Hero or Deserter? Read online

  In many ways Percival was the exact antithesis of Bennett. He was quiet, tactful and patient, with a firm but positive resolve. In Bennett’s judgement this meant Percival was probably the best candidate for the job but in the final analysis was unable to beat the system hoisted upon him by the British government.

  Percival also shared the view that stronger forces were urgently needed in Malaya, the two men thus acknowledging the dire repercussions of a Japanese invasion and what it would mean for Singapore.

  The sense of foreboding added to the stress of training and containing a fighting force several thousand miles away from home. As Lionel Wigmore, the official historian, was to acknowledge in The Japanese Thrust: ‘The 8th Division from its commander downwards was now undergoing a test to which Australian troops had not hitherto been put … [they] had been dispersed far and wide on garrison duty of a kind not contemplated by the officers and men when their units were formed. In tropical conditions, which themselves imposed nervous strain, this resulted in a sense of frustration and the sort of grumbling by which men relieve their feelings.’

  One example of this could be found in the Northern Territory, where the 2/21st Battalion was still kicking up its heels. The men had arrived there in April 1941 and faced several months of boredom and frustration before they were finally sent to Ambon. Dumped in scrubland several miles outside Darwin, they drank like fish and played cards to while away the time.

  Max ‘Eddie’ Gilbert, who was part of B Company, said it was like living in a wild-west town. ‘Fellas either boozed or gambled or did both,’ he recalled, though fortunately he was able to occupy himself as a member of the mortar team.8

  Lieutenant-Colonel William Scott, who would later command Gull Force, claimed the battalion was out of control. He cited indiscipline, drunkenness and fighting among the men as the main complaints, although it would later emerge that the officer had a vested interest in badmouthing the troops, after falling out with their CO, Lieutenant-Colonel Len Roach.9

  Family ties were also being stretched to the limit after newspaper articles published in Australia unwittingly gave the impression that those troops stationed in Malaya were enjoying the high life. Wives and girlfriends writing letters from home said they’d seen how their menfolk were ‘leading exotic lives in the tropics’. Sometimes a wife or girl would add that she too knew how to have a ‘gay time’. Such remarks, made in ignorance of the toil, sweat and tedium of the men’s lot, bit into the feelings of many.

  While the joke was on them, they accepted the mocking tone, referring to themselves satirically as ‘Menzies’ Glamour Boys’ and naming a row of huts ‘Pansy Alley’.10

  While there is no doubt that training and conditions in Malaya were hard for the 8th Division, they also enjoyed a good social life.

  Conscious of his men’s needs, Bennett helped to establish a leave club in Kuala Lumpur, with British ex-pat women cooking the meals and even waiting on the officers. Soon an Anzac Club was opened in Singapore, financed by a local resident as a ‘mark of an Englishman’s appreciation of the Dominion troops’.

  The Aussies, who were always up for a party, were regarded as a bit of a novelty and while the peace continued there were abundant opportunities to down a few ales and make small talk with the locals.

  Gordon Bennett was also beginning to enjoy himself, some reports of the time suggesting a tendency to ‘going native’. Certainly his dress sense was frequently out of character when compared with the full uniform he wore as 8th Division commander.

  Alfred Duff Cooper, a prominent British politician whom Churchill would send to Singapore as Resident Minister of Far Eastern Affairs, clearly found it difficult to know what to make of Bennett when he paid a visit to his headquarters and his ‘pansy hat – wide brimmed straw with a multi-coloured scarf around it’ incited sniggers.11

  Bennett also donned a sarong on occasions, though he was not alone in this. In the tropical conditions it was a practical garment and became increasingly popular among males relaxing under the heat of the midday sun.

  As his social circle grew, Bennett took full advantage of the hospitality on offer, particularly that provided by the Sultan of Johore, who was said to be among the world’s wealthiest monarchs. The head of one of Malaya’s richest states, Sultan Ibrahim enjoyed high living and the company of beautiful women. He was an anglophile, having been sent to public school in Britain, where his father had been a friend of Queen Victoria. As commander-in-chief of his own battalion, he also enjoyed the trappings of military life, so when the 8th Division’s Headquarters was established in Johore Bahru, he was quick to extend a royal welcome to its commander.

