Descent Into Hell

DESCENT INTO HELL: The Fall of Singapore-Pudu and Changi-the Thai-Burma Railway

Peter Brune

Allen & Unwin, 2014, 802pp

Peter Brune has moved the focus of his study of Australia’s war against Japan from Papua to the campaign in Malaya and Singapore, and the fate of Australian prisoners of war there and on the Thai-Burma railway. This comprehensive book is a worthy follow-on to such books as A Bastard of a Place, Those Ragged Bloody Heroes, and The Spell Broken. Its publication is timely, as these events pass from living memory with the deaths of the participants.

Brune’s narrative suggests clearly that Lieutenant General Arthur Percival was promoted to a rank he was psychologically incapable of exercising. Percival took an academic approach to problems, but did not implement practical solutions. As a colonel in the late 1930s, he prepared an appreciation forecasting accurately that a Japanese invasion of Malaya would come during the monsoon season, and involve landings at ‘Singora and Patani in [Thailand] and Kota Bharu in Malaya’. In command in 1941, he did not follow the logic of his earlier appreciation.

Plans were prepared to counter such an attack, but never implemented. To the contrary, the RAF convinced itself that any invasion could be defeated by air power, and built airfields from which its aircraft (which never arrived in adequate quantity or quality) could operate. The army was forced to defend these airfields, some of them in highly vulnerable locations (including near Kota Bharu), giving it an impossible task.

Brune highlights two significant failures by Percival. First, he failed to establish a training organisation, even though many of his Indian troops were poorly trained. While a comprehensive training organisation existed in the Middle East, where untrained personnel could be brought up to battle standard, personnel arriving in Malaya could receive only limited training before being sent to front line units.

This failure makes inexplicable the arrival of some 1800 untrained Australian reinforcements in Singapore on 24 January 1942, as Singapore was about to be invested. These untrained reinforcements (and also many untrained Indian troops) were deployed straight into battle, as were the partially trained, but not acclimatised, men of the British 18th Division, who had been diverted while en route to the Middle East. Brune considers, probably correctly, that many of the undisciplined Australians roaming around the city in the last days came from this group.

Percival’s second failure was to make no use of Brigadier Ivan Simson, sent to Malaya in August 1941 as Chief Engineer with a brief ‘to bring the defences … up to date’. He was essentially ignored. Large quantities of defence stores remained unused, and Simson’s proposals to prepare defensive positions down the Malay Peninsula were rejected. A final mainland defensive line had been reconnoitred in Johore in 1938. Construction commenced, but was later abandoned, and further development did not occur, even after the Japanese invasion started.

Once Percival’s force had retreated to Singapore Island, it needed a commander able and willing to take hard decisions and enforce them. While Percival might have had the intellectual capacity to see what had to be done, Brune shows that he lacked the necessary decisiveness and ruthlessness. Montgomery he was not. Despite direct orders from General Sir Archibald Wavell, both Percival and the fortress commander, Major General Keith Simmons, failed to prepare defences on the northern and western shores of Singapore Island. The skills of Simson and the available defence stores remained essentially unused.

In attempting to defend Singapore Island, Percival tried to be strong everywhere, and in the end was weak where it mattered. Ultimately, however, Singapore could not have been held unless Japanese naval superiority was broken, which did not happen until the Battle of Midway in June 1942. Wavell’s hope that landing I Australian Corps in the Indies could have enabled a successful counterstroke, and allowed Singapore and the Netherlands East Indies to be held, demonstrated a lack of understanding of sea power surprising in a senior officer of a great maritime power.

With different decisions by a more decisive commander than Percival, and better use of Simson’s skills, the retreat down the Malay Peninsula could have been slowed, and the outcome delayed. This would have had incalculable effects on the war against Japan. With the large civilian population on the island, however, it seems unlikely that Singapore Island could have been remained under siege for as long as Bataan and Corregidor in the Philippines. Nothing the Australians did, however, could have prevented the fall of Singapore.

Brune gives a competent description of the British delaying actions from the start of the war until the AIF entered the field at Gemas in mid-January 1942. Within the first two days it became clear that the policy of using air power to defeat the invasion had failed. Failure to pre-empt the Japanese attack by crossing the Thai border then set the scene for a series of disastrous defeats that drove the British forces down the Malay Peninsula. While the retreat was slowed after the AIF entered the fray, it was by then unstoppable.

