Norman Joseph (Derry) Derrington, 9/3/23 -- 27/3/01
QX 12327: WW 11, Malaya Campaign, 16 Platoon, D Co. 2/26 Battalion,
27th Brigade, 8th Division
1/400067 : Korean War, K Force, B Co. , 3 RAR,
27th British Commonwealth Brigade
FROM THE SHARP END OF TWO WARS: Malaya 1941-42 and Korea 50-53
Norman Joseph (Derry) Derrington (9/3/23-- 27/3/01)
- Survival's costly price -
I am stuck with the Foul visions of two wars Until the day I die
Part 1: Malayan Campaign
Derrington fought in the front line of
two brutal, abortive wars:the
humiliating fall of Singapore that ended the British Empire in Asia and the
stalemated Korean War that cost up to 5 million lives and left Korea still
divided and still technically at war.
Whilst many World War 2 volunteers had
fought in World War 1, it would not be expected that a man would survive the
Singapore prisoner of war camps and slavery on the Thai-Burma Railway and then
volunteer again for another war. Derry
did, and the real reason became clear to him only at the end of his life.
In telling the Derrington story in the
context of two campaigns, the aim is principally to further understanding of
two different wars and most importantly give voice to Derry, a typical digger,
viewing war from the sharp end, which became a motif in his writing. In war literature, we are repeatedly
reminded that the experience of war is incommunicable. For Derry there was the need to express what
happened, what haunted him. He found a
way with his pen. When he returned from
the Korean War, he "deliberately and mentally walked away from war" to Europe,
where he remained for 37 years. Consequently, unlike many veterans who attend reunions and tell and
adjust their waries, Derry's memories remained, as he says, "untainted"
from the influence of others' yarns. The "foul memories" and "bad nightmares" continued though. In Scotland, he bought a little boat, and
took up fishing to help him come to terms with his slow-to-diminish nightmares,
which are a phenomenon now recognised as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. While he was in Scotland, he engaged with
his sharp end memories and began shaping them into verse, a digger's sort of verse. With Derry's permission, his story is
told, using his own words. His is a universal voice, bringing us in touch with the incommunicable - the horror and,
lest we miss it, the exaltation.
Derrington, truly a symbolic digger,
could have stepped out of the ranks of World War 1. In 1940, 17 year old Derry was desperate to become a soldier;
he remembered, "I wanted to prove my
manhood. "His platoon commander, Ron
Magarry, told me that Derry's eagerness to go away with 2/26th made
it easier for him to "pull him into
gear" for he was "a bit of a villain. "I think I detected a sign of emotion when Ron went on to say that Derry
became "one of the best soldiers I ever served with. "Derry himself admitted that "I was not the regimental barrack
square type" which would be the boast of any self- respecting digger! He could have been aspiring to the heroic,
like the Masefield image that "they [diggers] walked and looked like Kings in
old poems. "The Anzac legend has the
power to inspire young, impressionable men."
From the back of Dingo, a place that
actually exists in Queensland, Derry enlisted in the AIF when he was only
17. He was the youngest in the
Queensland battalion, the 2/26th,of the 27th Brigade, 8th Division, AIF. Coming from the bush, underage, and keen
to fight are common markers of the AIF volunteers of the two World Wars.
The photo we see is the only one available of Derry in uniform in either of his
wars. It was taken in 1945, after he
had been freed and returned home. He
wears the campaign ribbons, and his 2/26th battalion's colour
patch. We should note the sling of his
chin strap for that could alert us to a certain irreverence. His youthful face, though, belies the
deep-seated mental scars. I
questioned Derry about the so-young face to hear, "I was not as mentally youthful as I looked."
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The following anecdote furthers our
understanding of the soldier poet we are to follow through two wars. Always for the digger, in or out of uniform,
there is the game to be played about nonconformity(or is it insubordination) especially with the British. During Derrington's absence overseas, one
day in Kent, his fishing prowess was called upon. He was instructing in the art of casting a line at a fishing
school. Who should turn up for instruction but the Prime Minister, Edward
Heath, with his bodyguard. Heath,
failing to catch on, was told by the digger instructor, "That's not the bloody
way I showed you, was it?"Sir Edward,
nevertheless, signed a photograph of the occasion.
