Malaya, singapore, hong kong, burma and even parts of india all fell to Japan. Why was Britain unable to defend her empire from a smaller power?
Why did Britain peform so poorly against Japan in WW2?
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But Britain had made preparations for war. They had the singapore strategy which completely failed.
Britain failed in this: they didn't find a way to adapt the Singapore Strategy to a two-front war scenario. But while they might have done better with some less-incompetent leadership, it's hard to see how they could conceivably have held Singapore (let alone Hong Kong, North Borneo, etc) altogether.
The British were distracted, they also underestimated the ability of the IJA to operate in jungle terrain. The airpower allocated to the far east was largely obsolete and limited in numbers, they were not adequately trained nor mentally prepared. Most weapons, other than small arms, such as artillery, tanks and AAA were old, obsolescent and/or lacking spares and ammo.
The officers were by no means of the highest quality and many fell into the Active/Stupid and Lazy/Stupid categories. Training was limited in scope and included a suprisingly small amount of jungle ops. The prevailing view was that it was not possible to conduct large scale operations in deep jungle which nobody had pointed out to the Japs.
The officers were by no means of the highest quality and many fell into the Active/Stupid and Lazy/Stupid categories. Training was limited in scope and included a suprisingly small amount of jungle ops. The prevailing view was that it was not possible to conduct large scale operations in deep jungle which nobody had pointed out to the Japs.
The factors are varied. For one thing, the troops in Malaya and Singapore were mostly green Indian Army troops with minimal training. The Australian 8th Division was trained for desert warfare as they were initially raised for the North African campaign.
Imperial troops were not prepared for the fact that in the jungles of Malaya (and Burma), there were not real fixed lines. The Japanese infiltrated through supposively unpassable terrain to hit the Imperial troops in the rear. Viscount Slim's biography of his Burma campaign 'Defeat into Victory' highlights the problems faced and the troops in Malaya faced similar problems.
There was lack of air support as the modern aircraft marked for Malaya never arrived in time. Leadership was poor in most of the Indian army units. The list just goes on. There was a lack of HE shells for the artillery in Singapore (they had the guns and also plenty of ammo, just that it was AP ammo for anti-ship use).
Facing them were Japanese veterans from the China campaign and some of their best generals (Eg. Yamashita in Malaya).
As near as I can tell, British forces in the East comprised a handful of "modern" forces, with the majority of the rest made up from older/obsolete assets.
The simple reality is the East was expendable. Loosing Suez, The Mediterranean/Africa or reducing the air-defences of the UK itself, or the vessels based around the UK to keep the German Navy bottled up & escort the Atlantic Convoys -were not expendable.
Hence, Britain focused on prioritising.
Though, its worth noting - Even without US entry into the war against Japan (I.e. if Japan had gone after everyone bar US Assets & the USA had decided to stay out - unlikely as it was), Japan was well and truly screwed in the long run against the UK once she was free to focus against Japan.
Britain outproduced the axis powers combined in naval warships - and was all set to drown Japan under something like 20-25 Fleet Carriers which were under construction/would have been completed in 1946/1947 - plus other vessels more suited for the Pacific (Even the Pacific fleet Britain historically put into the Pacific in 1945 was pretty powerful - 4 or 5 fleet carriers - and that was with the bulk of her forces still elsewhere across the world).
The USA, obviously, then surpassed the UK by 3 or 4 times itself - which should indicate just how royally buggered the Axis really were in the naval theatre (When the UK's outproducing them all combined, then is in turn getting outproduced by the USA several times over).
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So in answer to your question: The UK faired so badly because Japan was basically facing outdated & under equipped forces which came a distant second after other more pressing UK-priorities.
It also didn't help that the Royal Navy was more geared towards battles in the Mediterranean/Closer to supply's bases - so had vessels with less emphasis on logistics & then smaller armoured carriers (more suited for being bombed by German Aircraft while they are operating close to land - at the expense of having larger air-wings) - all of which meant the RN wasn't exactly properly equipped for fighting a major naval-war in the Pacific - 1000's of miles away from supplies & battles fought on the high-sea's (where the size of the airwings, rather than the carriers ability to take damage - would come in more important).
Plus... the RN was really screwed over by the RAF in the inter-war years, so it took a while for the Fleet Air Arm to get a decent fighter/aircraft.
All that said: The UK & RN were finally just reaching the point of correcting their qualitative short-comings.... when Japan got nuked & surrendered before they could really get to grips with Japan.
Without Japan's surrender, I would imagine the UK & RN would have performed far more effectively as time progressed and fresh more-suited & modern designs began to arrive in the conflict zone. Its just... the war ended before the UK's later-war vessels could really start to make a difference.