The Australian part in the retreat from Gemas to Singapore Island is described in detail, as is the fight on Singapore Island, with successes and failures covered. Brune’s description of events on the 22nd Brigade front, where the full impact of the Japanese landings fell, is particularly good, giving a level of understanding that I had not acquired through previous reading. The battle proceeded to its inevitable result, regardless of the short-term successes occasionally gained, but hastened by too many failures in communication and leadership.

Brune follows the experiences of Australian prisoners after the surrender, providing a broad scale picture of their experiences in Malaya, Singapore, Thailand and Burma. By focussing on selected groups, he is able to demolish some myths (British camps were always worse run than Australian camps, everyone stood together as one ‘band of brothers’, and all Japanese and Korean guards were uniformly brutal and sadistic – one Korean guard known for his sympathetic approach was even nick-named ‘AIF Joe’). The truth, while perhaps discomforting to Australians, remains sufficiently inspiring to mitigate the poor behaviour of some.

Brune shows that after the surrender, when the dynamic changed, so too did the impact of different leaders. Some, like Lieutenant Colonels Frederick Galleghan and Gus Kappe, tried to organise a somewhat fanciful force to join re-conquering British troops. Admirable as such aggressive optimism might seem, they did not understand their new situation, and this was not what was required for their men to survive under Japanese captivity. A different style of leadership, exemplified by men like the 2/19th Battalion’s Captain ‘Roaring Reggie’ Newton and the doctors who gained lasting fame on the railway, was more helpful. After the surrender, many senior leaders lost their relevance as junior officers such as Newton came to the fore. Some, such as Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Pond, were good-hearted but ineffective.

Not all Australian commanders on the railway were as effective as Newton. Some, including Kappe and Major John Quick, focussed on their own survival, not on the survival of their men. Brune reports that Kappe told his men on the railway that he had ‘to look after himself to get home to report all this’. Perhaps similar attention to his men might have allowed more of them to ‘get home to report all this’. Quick was reported to have been ‘entirely dedicated to his own self-preservation’; Brune states that Quick did not attend unit reunions after the war! His poor leadership cost lives in his unit.

By focussing on the experiences of Newton and his camp doctor on the railway, Captain David Hinder, Brune demonstrates how an effective team could increase the chances of survival of their men. In Pudu Prison, in Kuala Lumpur, Newton learned to negotiate with the Japanese by a combination of bluff (his loud voice), personal courage (placing himself between his men and Japanese guards), and simulated humility regardless of his personal pride. He also used a combination of bribery (particularly of Sergeant Hiramatsu, known as the Tiger), and cooperation with some Japanese guards seeking to improve their own positions.

Newton also established good links with local Thai traders, especially Boon Pong. While Boon Pong did well from his trade, he accepted ‘deferred payment’ that enabled Newton to buy medications and supplementary food, supporting the health of his men. Men working on the railway were also assisted by money collected by interned British civilians (mostly businessmen) in Bangkok, who had extensive local contacts.

The railway doctors had to judge the state of their patients carefully. Enough had to be available for working parties, but a ‘rotation’ system was needed to allow everyone to have some relief. Brune also uses the experiences of Captain Rowley Richards, operating from the Burma end of the railway, to explain how the best doctors balanced the various competing forces. Under Newton, Hinder set the hygiene rules that Newton enforced rigidly, minimising the extent of infectious diseases in their camps. Richards coined the phrase ‘faeces, food, fingers, flies’ to counsel his men on avoiding sickness.

A key element of the story is the leadership of Major General H. Gordon Bennett. Bennett’s clashes with some regular officers of the Staff Corps are well known. Brune also outlines what might not be so well known, the extent to which regular officers refused to support him properly once he was appointed to command the 8th Division. Two named 8th Division staff officers are quoted as stating ‘publicly in the mess … that they disapproved of his appointment and were not prepared to cooperate with him’. Neither, however, chose to request an immediate transfer.

Brune notes that one book, The Fall of General Gordon Bennett, by Brett Lodge, also claimed that a senior Staff Corps officer attempted to frustrate Bennett’s command of the 8th Division, and ‘threatened that the 8th Division would never function as a complete formation under Bennett’s command’. Lodge apparently agreed with Bennett’s view that this was the Adjutant General, Major General Victor Stantke.

