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Argyll's 'Tiger Patrols' training in the Malayan lallang IWM
Lt.Col. Ian Stewart (centre), commander of the Argylls advances through a mangrove swamp with Major Angus MacDonald (left) and Sgt-Major Munnoch (right) Scott Collection, British Library |
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Argylls officers and NCos at an 'Orders Group' IWM |
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Argylls cooling their feet IWM |
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The Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders While other units found excuses not to go on exercises with them,
'the Jungle Beasts' as the Argylls were know behind their backs,
kept on honing their warcraft, practising ambush and counter-flanking
tactics in the humid plantations and jungle of Malaya. "Bush"
warfare was designed to develop "resourcefulness, and above all, agressiveness and intense speed,
for only by these means can the initiative be kept and to lose
that initiative in the jungle is death." The unit also developed 'Tiger Patrols' - 4 man hit and run teams
and encircling and 'filleting' (which involved an assault straight
down a narrow front) tactics, similar to tactics employed by the
Japanese.The Argylls, with the East Surreys and Leicesters, were
considered the best British units in Malaya. But that was not
enough when fighting against Japanese medium tanks with outmoded
Boys anti-tank rifles. Another advantage of being a batttalion predominantly made up of regular soldiers was that bugle calls were instantly recognised, but in this instance, they were lightly coded to mislead the Japanese. Regimental bugle calls to 'Stand Fast' meant just the opposite. Licking their wounds from ambushes, confused Japanese troops didn't know what to expect when they heard the Argyll's bugle calls. However in another episode near Dipang, Malaya, when the unit
was unexpectedly 'filleted' or bisected by rapid moving Japanese
tanks firing cannons and machine-guns, the battalion scattered
left and right into the rubber plantations and jungle, where cursing
the lack of anti-tank guns and tanks, the panting and sweating
men reorganised themselves while tending their wounds. After the
shock of the Japanese tank attack wore off, their old confidence
returned amd they dug their heels in and made life uncomfortable
for the ferreting Japanese infantry tasked with keeping the road
open. Lt.Col Stewart grimly noted, "Destroyers against battleships, their anti-tank rifles made no impression against Jap mediums, while their 37 mm guns went through our armour like paper." Still such courage under fire made the Japanese pause for a cautious moment, but it was enough for the remaining Argylls to withdraw in reasonable order. Regimental Sergeant-Major Munnoch held battalion HQ together, refusing in Stewarts's words, "to let itself be stampeded off the road." The lead Japanese tank which shot up Stewart's brigade headquarters ran out of luck when upon reaching the bridge at Dipang, knocked out by a well positioned 2 pounder anti-tank gun. Thus ended the Japanese tank sortie, as the enemy armour withdrew and waited for their infantry to catch up. The Japanese "Blitzkrieg" in Johore had ravaged and destroyed 2 Indian brigades, and another, all its transport and guns. Two Australian battalions likewise had been savaged, and the newly arrived 53rd Brigade had seen its strength reduced as well. Beating a retreat over the causeway into Singapore, the last unit to cross was the Argylls. Sensing the time and moment, Lt.Col Stewart had the remnants of his formation - around 90 over men - marching with their 2 pipers playing them over to the strains of 'Highland laddie' and 'Jeannie with the light brown hair.' The causeway was then blown by sappers. It was perhaps typical of everything in that peculiar theatre of war that ar East that the breach was not quite complete.