CthulhuFhtagn
Banned
Britain wasn't ready for a two-front war. It could take on Germany or they could take on Japan. It couldn't do both, not without the help of two countries much more powerful than itself.
Driftless
Donor
A big part of the Singapore strategy was the idea that the Royal Navy would fight the main part of the battle. In the OTL, they were primarily committed to the Atlantic and the Med.
The strongest coastal defences of Singapore faced away from the Mainland.
The British also put limited stock (pre-war) in the Japanese invading from Siam & northern Malaya. Weaknesses that were identified by the British Army commander in the mid 30's weren't fixed.
The airplanes on site were mostly second tier, obsolescent/obsolete.
The British (like the Americans), underestimated Japanese abilities.
Arthur Percival, was sent out to command the Army units in the area in mid 1941. Percival was a very capable staff officer, but not a forceful commander with much field experience in command. He was in over his head.
The question should be how did the Americans do so badly when they dwarfed the Japanese and weren't tied down in a world war.
Saphroneth
Banned
I get the feeling, looking at things, that Britain could have taken:
Germany and Japan (no need for forces in the Med, so a major fleet and lots of ground troops)
Germany and Italy (none of the losses in the Far East)
Italy and Japan (easy, quite frankly... enter Italy by land from France, along with the French, and the Brits focus on Japan).
Facing all three at once was just too much to hold the line everywhere. Malaya and the Barrier got the short end of the stick - but it is considered likely that, had it all kicked off mere months later, the extra ground forces that got to Singapore by OTL Feb 1942 would have been good to fight in Malaya rather than just be captured.
Germany and Japan (no need for forces in the Med, so a major fleet and lots of ground troops)
Germany and Italy (none of the losses in the Far East)
Italy and Japan (easy, quite frankly... enter Italy by land from France, along with the French, and the Brits focus on Japan).
Facing all three at once was just too much to hold the line everywhere. Malaya and the Barrier got the short end of the stick - but it is considered likely that, had it all kicked off mere months later, the extra ground forces that got to Singapore by OTL Feb 1942 would have been good to fight in Malaya rather than just be captured.
Sour grapes?
The question asked is the issue. If you want to ask a different question, if you need to launch a "Your debacle was worse than mine" debate, I guess you can start your own thread.
But incompetence will be a major portion of the answer there, too. Both British and American. I don't see how one reduces the significance of the other.
Would've helped. But the incompetence (or at least catastrophic lack of vision) I referred to can't be considered to stop with Percival. He didn't create the fiscal policy that resulted in the Far East's dependence on obsolete aircraft. Nor was he the one who utterly failed to create a plausible alternative defensive strategy once "Main Fleet to Singapore" became obviously untenable due to Germany's rearmament.
CthulhuFhtagn
Banned
Is this the British way of saying "thank you for the Lend-Lease and for defeating the Japanese for us?".
Hardly sour grapes.
You have one country that has been at war for more than two years, has its main enemy just 23 miles away and is sending whatever it can spare to Egypt. It had just finished fighting in Ethiopia and was fighting for its life in the Atlantic as well as supplying Malta.
The answer to your question is very obvious and has been done to death. A bit like the Sealion and Hitler taking Moscow early stuff.
According to your President Lend-lease was in the interests of American security.
I thought the USA went to war with Japan because they bombed Pearl Harbor.
raharris1973
Gone Fishin'
The Americans lasted longer in the Philippines than the British in Singapore and Malaya or southern Burma.
But the good faith answer to your question is pretty simple:
1) Tyranny of distance- vast distances between the Philippines and CONUS and the weak and highly limited set of intermediate bases.
2) American underdevelopment as a military expeditionary power through the whole interwar.
3) Over-valuation of the deterrent power that American potential, once mobilized, would pose
4) Under-spending and uncertainty about how to defend the Philippines based on a few factors: a) Lack of powerful enough advocates for defense of Philippines in US budget process, b) knowledge of Philippines eventual independence, c) fear of creating an excessively large Filipino military complex, for fear of unbalancing the economy or creating conditions for a military dictatorship. d) agreement to not fortify the western Pacific in the Washington Treaty, and failure to rapidly reverse policy once Japan showed different intentions in the region---again, primarily for budgetary/priority reasons.
These factors were all more than a decade in the making. I'm no defender of MacArthur's tactical choices, but even with masterful generalship on his part, he could have changed the final outcome by a matter of a couple weeks to a month. With better generalship and preparations, Britain could have probably made a bigger difference for itself in Singapore and Malaysia, and especially Burma. I am in the end skeptical of Singapore holding out until reinforced, but it could have lasted twice as long as Corregidor and Bataan.
TFSmith121
Banned
The British faced a cascade of enemies and fronts that
The British faced a cascade of enemies and fronts that they could not sucessfully mobilize the necessary mix of forces to defend, basically.