Brune describes how Lodge quotes selectively from comments by Major General Vernon Sturdee, later Chief of the General Staff (CGS), about Bennett’s suitability to command a division. The full comments demonstrate that Sturdee had no problems with Bennett as a divisional commander. Brune claims also that Lodge was selective in quoting other evidence that might have been seen as favouring Bennett.

Bennett suffered not only with disloyal staff officers who continued to intrigue against him, but also with inadequate subordinate commanders. Brigadier Harold Taylor of the 22nd Brigade resented Bennett, and frequently disobeyed orders. Brigadier Duncan Maxwell of the 27th Brigade actively subverted the defence of Singapore Island by abandoning vital positions near the Causeway, on the excuse that ‘he was a doctor in civil life and his function was to save life’. Clearly, Maxwell should not have been given command if an infantry unit or formation. In the Middle East under General Sir Thomas Blamey, neither Taylor nor Maxwell would have lasted, and it is surprising that Bennett did not replace one or both.

At the battalion level, Brune shows that the performance was mixed. Some, including Lieutenant Colonels Charles Anderson, Frederick Galleghan and Arthur Boyes, performed well, albeit not perfectly. Few of the infantry battalion commanders seem to have demonstrated any real knowledge of the employment of anti-tank guns, while Galleghan’s early reluctance to allow his men to dig in was a clear failure. Others were failures, and should have been replaced earlier.

After his return to Australia, Bennett was posted to command III Corps in Western Australia. At least until the defeat of the Japanese fleet at Midway in June 1942 this was a possible Japanese objective, indicating that Bennett was not immediately side-lined. He stayed in command of a declining force there until retiring in April 1944.

Was Bennett as good as he thought he was? Probably not, but he seems to have been as good as most of the British generals alongside whom he served in Malaya and Singapore. Brune shows that he made errors, such as in his deployment of the partially trained 45th Indian Brigade at the Muar River. Many of his clashes with senior British commanders and staff, however, were the result of him implementing his charter as an Australian commander. There were similar clashes in the Middle East between British commanders and both Blamey and Lieutenant General Leslie Morshead.

After the war, Bennett faced an inquiry into his departure form Singapore. Brune notes the mysterious disappearance of the diary of Lieutenant Colonel Wilfred Kent Hughes. This was sent back to Australia in early 1942, and given into the custody of Stantke. Its loss, and the destruction after the war of cables between Bennett and the CGS, removed important pieces of evidence for a full inquiry into Bennett’s conduct and affected the writing of the Official History. One of those on the board of inquiry into that conduct was Stantke, whose animus against Bennett seems to be accepted even by Lodge.

However, Stantke might have had a further reason to ensure that Bennett was censured. Brune notes the arrival of the untrained Australian reinforcements in late January, and their bad effect on the defence of Singapore after being hastily integrated into units that had suffered heavy casualties on the Malay Peninsula. However, he does not look into responsibility for their arrival.

While Australian Army headquarters must bear the full responsibility, it seems likely that the Australian personnel authorities were at least partially culpable. The principal Australian personnel authority was the Adjutant General, then Stantke. To protect both himself and other senior officers, he might have been concerned that the post-war inquiry into Bennett’s departure from Singapore not focus on this issue, casting further doubt on his impartiality.

The editing of the book is uneven. As simple examples, the Baluch Regiment also appears variously as Buluch and Bulach, Major General Beckwith-Smith appears also as Beckworth-Smith, while the photo of Lieutenant Colonel Albert Coates gives his first name as Alfred, and a photo captioned as Lieutenant Colonel Broadbent shows him wearing the hat band, gorget patches, and rank badges of a full colonel. Joo Lyte and Joo Lye are used variously during the description of the 2/18th Battalion’s engagement at Nithsdale Estate. The plan showing the layout of Pudu Prison does not match the description in the text. Finally, the index is quite inadequate.

These criticisms aside, this book is a valuable contribution to the historiography of the 8th Division’s service in Malaya and Singapore. While Brune makes his sympathies clear with respect to Bennett, at this remove it is unlikely that entrenched attitudes will be changed.

JOHN DONOVAN