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| From Kowloon on the Chinese mainland, Japanese soldiers watch their shells falling on Hong Kong's capital below "The Peak." |
Published in 1948
After long years of secret preparation, Japan was ready to strike crippling blows at widely separated targets in her whirlwind expansion in the southwest Pacific. Her immediate objective was to secure the rich and natural resources of Malaya and the Netherlands East Indies. But to have freedom of action, she must first neutralize and then eliminate any major power that might prevent the realization of her plans. Three such major powers stood astride her road of access; these were the United States, Great Britain, and the Netherlands. Two of these powers, the British and the Netherlands, were already crippled by being involved in the European War. This left the United States as the first target for attack, because the United States was on record as opposing Japanese aggression in China.
In order to accomplish her purpose, Japan spent long years of preparation under the cloak of secrecy, and when the auspicious moment came she struck sudden blows at widely separated targets. The unheralded attack on Pearl Harbor was designed to destroy or to neutralize the American Fleet so that it would be impossible for it to interfere with Japanese troop movements from her home islands to the East Indies.
Almost simultaneously with the attack on Pearl Harbor came the bombing of Midway, Wake, Guam, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Malaya, and Singapore. After these attacks, a Japanese army of some 200,000 men, already massed in French Indo-China, stood ready to invade Siam, Burma to the west, and Malaya to the south. Then with surprise and speed the Japanese accomplished one of the most remarkable exploits of all history, the rapid conquest and occupation of almost the entire southwest Pacific area as well as a good part of southeast Asia. She captured the British Colony of Hong Kong on 25 December 1941. Pushing down the coast of Asia, she overran Siam on 8 December 1941 and advanced into Burma, capturing Mandalay on 1 May 1942 and the capital city of Rangoon on 7 March 1942. By 7 January 1942 Japan had occupied Malaya, and Singapore by 15 February 1942.
In this rapid expansion the Japanese did not have everything their own way. The British fought back to defend Hong Kong until their meager forces were overpowered, and again in Malaya the British fought a losing battle of resistance until they were compelled to evacuate Singapore on 15 February 1942. In this battle for the defense of Malaya, the British lost heavily of men and equipment, and also two of their mightiest ships, the Repulse and the Prince of Wales.
On 16 February 1942, the day after Singapore fell, Premier Tojo said to the Japanese Diet that with the fall of Singapore Japan could now dispose of Burma, China, India, the Netherlands Indies, Australia, and New Zealand in that order.
The British Crown Colony of Hong Kong lies at the mouth of the Canton River, about 60 miles from the ancient city of Canton in south China. The island of Hong Kong together with Kowloon one mile away on the mainland has a total area of 391 square miles and had a population in 1938 estimated at 1,050,265, only 23,096 of whom were non-Chinese.
Hong Kong was a British station of great strategic as well as commercial importance. It was the gateway between the East and the West and one of the greatest transshipment ports in the world.
On 7 December 1941 (8 December, Asiatic time), the Japanese took over the International Settlement at Shanghai and began their attack on Hong Kong. Allied troops at Hong Kong at the time consisted of a garrison of 12,000 Anglo-Indians and 3,000 Canadians who had arrived during the month of November, a total defensive strength of 15,000. The Colony's defenses were not sufficient to withstand a determined siege by land, sea, and air. On the 19th of December the Japanese were able to effect a landing and the Colony was compelled to surrender on the 25th of December 1941.
All non-Asiatics, British, Dutch, and American nationals (some 3,500 men, women, and children, old and young, sick and healthy), were arrested by the Japanese and held in Murray Parade Ground Concentration Camp. The Hong Kong garrison was interned at once. The civilians were then marched more than a mile and a half and quartered in a dilapidated brothel, where they were kept for 17 days amid the most squalid conditions and without proper food, bedding, heat, or light. After the 17 days, they were taken to the permanent concentration camp on Stanley Peninsula, where most of the group were reduced to starvation diet. "I witnessed," said Joseph Alsop, "the slow starving to death of some 3,000-odd unarmed civilians, most of them women, children, and old people." This is a sample of the treatment of civilian prisoners by the Japanese. And more: "Conditions in the big Japanese camp for American military prisoners were precisely the same as at Stanley Internment Camp... The raping and bayoneting of prisoners and wounded in two field hospitals took place on the day of the surrender."
The capture of Hong Kong put the Japanese in possession of practically all the Asiatic coast of China. With the fall of Hong Kong the last major port in Free China was closed. With the Philippines subjected and Hong Kong out of the way, Japan could now proceed towards Singapore. Though Hong Kong was doomed from the start, the delaying action fought in its defense gave Britain and America time to reinforce other positions in the Pacific.
After her occupation of Manchuria in 1931, and Shanghai in 1932, and Jehol in 1933, Japan continued to build up her offensive machine in China. Starting again in 1937, Japan proceeded to absorb China step by step. In 1939 Japan seized Hainan and the Spratly Islands, thus gaining strategic positions from which to attack southern China, French Indo-China, Malaya, Thailand, Burma, the Philippines, and the Dutch East Indies.