One thing to keep in mind is that from 1939 to 1941, the scale of Britain's war increased almost geometrically; and that the British peacetime military - even including the RN and RAF, which had received more constant funding in the 1930s than the British Army and the various imperial armies - was dwarfed by the armed forces (including the merchant marine) the British mobilized over the course of the war.
In 1939, the entire British & Imperial "army" that was ready for deployment overseas, for example, numbered four infantry divisions, all based in the UK. There were a half dozen more that existed on paper, but were little more than garrison formations in the UK, Egypt, India, etc; there were various reserve formations in the UK and elsewhere, but they all required mobilization, and more than a few never actually deployed overseas.
So other than the British 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th infantry divisions, every single other division organized by the British, Indian, Canadian, Australian, South African, New Zealand, West African, and East African militaries was a wartime formation - and although a cadre might exist, whatever skeletonized organization might exist, they were universally understrength in units and personnel, underequipped, and needed time to absorb their fillers and replacements, re-equip, train, and deploy - literally all around the world.
Then include the reality that other than the UK and (arguably) New Zealand, none of the British/imperial dominions/territories could order full mobilization for overseas service, akin to the UK or US, even in wartime; domestic politics in Australia, Canada, India etc would not allow it.
So, in 1939, the British mobilized for a limited war in northwestern Europe, essentially with the immediate need to defend the Low Countries and prepare for a counter-offensive, possibly in the spring of 1941...
Of course, with the French defeat and Norwegian defeats and the Italian entry into the war in 1940, the British now had to concentrate on the defense of the British Isles and various places in Africa and the eastern Mediterranean, including Greece, with possible counter-offensives there sometime in 1941-42;
Of course, in 1941, with the defeat of the Greeks, the ebb and flow of the North Africa war, the need to support the Soviets, and the potential and then actual entry of the Japanese into the war, the British had to concentrate on the defense of the British Isles, Britain's possesions in Africa and Asia, supporting the Soviets, etc., with possible counter-offensives in 1942-43.
Now, with US entry into the war in 1941, Allied victory was a matter of time, but still - the period of 1940-42 was a near-run thing, in many ways. The British were on the defensive everywhere, and the reality is that in trying to defend everything, in many cases, the British actually defended nothing - Hong Kong, Malaya, Borneo, and Burma in 1942 being the most obvious examples.
Best,
The British faced a cascade of enemies and fronts that they could not sucessfully mobilize the necessary mix of forces to defend, basically.
One thing to keep in mind is that from 1939 to 1941, the scale of Britain's war increased almost geometrically; and that the British peacetime military - even including the RN and RAF, which had received more constant funding in the 1930s than the British Army and the various imperial armies - was dwarfed by the armed forces (including the merchant marine) the British mobilized over the course of the war.
In 1939, the entire British & Imperial "army" that was ready for deployment overseas, for example, numbered four infantry divisions, all based in the UK. There were a half dozen more that existed on paper, but were little more than garrison formations in the UK, Egypt, India, etc; there were various reserve formations in the UK and elsewhere, but they all required mobilization, and more than a few never actually deployed overseas.
So other than the British 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th infantry divisions, every single other division organized by the British, Indian, Canadian, Australian, South African, New Zealand, West African, and East African militaries was a wartime formation - and although a cadre might exist, whatever skeletonized organization might exist, they were universally understrength in units and personnel, underequipped, and needed time to absorb their fillers and replacements, re-equip, train, and deploy - literally all around the world.
Then include the reality that other than the UK and (arguably) New Zealand, none of the British/imperial dominions/territories could order full mobilization for overseas service, akin to the UK or US, even in wartime; domestic politics in Australia, Canada, India etc would not allow it.
So, in 1939, the British mobilized for a limited war in northwestern Europe, essentially with the immediate need to defend the Low Countries and prepare for a counter-offensive, possibly in the spring of 1941...
Of course, with the French defeat and Norwegian defeats and the Italian entry into the war in 1940, the British now had to concentrate on the defense of the British Isles and various places in Africa and the eastern Mediterranean, including Greece, with possible counter-offensives there sometime in 1941-42;
Of course, in 1941, with the defeat of the Greeks, the ebb and flow of the North Africa war, the need to support the Soviets, and the potential and then actual entry of the Japanese into the war, the British had to concentrate on the defense of the British Isles, Britain's possesions in Africa and Asia, supporting the Soviets, etc., with possible counter-offensives in 1942-43.
Now, with US entry into the war in 1941, Allied victory was a matter of time, but still - the period of 1940-42 was a near-run thing, in many ways. The British were on the defensive everywhere, and the reality is that in trying to defend everything, in many cases, the British actually defended nothing - Hong Kong, Malaya, Borneo, and Burma in 1942 being the most obvious examples.
Best,
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