  Gordon Bennett and the Sultan got on famously, and the friendship extended to the Australian troops, who were to enjoy full use of his polo field to play football. The largesse included whisky and cigars for Bennett, who also got on well with the Sultan’s wife. Gossips suggested that the relationship with her was more than platonic, though this may have been a scurrilous rumour invented by Bennett’s enemies.

  Major John Wyett, who was a member of Bennett’s staff, was later to recall how he found a compromising photograph of the Sultan’s fourth and much younger wife, Marcella, the daughter of a Romanian migrant, in the commander’s personal belongings after the fall of Singapore.

  ‘She was very pleasant, youngish and easy to talk to,’ he told author Peter Thompson. ‘I think it was a bit more than that with him. They were flirting with each other – the Sultan didn’t seem to mind,’ Wyett added.12

  Whatever the truth, the strong ties between the 8th Division and the Sultan clearly had mutual benefits. Not only did Bennett’s troops share in the Sultan’s generosity, but the ruler himself felt safer in the knowledge that the 8th Division was there to protect his state.

  Interestingly those close relations did not stop the Sultan from charging the Australians a royalty of five Malayan dollars for every tree they felled for defence or training purposes. The thinking was that as the Sultan owned everything in the state, he had to be recompensed for everything taken. By December 1942 the AIF had handed over 100,000 Straits dollars to the Sultan’s coffers. Not a bad little earner for a country that was relying on the Allies to protect them.13

  Bennett decided to place part of the 22nd Brigade at Mersing, in order to block the road to Singapore in the event of a Japanese attack down the east coast. In the meantime he still continued to do battle with his masters back in Australia. With the arrival of the 27th Brigade in August, the AIF’s total force in Malaya was now 15,000. They included 2/26th Battalion, 2/29th Battalion, 2/30th Battalion, 2/15th Field Regiment, 2/12th Field Company, 2/6th Field Company and 2/10th Field Ambulance. But while Australia was providing more men on the ground, air and sea support were sadly lacking.

  There were a mere 143 aircraft based in Malaya, comprising 22 Vildebeests, six Catalina flying boats, 60 Buffalo fighters, 12 Hudson and 43 Blenheim bombers.

  Naval support was little better. After pressure on London, the Admiralty recognised the need for a battle fleet to be sent to the Far East. Initially it recommended that four ‘R’ class battleships be sent to the Indian Ocean followed by reinforcements early in 1942, including two more battleships, a battle cruiser and, in the event of an emergency, an aircraft carrier.

  Churchill rejected this proposal but in early October the decision was made to send the recently completed Prince of Wales and an older but faster battle cruiser, the Repulse, which would head almost immediately to the area. The aircraft carrier Indomitable would join them in Singapore, but on the way she struck a reef in Jamaica, an accident that would have tragic consequences. The Indomitable was carrying 45 aircraft with which to defend the small naval task force despatched to Singapore. Without the carrier, the Prince of Wales and the rest of the flotilla were exposed and hopelessly vulnerable to attack by enemy planes.14

  While the increased naval presence was a welcome step, Bennett continued to press for more troops and he had not given up o
n his request to transfer the 23rd Brigade, who continued to languish in the Northern Territory. To reinforce his demand, he offered to fly to Darwin for a formal inspection of the brigade which remained under his command. Much to his indignation, Bennett was told that such a visit would be unnecessary as the 23rd were about to be wrested from his control and separated into individual forces for duty in the Dutch East Indies, New Britain and the Northern Territory. This amounted to the official formation of Gull Force, Lark Force and Sparrow Force, which had been under consideration for some months.

  However, perhaps he might consider a journey to the Middle East instead, the Military Board suggested. The decision, agreed by the War Cabinet, dismayed and perplexed Bennett who might have guessed that other forces were afoot to unseat him from his present position.