To comprehend Derry's experience more
fully, the Malayan Campaign (the 8th Division's embarrassing war) is
outlined to provide a necessary context. That Singapore fell in 70 days so shocked Britain that an enquiry was
demanded. Churchill agreed to an
enquiry but one never eventuated. Churchill, himself responsible for the flawed so-called "Singapore
Strategy," said it was Britain's "most humiliating defeat. "On December 8th 1941, concurrent
with Pearl Harbour, the brilliant Japanese Commander, Lt. Gen. Tomoyuki
Yamashita, "the tiger of Malaya," landed his 30000
strong force in Malaya. Then on 10th
December, the Japanese sank the two Royal Navy ships Prince of Wales and
Repulse. Alarmed, Churchill
ordered that the British defenders should "fight to the finish. "Supported by 180 tanks
and Zeros, the Japanese, many taking to the roads on bicycles, began their
assault. They moved quickly on the
conveniently well-built British roads and pressed the early-seized initiative
until Singapore fell. The Yamashita
victory is described as "one of the greatest, swiftest victories in
history. "Though numerically superior,
the British force of 85000 (comprising British, Australian, Indian
Gurkha and Malay units) fought desperately but could not halt the
invaders. Singapore was jeopardised
not only by the defence concept but also by an incompetent High Command,
fraught with internecine conflict:General Arthur Percival, the GOC, was at odds with both the Third Indian
Corps Commander, Sir Lewis Heath, and the Australian Force Commander, Lt. Gen.
H. G. Bennett.
By8th February,1942, the Japanese were securely on Singapore
Island, and on 15thFebruary,Percival
capitulated. Yamashita claims he
bluffed Percival into immediate and unconditional surrender, by an ultimatum
that he Yamashita had the military power to destroy the British if they did not
surrender immediately. Yamashita's
gamble saved him. His situation was
perilous for his forces had run out of ammunition. So on 15th February, at 6. 10 pm, at the Ford Motor
Company,Percival signed an
unconditional surrender for a cease fire at 10. 00 pm, losing an Empire and an
army that went into captivity for three and a half years. Ironically, the British force itself was
also out of supplies and water- on
account of Japanese bombing and land action. Disorder had set in, as witnessed by one soldier, "no one knew where the
front line was. "It is unlikely the
British could have saved Singapore if they had resisted further, for in reality
their fate had been sealed long before 15th February. The Japanese battle losses were 10000
compared with the British much larger loss of 138000 which does not reflect
well when defence is theoretically the easier to fight.
First, the fighting on the Malay
peninsular is outlined so that the Australian role is better understood. It is to be borne in mind that a Japanese
landward attack on Singapore was unprepared for. It was not only unforeseen but, according to Churchill in 1940,
an improbability. The British
unpreparedness, let alone the superior planning of the Japanese, left the
British disadvantaged in the fighting in Malaya. For brevity's sake, some significant Australian battles fought
by the 2/30th Battalion (27th Brigade) and the 2/19th(22nd Brigade) and
Derry's 2/26th
Battalion, will be discussed. The
diggers' performance in these actions, all led by outstanding Australian
Battalion commanders, was inarguably exemplary and calls into question the
British High Command's allegations of desertion and lack of "discipline. "
The Australians were positioned in the
Tranji area in Johore in January 1942, waiting and wondering what confronted
them. Not surprisingly, Derry's
writing contains a strong vein of bitterness. Most of it derives from the prisoner experience; some from the gap of
understanding that exists between those at the sharp end and others, the
uninitiated. Some of the others he
sardonically alludes to as the"false
heroes .. the ones who shout the most and
shoot the least. "The Malayan campaign
gave reason for bitterness. It seeps
through Derry's writing as in his, "the order for withdrawal came from behind. "
It was not until 14th January that the Australians
actually went into action, as the initial defence in the north was the
responsibility of the British and Indians. None could have anticipated the speed with which the Japanese overcame
the numerically superior British units. It was clearly a case of superior leadership. Yamashita seized airfields; wherever possible he confiscated
abandoned materiel; he used barges at sea and craft on rivers. On the main route, Japanese tanks and
troops (many on bicycles) relentlessly pressed the initiative by tactics of
infiltration and encirclement. Having superior
Zeros and control of the airfields, the Japanese could, unopposed, bomb and
strafe withdrawing troops necessarily bound to moving down the trunk road that
ran through jungle and rubber plantations. Subject to such a juggernaut, the British were forced into a series of
withdrawals that meant diminishing morale and the inevitable loss of the will
to fight.
