New Commander's Job

A new commander picked up the pieces of the most immediately responsible military post in the British Empire last week. What he found was a gravely weak position--the result of complacency, bungling and misunderstanding of the problem at hand.

On Nov. 18 the British War Office mysteriously announced that it had reserved a "special appointment" for Lieut. General Sir Henry Pownall. Last week, after an embarrassing hiatus, Sir Henry arrived at Singapore and the War Office specified: he was to replace sleepy, overconfident Air Chief Marshal Sir Robert Brooke-Popham as Commander in Chief of British forces in the Far East.

The first thing Sir Henry did when he got to Singapore was to sit down with his staff to find out what had happened during the hiatus. He heard plenty:

Lull Before Lunge. After the first Japanese thrust there had come a lull--especially in enemy air activity which had given the British their first setback. The Jap was apparently gathering for another lunge. He was on a line roughly 300 miles above Singapore, but scattered patrols on the east coast, apparently landed from the sea, were within 175 miles. If the Philippines fell, many transports busy there might soon be available to the Japanese for reinforcing Malaya.

Estimates. The enemy had at first been grossly underestimated, not only as to numbers but also as to ability. It had never occurred to the British that little men in shorts and gym shoes could actually filter through Malayan jungles. Japanese forces had apparently made contact all the way across the peninsula: even across the central mountain-spine. The middle jungles had previously been the domain of the dwarfish Sakai, a hairy, blow-gunning people who travelers say are so primitive that they have digits only up to two and count: one, two, many, many-many, many-many-many. The Japanese bribed savages to lead them through their jungle paths.

The enemy had subsequently been overestimated. A week after the attack, many people had mentally surrendered Singapore. Now, with the arrival of British Indian reinforcements, with Dutch help, with news that casualties in the first week were not as bad as originally thought, and above all with the change of command, the feeling was that the Jap would have a hard time catching Singapore.

Mistakes. The British had not scorched the earth as they should have. At Penang, strategic island base on Malaya's east coast, they had destroyed military establishments in the withdrawal, but had left warehouses full of rubber, several months' supplies of rice, and--incredible blunder--all utilities working like a charm. At week's end the unscorched Penang radio repeatedly broadcast: "Hello, Singapore, how do you like our bombings?"

Long before the attack there had been political stupidities. In September, Thai land, air and sea officers were given a thorough and amiable tour of inspection of Singapore's defenses; Thailand was now a Jap pawn. Well before the attack Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek had offered Chinese troops to help defend British territory; the British had turned down the offer. At this late hour something was finally being done about mobilizing Malaya's 2,200,000 Japanophobe Chinese as air wardens, propagandists, guerrillas.

The R.A.F. had gone into offensive action only five days before Sir Henry's arrival, fortnight after the first assault, with attacks on Japanese air bases in Thailand and northern Malaya.

General Pownall, reputed to be a harddriving, Blimp-hating, tape-cutting fighter, would have to assimilate these facts and act quickly. His job was not easy: he was as inexperienced in the jungle as a two-counting Sakai would be in Piccadilly Circus. Two days after General Pownall took over, the Jap started a new thrust, in which he succeeded in taking Malaya's tin-mining center, Ipoh. Now it was up to General Pownall to stop the enemy, and stop him fast. The hiatus was over: action was in order.

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