French Indo-China comprises 260,034 square miles of territory and a population of more than 22,000,000 people. The total area is about as large as the state of Texas. Europeans number about 42,000. The capital is Hanoi, in the state or province of Tonkin.
Perhaps at no point except China were the relations between the United States and Japan more crucial than over French Indo-China. It was the action of Japan there that revealed what her ultimate intentions were. Indo-China in Japanese hands could imperil the safety of the Philippines to the east and furnish Japan a springboard from which to make an assault on Malaya and Singapore, on Thailand and Burma.
Under pressure from Hitler and Japan, the Vichy government opened Indo-China to Japanese agents on 20 June 1940, and by a pact signed at Hanoi on 22 September 1940 conceded three airfields and admitted a garrison of 60,000 Japanese troops. Japan then gained control of Saigon, 650 miles north of Singapore, and converted it into a naval base.
It is little wonder, then, that both the United States and Great Britain were alarmed. They both realized that Indo-China, being nominally at least under the control of the Vichy Nazi-inspired government, might be a pawn that could be used to the disadvantage of both England and the United States. And this is the way the matter turned out. About 22 July 1941 the Vichy government, under Axis pressure, granted to the Japanese the right to maintain troops and establish air and naval bases in southern Indo-China. To the protest of our State Department, the Japanese minister attempted to explain the matter by saying there was no military significance in the move, that Japan only wanted to be assured of an uninterrupted flow of rice and raw materials, and to prevent herself being encircled by the Chinese and the DeGaullists of Free France. The Secretary of State replied that such reassurance was both inopportune and false, and that he "could not see any basis for pursuing further the conversation in which the Secretary and the Ambassador had been engaged."
On 24 July 1941, President Roosevelt told the Japanese ambassador that the new move by Japan in Indo-China created an exceedingly serious problem. By 28 July 1941, Japan had occupied southern Indo-China.
During the discussions at Washington in 1941 between the Japanese envoys and Secretary of State Hull, the U.S. government noted that "the Government of Japan had continued its military activities and its disposals of armed forces at various points in the Far East and had occupied Indo-China with its military, air, and naval forces. Therefore," the statement continued, "the Government of the United States finds it necessary to say to the Government of Japan that if the Japanese Government takes any further steps in pursuance of a policy or program of military domination by force or threat of force of neighboring countries, the Government of the United States will be compelled to take immediately any and all steps which it may deem necessary towards safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of the United States and American Nationals and toward insuring the safety and security of the United States."
On 2 December 1941, President Roosevelt again protested to the Japanese government about continual Japanese troop movements in Indo-China and asked for an explanation. On 5 December 1941 the Japanese envoy Kurusu said to the Secretary of State that Japanese troop movements in Indo-China were for the purpose of defense against a possible Chinese attack.
Thailand, formerly Siam, is sandwiched in between Burma on the west and Indo-China on the east, and had a population in 1934 of 12,699,000. Its capital is Bangkok with a population of nearly 1,000,000 people. Thailand, one of the last absolute monarchies, passed through a bloodless revolution in 1932 and emerged as a limited monarchy with full franchise for the people and an elected parliament.
In 1940 a border dispute arose between Thailand and Indo-China which was settled through Japan as mediator. After the Japanese had occupied Indo-China in late summer 1941 they began then to negotiate with the Siamese government for control of that entire country. But Thailand had already come under Japanese domination in early 1941, when Tokyo dictated a settlement of her dispute with Indo-China to the advantage of Thailand and the Japanese. From bases in Indo-China and later in Thailand, Japan was ready to pounce on Malaya, Singapore, the Netherlands East Indies, and Burma.
British Malaya includes the Straits Settlements, British North Borneo, Brunei, and Sarawak on the Malay Peninsula. The Straits Settlements consist of the four federated Malay states, Perak, Selangor, Negri Sembilan, and Pahang. Their total population amounts to 2,212,052 people.
The Unfederated Malay States are Johore, Kedah, Perlis, Kalantan, and Trengganu. The total population of these is 1,912,497. The island of Singapore, on which the capital of the Malay states is located, has an area of 1,356 square miles and a population estimated at 1,435,895, while the city of Singapore has a population amounting to 600,000, of which 80% are Chinese. Singapore was occupied by the Japanese forces on 15 February 1942 after the conquest of Malaya.
Three-fourths of the tin and three-fifths of the rubber used in the U.S. came from British Malaya. The Malay states are the greatest source of tin in the world. The port of Singapore, perhaps the most important in the Far East, was served by 80 steamship lines and annually cleared 30,000 ships. It was a modern city with magnificent banks, modern government buildings, and a stately palace.
Singapore is known as the Gibraltar of the East and provided a haven for one-half of the British Navy, "thus guaranteeing the lifeline of the British Empire," it was confidently believed. The new naval base and its naval airport plus an elaborate system of coastal defenses protected the base from attack by air or sea. Singapore had a permanent garrison of the British Army and Navy numbering 100,000 but this number had been greatly increased. It was announced in 1941 that the base could repair and outfit all the ships of Britain, her allies, and potential allies.
