Did Singapore have to Fall? Churchill and the Impregnable Fortress

In 1942, Singapore, a British colony, fell to invading Japanese forces, an event that was quickly and enduringly to become a symbolic one, used to create and re-shape myths, to build and break nations and empires. In a curiously titled study, Karl Hack and Kevin Blackburn, two Singapore-based scholars, ask questions of interest to military, diplomatic and cultural historians about policy and strategy-making and about how war-time experiences are remembered and represented. The text is divided into six chapters (which would have been improved by periodic summaries to guide the reader), backed up by some excellent maps and photographs. The opening chapter provides an effective overview of the historiographyo be returned to later in a final chapter exploring the cultural history of he battle Chapters Two and Three will be of particular interest to international historians of a traditional bent, as the authors argue that military preparations for the defence of Singapore were not, as has often been argued, inadequate. Their research shows that scarce British and Empire resources had to be deployed in theatres (especially the Middle East), which had a higher strategy priority (for Britain). Moreover, intelligence on Japanese war-time aims was not, at the time, good, it wrongly being assumed by Britain that Japan would not want to provoke US intervention by attacking South-East Asia. Even so, there were serious divisions over defence policy between Churchill, who incorrectly viewed Singapore as a ortressthat could withstand whatever Japan could throw at it, and the more astute Chiefs of Staff, who argued that Japanese forces had to be engaged further inland. British preparations for war were also inadequate because the troops were ill-trained and poorly equipped, and were no match for war-hardened Japanese ones. The large population of Malayan Chinese had not been recruited and trained to defend their adopted homen interesting line that could have been further explored by the authors. Given strategic priorities set in London, and given how unevenly the sides were matched in 1942, the British government made, in hindsight, a further tactical error by deploying more troops too late in the day to make any difference. These findings of interest to diplomatic and military historians would have been strengthened by research using Japanese sources. The authors admit that deciding definitively whether or not Britain failed strategically in Singapore depends on assessing ow the Japanese could or would have respondedto more British equipment (especially tanks and airplanes) and better trained troops. Thus, this book, like many others on the subject, rests ultimately on a problematic counter-factual methodology. The next chapter explores (in too much depth for the reader not interested in military history) whether or not the uns of Singaporewere correctly positioned to deal with the threat of invasion. It is during this chapter that the authors begin to explore cultural history themes, culminating in an intriguing final chapter which examines how past events were remembered: how notions such as he Falland he Fortresswere used by Japanese, Australians and Singaporeans to build (culturally) their nations. Hack and Blackburn show, for example, how Australians used this event to demonstrate that they had been ictims of British failure to prop up their own national myths. For Australians, British strategic failures were used to disguise evidence that the morale (fight-ethic) of Australian troops had been weak; the allshowed that Britain had neglected them. Historians of Singapore and Japan could build on such interesting observations, perhaps by using school textbooks and oral techniques to uncover in greater detail the processes of popular and state-led myth building. Overall, while this disjointed but detailed account might not be of interest to the general reader, diplomatic and military historians of the Pacific War and cultural historians interested in the representations of war will selectively raid it for facts and myths about the fall of Singapore

Ancient history · Battle · Cartography · Empire · Fell · Fortress (chess · Geography · Media studies · Mythology · Political science · Sociology · Classics · History · Law · Socioeconomic Development in Asia