia was represented by its three deputy service chiefs, Captain Joseph Burnett
Joseph Burnett
Joseph Burnett was a Royal Australian Navy officer most widely known as the captain of the light cruiser in the battle between HMAS Sydney and HSK Kormoran on 19 November 1941...
, Major General John Northcott
John Northcott
Lieutenant General Sir John Northcott KCMG, KCVO, CB was an Australian Army general who served as Chief of the General Staff during World War II, and commanded the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in the Occupation of Japan...
and Air Commodore William Bostock
William Bostock
Air Vice Marshal William Dowling Bostock CB, DSO, OBE was a senior commander in the Royal Australian Air Force. During World War II he led RAAF Command, the Air Force's main operational formation, with responsibility for the defence of Australia and air offensives against Japanese targets in the...
. Over ten days, they discussed the situation in the Far East. They estimated that the air defence of Burma and Malaya would require a minimum of 582 aircraft. By 7 December 1941, there were only 164 first-line aircraft on hand in Malaya and Singapore, and all the fighters were the obsolete Brewster F2A Buffalo. The land forces situation was not much better. There were only 31 battalions of infantry of the 48 required, and instead of two tank regiments, there were no tanks at all. Moreover, many of the units on hand were poorly trained and equipped. Yet during 1941 Britain had sent 676 aircraft and 446 tanks to the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
.
On 8 December 1941, the Japanese occupied the Shanghai International Settlement
Shanghai International Settlement
The Shanghai International Settlement began originally as a purely British settlement. It was one of the original five treaty ports which were established under the terms of the Treaty of Nanking at the end of the first opium war in the year 1842...
. A couple of hours later, landings began at Kota Bharu
Kota Bharu
Kota Bharu is a city in Malaysia, is the state capital and Royal City of Kelantan. It is also the name of the territory in which Kota Bharu City is situated. The name means 'new city' or 'new castle/fort' in Malay. Kota Bharu is situated in the northeastern part of Peninsular Malaysia, and lies...
in Malaya. An hour after that, the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor
Attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941...
. On 10 December, Prince of Wales and Repulse were sunk by Japanese air attack
Sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse
The sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse was a Second World War naval engagement that took place north of Singapore, off the east coast of Malaya, near Kuantan, Pahang where the British Royal Navy battleship HMS Prince of Wales and battlecruiser HMS Repulse were sunk by land-based bombers and...
. After the disastrous Malayan Campaign, Singapore surrendered on 15 February 1942. During the final stages of the campaign, the 15-inch and 9.2-inch guns had bombarded targets at Johore Bahru, RAF Tengah and Bukit Timah
Bukit Timah
Bukit Timah is an area in Singapore and a hill in that area. Bukit Timah is located near the centre of the Singapore main island. The hill stands at an altitude of 163.63 metres and is the highest point in the city-state of Singapore...
.
Aftermath
The fall of Singapore was described by Winston ChurchillWinston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
as "the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history". It was a profound blow to the prestige and morale of the British Empire. The promised fleet had not been sent, and the fortress that had been declared "impregnable" had been quickly captured. Nearly 139,000 troops were lost, of whom about 130,000 were captured. The 38,000 British casualties included most of the 18th Infantry Division, which was ordered to Malaya in January. There were also 18,000 Australian casualties, including most of the Australian 8th Division, and 14,000 local troops; but the majority of the defenders—some 67,000 of them—were from British India. About 40,000 of the Indian prisoners of war subsequently joined the Japanese-sponsored Indian National Army
Indian National Army
The Indian National Army or Azad Hind Fauj was an armed force formed by Indian nationalists in 1942 in Southeast Asia during World War II. The aim of the army was to overthrow the British Raj in colonial India, with Japanese assistance...
.
Richmond, in a 1942 article in The Fortnightly Review, charged that the loss of Singapore illustrated "the folly of not providing adequately for the command of the sea in a two-ocean war". He now argued that the Singapore strategy had been totally unrealistic. Privately he blamed politicians who had allowed Britain's sea power to be run down. The resources provided for the defence of Malaya were inadequate to hold Singapore, and the manner in which those resources were employed was frequently wasteful, inefficient and ineffective.
The disaster had both political and military dimensions. In parliament, Churchill suggested that an official inquiry into the disaster should be held after the war. When this wartime speech was published in 1946, the Australian government asked if the British government still intended to conduct the inquiry. The Joint Planning Staff considered the matter, and recommended that no inquiry be held, as it would not be possible to restrict its focus to the events surrounding the fall of Singapore, and it would inevitably have to examine the political, diplomatic and military circumstances of the Singapore strategy over a period of many years. Prime Minister Clement Attlee
Clement Attlee
Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS was a British Labour politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951, and as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955...
accepted this advice. No inquiry was ever held.
In Australia and New Zealand, after years of reassurances, there was a feeling of betrayal. "In the end," wrote one historian, "no matter how you cut it, the British let them down." The political fallout would be felt for decades to come. In a speech in the Australian House of Representatives
Australian House of Representatives
The House of Representatives is one of the two houses of the Parliament of Australia; it is the lower house; the upper house is the Senate. Members of Parliament serve for terms of approximately three years....
in 1992, Prime Minister Paul Keating
Paul Keating
Paul John Keating was the 24th Prime Minister of Australia, serving from 1991 to 1996. Keating was elected as the federal Labor member for Blaxland in 1969 and came to prominence as the reformist treasurer of the Hawke Labor government, which came to power at the 1983 election...
reignited the debate:
A fleet was necessary for the defeat of Japan, and eventually a sizeable one, the British Pacific Fleet
British Pacific Fleet
The British Pacific Fleet was a British Commonwealth naval force which saw action against Japan during World War II. The fleet was composed of British Commonwealth naval vessels. The BPF formally came into being on 22 November 1944...
, did go to the Far East, where it fought alongside the United States Pacific Fleet
United States Pacific Fleet
The United States Pacific Fleet is a Pacific Ocean theater-level component command of the United States Navy that provides naval resources under the operational control of the United States Pacific Command. Its home port is at Pearl Harbor Naval Base, Hawaii. It is commanded by Admiral Patrick M...
. The closer relations that developed between the two navies prior to the outbreak of war with Japan, and the alliance that developed from it afterwards, became the most positive and enduring strategic legacy of the Singapore strategy.
The Singapore Naval Base suffered little damage in the fighting and became the Imperial Japanese Navy's most important facility outside of the Japanese home islands. The Royal Navy took possession of it again in 1945, and continued to use it until 8 December 1968, when it was handed over to the Government of Singapore
Government of Singapore
The Government of Singapore is defined by the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore to mean the Executive branch of government, which is made up of the President and the Cabinet of Singapore. Although the President acts in his personal discretion in the exercise of certain functions as a check...
. Sembawang Shipyard
SembCorp Marine
Sembcorp Marine Limited is part of SembCorp Industries, an Asian company based in Singapore. It is listed on the Singapore stock exchange or SGX and is part of the Straits Times Index there...
subsequently became the basis of a successful ship repair industry.