remarkable success. He fell out of favour again in 1942 for referring to the people of Singapore as ‘citizens of the Empire of Japan’, which was contrary to the general policy that people in occupied territories should be subjects with duties and obligations, not citizens with rights. Yamashita spent the next two years in Manchuria, far from the main theatres of the war. Recalled to service in 1944, Yamashita fought with skill and tenacity. His attempt to prevent Manila from becoming a battlefield by withdrawing all Japanese forces without a fight was foiled by Admiral Iwabuchi, who seized the city with a large force of Imperial Navy infantry and military police units.
After a very questionable trial in which the prosecution accepted hearsay evidence and anonymous witnesses, Yamashita was sentenced to death and hanged. What are claimed to be the steps to the scaffold are preserved in the Penang War Museum.
30. Yamashita and Percival discussing surrender, 15 February 1942.
Within a matter of days, the pattern for the whole campaign had been set – the Japanese pushed forward as quickly as they could and the Allied commanders tried to maintain the integrity of their formations as they retreated. To some extent this was not unwise; if there was to be a ‘main battle’ in southern Malaya, the army had to be preserved as an effective force. The two problems being that the army as a whole was not an effective force in the first place and that the failure to impose much in the way of delay on the Japanese meant that the formations could not be properly rested, replenished and re-equipped to take a useful role as the campaign progressed.
Inadequate communications, incompetent staff work and a rapidly developing disposition toward retreat made the situation worse than it needed to be. On the occasions where Allied troops inflicted a local defeat on the Japanese they were often withdrawn because they were in danger of becoming isolated, but sometimes they were pulled out of action through sheer incompetence.On a number of occasions, the Japanese were able to make an advance simply because there was nobody to delay them. On others, they were able to make breakthroughs that took them well into the Allied lines of communication and to destroy or capture great quantities of men and materiel, simply because there were no supporting Allied troops in place when a front-line unit was overrun or forced to abandon the road and take cover in the countryside. Naturally, news of such incidents travelled quickly among other units in the area and lost nothing in the telling, thus encouraging the belief that the Allied forces were incapable of standing up to the Japanese. Given the huge propaganda effort that had gone into convincing Allied troops in general – and British troops in particular – that the Japanese were racially inferior and that their equipment was poor, it is hardly surprising that Malaya Command as a whole was in something of a state of shock well before the end of January 1942. The morale of the troops had been badly undermined by constant retreating and the fact that the skies were dominated by the Japanese, as well as the loss of the only two major warships in the theatre.
Things were no better at the top of the command structure. Wavell was not really in tune with the battle at any point and was unable to instil a sense of purpose in Percival and also did not have the authority to force Shenton Thomas to make any kind of positive contribution to the war effort, which helped to undermine Percival’s authority and confidence. Percival’s policy was to inflict as much damage as possible during a slow retreat, but he was not prepared to make units fight to the last while others withdrew to more favourable positions. General Heath had always favoured a general withdrawal so that the Japanese could be engaged from a position of greater strength in northern Johore, rather than wearing the troops out with continual
After a very questionable trial in which the prosecution accepted hearsay evidence and anonymous witnesses, Yamashita was sentenced to death and hanged. What are claimed to be the steps to the scaffold are preserved in the Penang War Museum.
30. Yamashita and Percival discussing surrender, 15 February 1942.
Within a matter of days, the pattern for the whole campaign had been set – the Japanese pushed forward as quickly as they could and the Allied commanders tried to maintain the integrity of their formations as they retreated. To some extent this was not unwise; if there was to be a ‘main battle’ in southern Malaya, the army had to be preserved as an effective force. The two problems being that the army as a whole was not an effective force in the first place and that the failure to impose much in the way of delay on the Japanese meant that the formations could not be properly rested, replenished and re-equipped to take a useful role as the campaign progressed.
Inadequate communications, incompetent staff work and a rapidly developing disposition toward retreat made the situation worse than it needed to be. On the occasions where Allied troops inflicted a local defeat on the Japanese they were often withdrawn because they were in danger of becoming isolated, but sometimes they were pulled out of action through sheer incompetence.On a number of occasions, the Japanese were able to make an advance simply because there was nobody to delay them. On others, they were able to make breakthroughs that took them well into the Allied lines of communication and to destroy or capture great quantities of men and materiel, simply because there were no supporting Allied troops in place when a front-line unit was overrun or forced to abandon the road and take cover in the countryside. Naturally, news of such incidents travelled quickly among other units in the area and lost nothing in the telling, thus encouraging the belief that the Allied forces were incapable of standing up to the Japanese. Given the huge propaganda effort that had gone into convincing Allied troops in general – and British troops in particular – that the Japanese were racially inferior and that their equipment was poor, it is hardly surprising that Malaya Command as a whole was in something of a state of shock well before the end of January 1942. The morale of the troops had been badly undermined by constant retreating and the fact that the skies were dominated by the Japanese, as well as the loss of the only two major warships in the theatre.
Things were no better at the top of the command structure. Wavell was not really in tune with the battle at any point and was unable to instil a sense of purpose in Percival and also did not have the authority to force Shenton Thomas to make any kind of positive contribution to the war effort, which helped to undermine Percival’s authority and confidence. Percival’s policy was to inflict as much damage as possible during a slow retreat, but he was not prepared to make units fight to the last while others withdrew to more favourable positions. General Heath had always favoured a general withdrawal so that the Japanese could be engaged from a position of greater strength in northern Johore, rather than wearing the troops out with continual
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