The nature of the country of Malaya has always been Singapore's greatest defense. For the same reason it likewise dictated the strategy of the Japanese invasion. All Malaya is divided into three parts—the eastern coastal strip, mostly jungle; a mountainous backbone of granite running down the middle; and the western coastal strip, heavily populated and the site of the world's greatest rubber plantations and tin mines.
British troops in December 1941 consisted of the Imperial III Corps, of Scottish, Australian, and Indian units, as follows: The 11th Division and the 9th Division. During the battle all were driven south by the Japanese and towards Singapore. At Singapore the Japanese claim to have captured some 70,000 British Imperial troops.
Because the eastern section presented acre after acre of steamy, trackless forests—infested by tigers and crocodiles—the Japanese army of invasion chose the western section for its greatest assault. Crossing the isthmus near the Thailand frontier, Japanese soldiers pushed steadily down the cultivated western flatland where a superiority in men, planes, and mechanized equipment would have the greatest effect. They met with success, surmounting natural obstacles and pressing the defenders steadily backward through two-thirds of the peninsula.
The remaining coastal territory is given over largely to mile after mile of tin workings, principally in the state of Selangor, and to the most extensive rubber plantations in the world. These stretch southward through the states of Negri Sembilan and Johore all the way to Singapore. In the mining areas the country is open, exposing troops on the move to strafing from the air. Rubber plantations, although providing complete cover from bombers because of the dense leafy foliage, permit almost perfect freedom on the ground. And nearly every rubber plantation had an abundance of good roads.
Little is known of the land defenses of Singapore proper although they presumably stretched across the mainland area directly to the north. All highways in the proximity of the fortress reportedly had been mined, and it is known that the single link between island and mainland, a solid causeway, could be destroyed by pressure of a button. The jungles, tough mountains, and open swamps rendered valuable service to Britain in the first stages of her defense of Malaya.
From the frontier of Thailand, which had surrendered after token resistance on 8 December 1941, and French Indo-China, the Japanese moved swiftly south through the British Malay States to Singapore, 580 miles away. Against the British Imperial III Corps, consisting of Scottish, Australian, and Indian units, holding the main roads, the Japanese sent their best troops, a force of four or five divisions trained to advance through the rice-field swamps, traveling light, clothed only in loin cloths, and easily mistaken for Malay natives as they infiltrated British lines. In a global war of machines, Japan's armies perfected the tactics of jungle warfare.
Since the Japanese required air cover for their overland advances, they always seized airfields first. Thus the attack on the long, narrow Malay Peninsula began with landings on the east coast and in Thailand so as to pinch off the airdrome at Kota Bharu, and to take the fields at Singora and Patani. From there a division cut across the neck of the peninsula to the west coast and threatened to envelop the British Imperial 11th Division, which fell back, uncovering Penang. The Japanese pressed steadily down the west coast, and from the east coast they advanced southward along an inland railway. The mobility of Japanese units enabled them to infiltrate and envelop each receding line of British defense. Another enemy force drove down the east coast and all three Japanese drives converged on a common front in Johore on 29 December 1941.
The fate of the great naval base, and of the troops covering it in Malaya, was sealed by the sinking on 10 December 1941 of the battleship Prince of Wales and the cruiser Repulse, caught by Japanese torpedo planes off the east Malay coast. The destruction of these mighty British warships was a triumph of air power. To the Allies it was a tactical misfortune no less serious than the strategic blow suffered at Pearl Harbor.
The Allied command in southeast Asia was reorganized and unified. General Sir Archibald Wavell assumed supreme command on 3 January 1942. His deputy, Lieutenant General George H. Brett, directed the weak air forces, and Admiral Thomas C. Hart took charge of such naval forces as were left. Marshal Chiang Kai-shek was at the head of all land and air forces isolated in China.
At the Slim River the British forces were defeated by about 30 enemy tanks on 7 January 1942 and remnants of British III Corps rallied to the defense of Singapore. The land approaches to this naval base had been conquered by the Japanese in less than two months; they had swept south through Malaya over 500 miles, waging blitzkrieg in the jungles, rice swamps, and rubber forests in which superior forces and tactics caught the British off guard and swept them aside.
The British defenses around Singapore were prepared to resist attack from the sea but not from the jungles to the north. The Japanese aerial siege began on 29 December 1941 and persisted for more than a month until 8 February 1942. By that time Japanese jungle troops were in position to attack the city from the north. Singapore surrendered on 15 February 1942, just 70 days from the first Japanese attack on Malaya. Not only had the Japanese captured a naval fortress, one considered impregnable, but captured also some 70,000 British Imperial troops. Prime Minister Churchill characterized the fall of Singapore as "the greatest disaster to British arms which history records."
Singapore, the Gibraltar of the East, had fallen! The way now lay open for the Japanese to advance toward the west into Burma and on to the gates of the east into Sumatra, Java, New Guinea, and to the threshold of Australia.
