Battle for Malaya: The Indian Army in Defeat, 1941-1942 (Twentieth-Century Battles)

296 Pages·2019·2.729 MB·English

by  Kaushik Roy

THE BATTLE FOR MALAYA
Twentieth-Century Battles
Spencer C. Tucker, editor
The Battle for Western Europe, Fall 1944: An Operational Assessment by John A. Adams
Operation Albion: The German Conquest of the Baltic Islands by Michael B. Barrett
Prelude to Blitzkrieg: The 1916 Austro-German Campaign in Romania by Michael B. Barrett
New Georgia: The Second Battle for the Solomons by Ronnie Day
The Brusilov Offensive by Timothy C. Dowling
The Siege of Kut-al-Amara: At War in Mesopotamia, 1915–1916 by Nikolas Gardner
D-Day in the Pacific: The Battle of Saipan by Harold J. Goldberg
Invasion of Norway, 1940 by Jack Greene
Balkan Breakthrough: The Battle of Dobro Pole 1918 by Richard C. Hall
The Battle of the Otranto Straits: Controlling the Gateway to the Adriatic in World War I by
Paul G. Halpern
The Battle for North Africa: El Alamein and the Turning Point for World War II by Glyn
Harper
Midway Inquest: Why the Japanese Lost the Battle of Midway by Dallas Woodbury Isom
China’s Battle for Korea: The 1951 Spring Offensive by Xiaobing Li
The Imjin and Kapyong Battles, Korea, 1951 by S. P. MacKenzie
The Second Battle of the Marne by Michael S. Neiberg
The Dieppe Raid: The Story of the Disastrous 1942 Expedition by Robin Neillands
In Passage Perilous: Malta and the Convoy Battles of June 1942 by Vincent P. O’Hara
The Battle of Heligoland Bight by Eric W. Osborne
Battle of Dogger Bank: The First Dreadnought Engagement, January 1915 by Tobias R.
Philbin
The Battle for Manchuria and the Fate of China: Siping, 1946 by Harold M. Tanner
Where Chiang Kai-shek Lost China: The Liao-Shen Campaign, 1948 by Harold M. Tanner
Battle of Surigao Strait by Anthony P. Tully
Written in Blood: The Battles for Fortress Przemyśl in WWI by Graydon A. Tunstall Jr.
The Battle of An Loc by James H. Willbanks
The Battle of Leyte Gulf: The Last Fleet Action by H. P. Willmott
The Generals’ War: Operational Level Command on the Western Front in 1918 by David T.
Zabecki
THE BATTLE FOR
MALAYA
The Indian Army in Defeat, 1941–42
KAUSHIK ROY
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
© 2019 by Kaushik Roy
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic
or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The paper used in this
publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for
Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Cataloging information is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-0-253-04415-0 (hdbk.)
ISBN 978-0-253-04417-4 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-0-253-04422-8 (web PDF)
1 2 3 4 5 24 23 22 21 20 19
CONTENTS
List of Maps vii
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xi
Glossary xiii
List of Abbreviations xv
Introduction 1
1.The Rise of the Singapore Naval Base 9
2.The Allied Ground Forces in Malaya 25
3.The Invasion 72
4.Defeat at Slim River 113
5.Disaster at Muar and Johore 145
6.Endgame on Singapore Island 190
Conclusion 235
Bibliography 243
Index 257

LIST OF MAPS
Map 1: Far East Asia xvii
Map 2: Proposed Sites for the Naval Base xviii
Map 3: Malaya xix
Map 4: Japanese Advance in the Malayan Peninsula xx
Map 5: Japanese Attack on Northern Malaya, 7/8 December 1941 xxi
Map 6: Kota Bahru, 8 December 1941 xxii
Map 7: Jitra xxiii
Map 8: WESTFORCE Disposition in Johore, 14 January 1942 xxiv
Map 9: Northern Johore, 15 January 1942 xxv
Map 10: Johore Bahru, January 1942 xxvi
Map 11: Disposition of Troops on Singapore Island,
8 February 1942 xxvii
Map 12: Japanese Attack, Singapore, February 1942 xxviii
Map 13: The Japanese Assault and Advance and the Final Defense of
the Perimeter, Singapore xxix

PREFACE
Military history in general is not at the cutting edge of the discipline of history.
And within military history, the focus is on the so-called New Military History
writing, which emphasizes the social and cultural aspects of the military insti-
tutions and the effects of the armed forces on society. These aspects are certainly
important, but we must note that, after all, most armies exist for fighting. So the
study of the army as an institution in combat is worth pursuing. Following Carl
von Clausewitz, one can say that the study of battles is like gold and silver in com-
mercial transactions. And this is what the present volume intends to do. The ob-
jective is to study the Indian Army as an institution in the Malaya-Singapore
Campaign of 1941–42. A lot of books have been written on this campaign, but
the Indian Army, which constituted the biggest component of the Allied ground
force in that theatre, has been left out of these studies. The present volume is a
modest attempt to fill this gap. Unlike the present postmodernist slant, this work
depends heavily on archival materials collected from three continents (Europe,
Asia, and Australia) in order to build up the story. The battle narrative is inte-
grated with analysis to offer a fresh insight into the Malaya-Singapore debacle.
Since this book is aimed at English-speaking Western readers, Japanese names
are given in the more common Western style. I sincerely hope that this book will
encourage further studies in this genre.