On 7th January 1942, the situation had deteriorated
badly at the debacle of the Slim River Battle where the 12th and 28th
Brigades of the Indian 11th Division were "all but" wiped out. 3,200 troops surrendered and the Japanese
benefited from seizing vast amounts of supplies, and armaments including
artillery pieces. As a consequence,
General Wavell who became Supreme Commander on 3rd January was
"appalled" at the loss of central Malaya, and ordered a withdrawal to
Johore. Indicative of the power of the
Japanese unhalting advance, was the fall of Kuala Lumpur on 11/1/1942when the desperate defence by the Argylls
and the Gurkhas could not hold it.
Wavell, losing faith in General Heath at
Slim River, put the withdrawal under the command ofLt Gen. Bennett who with the 8th Division was
positioned in the Johore State on a line from Segamat in the centre to Muar in
the west, in readiness for action.
The Australians entered the campaign,
dashingly, in an action of attack and not defence in an army that was generally
withdrawing. Black Jack Galleghan's
2/30th Battalion was given the task of setting up an ambush at the
selected site of the Gemencheh River Bridge, near Gemas, in Johore State. On 14th
January "some 300 cycling Japanese" crossed the bridge. The hidden Australians- B. Co of 2/30th -- allowed them
"into the planned 'killing zone' -- After another 500 cycled by, the Australians
[blew] the bridge and in a furious action accounted for about 700 Japanese and
the destruction of several tanks. "By
late evening, B Co "with 8 dead and 80 wounded" rejoined the battalion. This account is at variance with that
of2/30th Battalion Association's
enemy dead as 300 and their own casualties as 17 killed, 55 wounded and 9
missing. They had conducted in the
Malayan campaign the only ambush,
and inflicted the "biggest single setback" to the Japanese.
Another action, an "epic" feat, is illustrative
of the Australians' capabilities, especially when well led. On 18th January in the Muar area,
the Australian 2/19th Battalion led by Lt Col C. G. W. Anderson went
to the relief of the endangered Indian 45th Brigade in the Bakri
area. Anderson set up a perimeter and
gathered into it the remnants of the badly mauled Indian Brigade and the
imperilled 29th Battalion (27 brigade). This group acquired the title Anderson force that, once
consolidated, began a fighting withdrawal under punishing artillery fire and
bombing attacks. Anderson himself,
single-handed, extinguished two machine gun posts. When the formidable Imperial Guard charged the rearguard,
Anderson brilliantly launched a counter attack during which the Indian Brigade
Commander, Brigadier H. C. Duncan was killed. On the 21st,"fully
surrounded," he faced a blocking force. Again, he boldly attacked just before nightfall to save the
situation. But while attacking he had
to deal with Japanese tanks that had breached his rear perimeter. He successfully called down artillery fire on
them. By this time Anderson force was at the end of its limit -- nearly out of ammunition and hampered by many
severely wounded. On 22nd
January, still commanding exemplarily, Anderson ordered all materiel be
destroyed and issued a withdrawal plan of small parties, his only hope of his
troops eluding capture. But for the
Colonel's skill and courage his force could have been annihilated. The survivors amounted to 271 from his own
2/19th Battalion, 130 from 2/29th Battalion, and but a
few survivors from the decimated 45th Indian Brigade. Lt Col Anderson (an MC winner in World War
1) for his exhibition of courage, let alone leadership, was awarded a V. C. He was the only senior commander in the
Australian Army in World War 2 to be so honoured.
It is to be noted that a British
unit failed to obey an order to go to the aid of the encircled Anderson
Force. This controversial incident,
that remains under examination, could
be seen as an indicator of the breaking down of morale and the inevitability of
defeat.