  A couple of days later his suspicions were confirmed when his old adversary General Thomas Blamey arrived in Singapore on the way back to Australia from the Middle East and told Bennett in no uncertain terms that he was about to urge the Cabinet to dispatch the 8th Division to the Middle East. Bennett was shocked and rightly saw it as a thinly disguised move by Blamey to bring the entire AIF under his control in the Middle East. In one fell swoop he would achieve his ultimate ambition and thereby scuttle Bennett’s attempts to secure the top job himself.

  By now it was early November, just over a month before Japan would enter World War II by blitzing Pearl Harbor and invading Malaya. The clock was ticking but Blamey remained convinced that the Japanese still posed no particular threat.

  Meanwhile, Bennett, whose resolve showed no sign of faltering, took advantage of Blamey’s absence from the Middle East and headed for Egypt, in accordance with the War Cabinet’s earlier instructions. What he found there did not impress him. He described the Western Desert offensive as lacking drive, punch and coordination, with an ‘elephantine’ headquarters which had grown at the expense of the number of men available to fight.

  ‘Too many officers were so far removed from the battles that were being fought that they lost touch with reality. Departments became watertight and out of touch with other departments. Perfect cooperation was extremely difficult,’ he declared.15

  If this was Bennett’s way of getting his own back on Blamey, he need not have worried. The War Cabinet had already rejected Blamey’s request to send the 8th Division to the Middle East so the way was now open for Bennett to concentrate on Malaya. It was not a pretty picture. The number of fighting units positioned in Malaya by early December 1941 comprised 86,000 men, of whom many were poorly trained and badly equipped. Most were Indians and locally enlisted troops, who together totalled almost 54,000. In addition there were now 19,600 British and 15,200 Australians. As well as 31 infantry battalions there were seven field units, one mountain regiment, two anti-tank regiments and two anti-tank batteries.

  Although it looked impressive on paper, the figures did not fill Bennett with confidence.

  Anxious to get back to his men and aware of intelligence reports that the Japanese had been sending military and political personnel to Thailand for several months, the commander decided to return as soon as possible. He booked a passage on a Qantas flying boat due to leave on the morning of 3 December and wrote in his diary: ‘Indo-China has been well prepared as a springboard from which to make the dive into Thailand, Malaya and the Netherlands East Indies. I fear that the move may start before my return so I have decided to push off at once.’

  When Blamey got wind of Bennett’s early departure he dismissed the idea that Japan was on the brink of invading.

  ‘Blamey pooh-poohed the idea,’ Bennett noted in his diary, ‘and was very definite in his opinion nothing would happen in Malaya, and that the Japanese would not extend the war there. I quoted what had been happening in Thailand. He was still not convinced.’16

  The flight to Malaya took several days. Arriving at Government House in Calcutta to meet up with General Archibald Wavell, Supreme Commander, South West Pacific, Bennett also found his boyhood foe Thomas Blamey there. Once again the two men clashed, with each attempting to press home their personal arguments. Bennett was adamant, telling Blamey that the 8th Division would soon be fighting the war against the Japanese in Malaya, but Blamey would not listen.

  It was fortuitous that Bennett left Cairo when he did. As the 8th Division’s commander resumed his flight, unbeknown to him the Japanese invasion fleet was already heading towards the Malay Peninsula and the east coast of southern Thailand.

  Three Australian Hudson reconnaissance aircraft spotted the fleet after taking off from Kota Bharu on Malaya’s northeastern coast on the Saturday morning of 6 December. It was Flight Lieutenant Jack Ramshaw who saw the first three Japanese vessels nearly 300 kilometres out to sea. A short time later he identified a much larger flotilla, consisting of seven destroyers, five cruisers, a heavy cruiser and 25 merchant ships.17 Because of the monsoonal conditions the aircraft were unable to maintain visual contact but radioed the sighting back to base.

  Later, Flying Officer Patrick Bedell of the British RAF spotted the armada from his Catalina flying boat. He was a sitting duck in the circumstances. The Japanese saw him and opened fire to prevent him alerting his HQ back in Singapore. Bedell is believed to have been the first official casualty of the war in the Far East.