Derrington 's own story is picked up
again on 27th January with the 27th Brigade, according to
orders, accelerating its withdrawal down the "main trunk road. "The 22nd brigade was in such
difficulty it took "to the jungle" from which it is reported "less than 100 men
and officers" made it to Singapore. The 2/26th (27 Brigade) earned praise for its "great
gallantry" on 29th January at the 31 mile peg of the road. Derrington reports that his 16 platoon
commander, Lt RonMagarry "invited" his
men to attack a threatening Japanese held feature with the added exhortation,
"somebody's got to stop them. "In an
extended line with rifles and bayonets they attacked. After 25 minutes of vicious hand-to-hand fighting the objective
was gained and 300 of the enemy were accounted for. Magarry, the 16 platoon commander, when asked for recommendations
for gallantry could not single any out as "all were deserving. "Derry dryly reported,"The boss got an MC, Terry Parker got a DCM
and I got a bloody stammer. "I can
verify the stammer for he still had it in 2000. Derry also commented that Magarry's MC "should have been a VC. "
Derry, with aspirations of proving his manhood, learned only too
soonthe realities of war for the "poor
bloody" infanteer who "walked alone except for his comrades"at the sharp end or "the arse end" as he
wrote in a moment of bitterness. There
the view is no larger than a section, and "fear tightens fingers on the
trigger, sets bowels churning. "He
learned, too, he was only"a small cog
in a huge implacable machine" where one became "concerned only with safety and
survival of self and mates. "
The British unable to halt the Japanese
were by 31st January at the Causeway. Those last across were 80 surviving Argylls, their two surviving
pipers playing "Blue Bonnets over the Border"and the very last, their brave,
renowned C. O. , Lt Col I. Stewart. To
halt the Japanese, Indian sappers then blew a 70-foot wide gap in the Causeway,
but unfortunately, at the same time, they cut the vital, main water
supply. On Singapore Island, Percival
had to quickly come up with a defence plan as there were no fixed defences on
the north of the island to withstand the uncontemplated landward invasion. Again Percival was out-generalled. Falling for some Yamashita feints he
hastily planned for a NE Japanese landing, whereas Yamashita had skilfully
planned a surprise landing on the NW of the island. The Japanese main landing
west of the Causeway had the object of the airfield and supply depots. The Australians took the brunt of the
Japanese assault and were commended for their fierce defence of that area
before they fell back.
Then the situation quickly fell apart, in
dramatic events, like the fatal bungling of Percival's vital contingency
order. What Percival intended was that
in the event of the city centre being jeopardised, there should be an immediate
withdrawal. This unfortunately was
misread and acted upon as an order for IMMEDIATE withdrawal. Consequently the British evacuated the west
of the island, leaving it open to the Japanese, creating inevitable confusion,
and the break-down of order.
The tragedy of Singapore can be
ascertained from these eyewitness accounts. A resident, Lin Chok Fu, reported that at Buket Timah, the site where
British vital supplies were stored and targeted by the Japanese, Chinese had
voluntarily gone to the support of British soldiers being overwhelmed by
Japanese. For revenge, the Japanese returned
to the village and massacred the Chinese community. Fu also reported how British soldiers "retreating down Holland
Road" were victims of an atrocity. "Their heads and legs were cut off, leaving only the torsos which were
thrown into a drain. " Other soldiers were stripped, bayoneted and "hung on
trees" by wire. On the 25th
February, surrender day, the same witness saw many dead, "mostly Indian
[soldiers] lying all over the place" [and] at least a few hundred Indian and
British soldiers were killed behind [the Polytechnic]"
An even worse incident was reported by a
British soldier, Daniel Fraser of the Royal Engineers, who saw the consequences
of the massacre of the staff and patients at theAlexandra Hospital, though it was flying the Red Cross.
Given the confused fighting, the absence
of a front line, let alone the atrocities being perpetrated, there is little
wonder that a lot of soldiers could have been detached stragglers who may have
been mistaken for deserters. In
Elphick's book "Pregnable Singapore," many of British allegations of the
Australians' "desertion" are set out. A
vicious one is that of British Major J. C. K. Marshall who alleged,"The Australians were known as daffodils --
beautiful to look at but yellow all through. "Elphick, though, does report some who are without bias such as the
Argyll's C. O. Lt Col Stewart who said there were as many British "early
getaways" as there were Australian. Challenging the British bias are observations of Japanese
commanders. General, Fujikawa reported
in "F. Kichan" that as early as the 13th February there was a massive
desertion of Indian troops. And Simson records that Colonel Tsuji had observed how
bravely the Australians fought, especially their anti-tank gunners.
There is evidence of Australian units
that remained intact. There could well
have been others but Black Jack's 2/30th stood, and so did the 2/26. th Ron Magarry recently confirmed that the
men of 2/26,even though they had lost
their revered C. O. ,Lt Col A. H. Boyes,
a veteran of WW1, on 11th February,they remained at their posts, vowing to "fight to the last round and the
last man. "
It is known that 3000 escaped on the last
boats that left Singapore on the 13th February. After the surrender, though General Bennett
handed over command and secured his own escape (some reports saying by a
confiscated sampan and others by air), General Percival himself and most of
High Command became, along with the troops,prisoners of war. General
Wavell, had on February 11th ordered the remaining British aircraft
to be sent to the East Indies and at Percival's request he had by the 15th
rescinded Churchill's and his orders to fight to the last.
On 1st June, 1942 General Wavell
reporting on the debacle, alleged that the Australians' desertion was a primary
cause of the loss of Singapore. This
report was not released until 1992. Elsewhere, Wavell had expressed the British World War 1 perception that
Australians were "undisciplined. " With that label, which had become myth, the appearance
of a few straggling diggers could easily and conveniently be made the agents of
disaster or as it has been suggested, scapegoats. The truth is still to be
determined, but a close look at the fighting record indicated above, and the
battle statistics, suggest that the Australians were fighters not
deserters. The 8th
Division constituted but 14% of the British force but it took 73% of the battle
deaths.
Their arms laid down, their hearts
leadened by their sense of "disgrace," the diggers joined the other captives to
march for 36 hours -- to Changi.
So well has the media, and the heroic
stories, like Weary Dunlop's covered the hell of captivity that there is no
need to repeat it. Derrington's
memories that became nightmares and the subject of his verse are of value. His themes get to the essence of the
captives' experience:the barbarity of
the Japanese; the physical suffering; but above all, the glow that surrounds
his memories of diggers ready to lay down their lives for a mate. It could be this experience alone that
enables Derry - and many other diggers -to say, "I have no regrets. "
It is from the Thai-Burma site that
Derry's former "boxing weight" of 86 kilograms was reduced to 36 kilos, and
from where his most searing memories come:
"Septic sores; Cholera vomit; No skin at all from calf to
sole; Monsoon dimples; In knee deep mud; The fires flare; On cholera Hill; To burn the dead; And scar the souls; Of those Who did not
die; . "
From "Gloire de La Patrie"
As well, there are many images of the "brutal guards" the "broken
bodies and broken minds of the young men ageing " and the "wraiths of men
struggling through knee-deep mud" with excrement pouring down their legs. But what "stands bright and clear" is the
"starving men who scraped some pitiful grains of rice to one side of their
eating tin so a sickly feverish mate could regain some little strength and
survive .. . "
One such sacrificial memory is of George,
"Aboriginal George", once a stockman from the outback, who saved Derry's life
by foregoing his couple of spoons of rice. Thereafter Derrington would find that his ghost appeared every time he
saw"dark" faces around "rusty shacks. " That is how memory works, ready to be triggered any time, any place, to return
the past to haunted men.
Not all memories were bitter. One in particular was the kind that stood
"bright and clear" for cherished mateship and "unbreakable bonds. "On 9th March, 1944, Derry's
mates, mindful he had come of age, with a hammer and nail, forged a key from a
piece of a downed Zero. This artefact of
symbolic significance and, no doubt produced with a certain ironic
satisfaction, is to be seen on display at the War Memorial, Canberra.
Ingenuity, unselfish caring and
indomitable spirit account for Australians' high survival rate. An incident given by a survivor of the 2/26th
demonstrates the Australian spirit and the digger style. In No. 1 Camp at the infamous rail site
where cholera had broken out, Dr. Bruce Hunt speaking from a tree stump
delivered his famous speech: "Listen you
bastards, never in the history of Australia have 1500 men been in a worse
situation than you are. I have bullied
these little yellow bastards into giving us two days to clean up our camp. We must work like slaves, as this is our
only chance for any of us to get out of here alive. Cholera has broken outand there is no vaccine for a few days. My plan is we must scrape every
inch of the top soil in this camp into heaps and then burn bamboo on each heap
to kill the cholera germs. We must dig
really deep latrines and make them fly-proof. You catch cholera by eating shit which is more often than not carried by
flies. All water must be boiled, and
eating utensils sterilised by placing them in the fire for a few seconds. Until the cholera vaccine arrives this is
all we can do. " Dr Hunt is still remembered when the march"Sussex by the Sea" is heard, for Hunt used
to say,"They are playing that for me. " He, himself, died of cholera before vaccine
arrived. His mates, out of respect,
volunteered for his cremation party, but were hardly prepared for the shock of
seeing him "placed on the pyre. "
Derrington was one of the 2646
Australians out of the 15384 who were to survive Japanese brutality. It could wrongly be thought that once the
war ended and the captives were freed the suffering would be over. Far from it. The anxious families at home first had to wait to learn
where their loved ones were or whether they were still alive. Then what followed was not anticipated. Homecomings proved to be painfully
difficult. Four years of absence and three and a half
years of silence had formed an unbridgeable gap between those returning and all
others. None could comprehend the
horrors that changed the captives so profoundly. How could minds accommodate such memories of atrocities, of
shame, of death, of loss of mates and what was probably more painful in a
different kind of way - the haunting yet uplifting memories of heroism and of
sacrifice, like Derrington's memory of George. To widen the gap were the devastating changes at home, like the girl who
did not wait. Not only loved ones had changed but Australia had also
changed.