  In the early hours of 8 December, weather reports from Japanese radio in Tokyo forecast a fair, westerly wind. The Allies did not know it at the time but it was a code for Japanese missions across the globe to prepare for the outbreak of war.

  At 3.30 am local time in Singapore, a formation of unidentified planes was reported heading towards the island from the northwest, sending local army, navy and air force units into a frenzy. An hour later bombs started falling on Singapore’s airfields.

  It was too late to alert the local population as the civil defence officer who had the key to the air-raid siren had gone to the cinema earlier in the evening and could not be contacted. Thus the litany of blunders began to unfold. Singapore’s lack of preparedness in the face of a mighty and ruthless enemy would haunt the Allied forces for years to come.

  Around the same time, during a refuelling stop in Rangoon, Bennett was given the dreadful news. The Japanese had also bombed the Americans at Pearl Harbor, as well as Manila. Around the same time the Japanese 5th Division were landing at Singora and Patani in Thailand and parts of the 18th were coming ashore just over the border at Kota Bharu in northeast Malaya.

  Henry Gordon Bennett’s instincts had been proved correct. The war in the Far East was underway. Who knew where it would end?

  Chapter 4

  ATTACK, ATTACK, ATTACK

  In the half-light of dawn on 8 December, the reality of the Japanese attacks was only just beginning to sink in. Although dozens of civilians were reported killed or injured in Singapore, miraculously the pride of the British fleet, HMS Prince of Wales and her sister ship, Repulse, which were now at anchor at the naval base, had escaped unscathed.

  With Australia’s 8th Division ensconced further north along the peninsula’s east coast, around Mersing and Endau, all eyes switched to the Thai border, where the Japanese were coming ashore in force. Operation Matador, a British plan to invade Thailand and thereby cut off the enemy before they crossed the border into Malaya, had been carefully devised months before the anticipated invasion. But even as enemy forces landed at Singora and Patani in southern Thailand, Matador had still to be put into effect. Incredibly, the 11th Indian Division, which had been in position south of the Thai border for weeks, was still awaiting its orders because of indecision by Air Vice-Marshal Sir Robert Brooke Popham, who was close to nervous collapse. Then Commander-in-Chief of British Far East Command, he was soon to be replaced by Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Pownall.

  The Indian troops, led by Major-General David Murray-Lyon, had been champing at the bit all night in the pouring rain and by morning were thoroughly drenched. It was not until early afternoon that they received the message that Matador had been ca
lled off.

  Eventually 11th Division was given permission to press ahead with its advance across the border, only to be confronted by a group of Thai police who held them up with rifles and light machine guns. The Thais, who had also blocked the road with felled trees, soon realised they were outnumbered and allowed the Indians through to a ridge known as the Ledge. Not long afterwards, the 2/16th Punjabs found themselves in contact with an advance party of Japanese who were backed up by tanks. It was clearly an unequal match. Despite valiant efforts by the Indians to fight their way up the road, enemy soldiers forced them back with mortars and machine guns, inflicting heavy casualties in the process.

  ‘It was said at the time that the failure was due to the unexpected change from attack to defence for which our troops were not properly disposed,’ Bennett recorded later in his official report. ‘With trained troops this should have made no difference. Leadership was also weak. An encounter battle should have ensued in which our troops, if superior in quality to the enemy and if better led, should have overcome the Japanese.’1

  Further withdrawals by the Indians followed, notably at Jitra in Malaya’s far northwest, where about 3000 soldiers were taken prisoner. It was a humiliating defeat for the men of the 11th Indian Division, who were beaten by a reconnaissance detachment of only 500 Japanese soldiers.

  Bennett was so impressed by the way so few men had defeated so many that he sent a staff officer there to investigate the methods adopted by the Japanese to achieve such a decisive and remarkable result.

  ‘The feat demonstrated that battles are not always won by big battalions,’ he wrote. ‘That a small force of battle trained men possessing the initiative and making use of that valuable weapon, surprise, can quickly overwhelm a numerically stronger force which lacks battle experience.’2