"Black Jack' Galleghan understood that
homecoming was the next battle soldiers had to face, and he understood the need
to attend to their morale. First he
sent a message home heralding their arrival in October 1945,"I want to say to the parents and loved ones
of the troops I have commanded that they have men of whom they may be justly
proud. The men have borne hardship and
oppression with a spirit that could never be broken. It is the spirit of their fathers of Anzac. "To the men he said, "You are not going
home as prisoners, you will march down Australian streets as soldiers. " Galleghan's understanding was not
enough to assuage their sense of being failed Anzacs. Their homecoming is a topic in itself. The recently published study of it by McKernan,
"The War Never Ends," fully covers the diggers' battle as survivors who were to bear endlessly
their physical and mental wounds and the shadow of shame.
On Anzac Day, 8th Division
marchers should stride proudly. Watchers may recognise the significance of their Gemas and Muar actions,
and they may fill with sadness for their suffering;they could, too, draw inspiration from their indomitable spirit
as fighters and as survivors.
Derrington left no written trace of his
homecoming experience. In 1950, he
volunteered for the war in Korea, the "forgotten war," the first war for the
Royal Australian Regiment. There, he
would serve in 3 RAR, which joined the Argylls and the Middlesex to form the 27th
British Commonwealth Brigade.
Olwyn Green, widow of Lt Col Charlie Green, C. O. 3 RAR, who died of wounds 1/11/50,
author of "The Name's Still Charlie"
UQP,1993
Principal References:
Derrington:letters, verse and
interviews
Begbie, Richard, The Living Memory of Horror, " Canberra
Times"Occasion of opening of
re-modelled
WW 2 Gallery (date missing
on cutting)
Cody, Les, Ghosts in Khaki:History of 2/4th Machine Gun
Battalion Hesperian Press, W. A. ,1997
Braddon, Russell, The Naked Island, Werner Laurie, London, 1952
Dennis, Peter et al (eds) The Oxford Companion to Australian
Military History, OUP,
Ebury, Sue, Weary: The Life of Sir Edward Dunlop, Viking 1994
Elphick, Peter Singapore: The Pregnable Fortress Hodder and Stroughton, 1995
Magarry, Lt. Col Ron The Battalion Story: 2/26th Infantry
Battalion, 8th Division, AIF -- a unit history
Mant, Gilbert The Singapore Surrender Kangaroo Press (rep)
1992
McKernan, Michael The War Never Ends UQP, 2001
Rivett, Rohan D, Behind Bambo,: An Inside story of the Japanese
Prison Camps, Angus and Robertson, 1946
Simson, Ivan,Singapore, too
little, too late,Leo Cooper, London, 1970
Note: Derrington'spoems have been
included in the 2001 RMC anthology The Warrior Poets: An Anthology of poems
by Australian Soldiers 1901-2001 available from History Protocol Cell, RMC,
Duntroon ACT 2600
The photo was provided by Pam, Derry's widow who told me that it is the only one she has of Derry in uniform. He met
and married Pam in England where he went soon after he was discharged from 3RAR in 1951.
Simson (p155)Figures come from Yamashita's diaries quoted
in "A Soldier Must Die" byJohn Deane
Potter. From the same source comes
Yamashita's revelation of his "bluff that worked" and how he faced odds of 3 to
1
Simson (p. 148) quoting Colonel Masanobu Tsuji in "Singapore, The
Japanese Version" published by Constable London, 1962.
The Indian troops in particular have been described as ill-equipped and under-trained.
Sims (p 36)Brigadier Sim's book contains an excellent military analysis of the campaign.
https://www.britain-at-war.org uk/Malaya_and_Singapore/html/body_chronology_of_
malaya. htm The incident is under investigation so the name of the unitis deliberately withheld.
Simson (p. 108)
Simson p 151
Magarry, p. 238-9
McKernan, p. 132
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