Battle of Singapore The Battle of Bukit Timah accounted for the many skirmishes that were fought by the withdrawing British, Australian and Indian forces from the causeway inland right up to the Bukit Timah Hill area. After Tengah airfield, the 177 metre 'Tin Hill' was the next strategic objective, for it sheltered reservoirs and provision dumps located just east of it. Bukit Timah Road was the principal road in the southern half of Singapore, linking the northern part of the island to the south. It inspired the saying "Who controls Bukit Timah, controls Singapore." Timeline: February 10: It is a bloody day for the Japanese Imperial Guards Division. Gen. Nishimura, humiliated because his division was not chosen to lead the attack on Singapore attempts too get his own back on Gen. Yamashita. Fears of the British surrendering to soon would mean that his division's only role in this historic battle was limited to a diversionary raid on Pulau Ubin island! Upon receiving Yamashita's orders to attack the Australian 27th Brigade between Kranji and the Causeway, he delays ordering his division to cross the Straits and attack. When he finally does so after the Japanese barrage is lifted at 8.30 p.m., the tide has ebbed resulting in the men of the 4th guards Regiment getting stuck on a low tide. The momentum gone, Nashimura despairs upon seeing his boats stranded in the mud. Some boats desperately move into tributaries, while others unload troops into deep mud or mangrove swamps. The Australians were also in a serious mood, giving the Japanese a hard time. In the Australian 2/29th and 2/30th battalions' sectors, sounds of shouts and screams indicated where their mortar and supporting Vickers were hurting. Worse was to come. Fuel tanks at the nearby Naval Base were supposed to be destroyed by the British but a lucky Japanese shell had burnt out the explosives truck while the officer and his men had gone off sourcing for more explosives. The sappers then opened the valves and 2 million gallons of high octane fuel flowed into the nearest stream and into the Straits of Johore. At about 4 a.m. the British sappers returned and began placing their charges, setting them off half an hour later. Igniting with a yellow blinding flash, the lava trails of blazing spirit streaked along the creeks and streams, the unstoppable flames blazing onwards the mangroved edge of the straits where the horrified Japanese in their plywood boats were burnt to death. Nishimura is furious when told of the disaster. An officer of the engineers who was one of the boat handlers assures him that casualties were heavy, among them last seen 'swimming in a sea of fire,' the commander of the Kobayashi regiment. "The Kobayshi Regiment burnt to death, General Kobayashi's fate, too, is unknown," an impression reinforced by survivors swimming back to Johor. Nishimura blames Yamashita and his staff... "Reckless forcing of a passage without adequate prepaaration causes unnecessary casualties." He charges into Yamashita's forward HQ but finds that the general had crossed the straits hours ago and was now on Singapore. Nishimura sends an aide to ask Yamashita for permission to call off the attack. Yamashita feels Nishimura was basing his assessment on the reports of a few panic stricken men who had fled the flames, he is disgusted and tells the aide that Nishimura's Guards Division could "do as it pleases in this battle." Col. Tsuji, Operations Director, standing nearby adds "You fools! Who changed the original plan in the first place and said that the Imperial Division should be in the first line?! At this stage there is no need for battle plan change. 5th and 8th Divisions can go it alone. Return and tell your general that he can do as he likes!" Hours later, Yamashita receives a report from Nishimura's HQ saying that their losses were insignificant and that they were advancing. Suddenly, through a misunderstanding of orders, Brig. Maxwell's
battalions of the 27th Australian Brigade, who were dug into firm
ground with good fields of fire begin withdrawing. In the darkness,
2 battalions were deployed further to the rear than was intended,
one roughly 3 miles inland from the Johore Strait. The Imperial
Guards are now able to land large numbers of troops and pursue
the Australians relentlessly. They are able to take Woodlands
and the high ground overlooking the Causeway. Because of the withdrawal,
the 11th Indian division's left flank is now exposed , the only
warning received was a pencilled note sent by runner to the Gurkha
unit adjoining the Australian's right flank. Puzzled about finding
the Australians vanishing, subsequent Gurkha patrols sent out
to reconoitre the situation came back with a number of casualities.
Brig. Maxwell later claimed that his brigade's withdrawal did
not alter the subsequent result of the battle of Singapore by
so much as five minutes.....
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Japanese infantry and tanks in Bukit Timah
The Mainichi Shimbun Newspapers |
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Japanese tanks used in Battle of Bukit Timah From this area, now abandoned by the Australians, it was a simple
matter of getting onto the main road south. Colin Smith, in his
book Singapore Burning writes, "Three miles down the road, in the Bukit Timah area, there were
supposed to be some Australian anti-tank guns. Brig. Paris despatched
his brigade major, Angus MacDonald, an Argyll from a wealthy Highland
family, to try and locate them and set up a block... Paris rushed
over to the Argyll's HQ to break the news to Stewart that it looked
as if his rebuilt battalion was about to face the kind of 'night
filleting attack' with tanks that had ruined them at Slim River.
They must by time for MacDonald to set up something to stop them.
Meanwhile Tsuji had the generals of the 5th and 18th Divisions competing with each other to take Bukit Timah. While Lt.Gen. Mutaguchi was giving the troops of his 18th Division a pep talk, Gen. Matsui of the 5th Division ordered an immediate break-through on Bukit Timah without waiting for nightfall. The battle order from the Japanese 25th Army HQ was to attack Bukit Timah from the north and south, but somehow during the battle, the 2 prong attack became an attack from all sides. Such was the confusion that even a regiment on standby as a reserve force got carried away and involved itself in the attack until rebuked for intruding in another division's battle area. Everyone wanted to be the first to enter Singapore City. A British Tomforce (named after the commanding officer, Lionel Thomas of the Northumberland Fusiliers) counterattack effort to retake Bukit Timah was repelled although its three green battalions, one of them shipwrecked not quite a week ago, put up a good show. With a frontage of 2,000 yards across, the force advanced along the Bukit Timah dual carriageway, behind them the road crammed with Chinese, Indian and Malay refugees, walking or packed in a motley convoy of buses, trucks, bullock carts and trishaws. The 18th Reconnaissance with a few Bren carriers straddled the road, while to the left was the Sherwood Foresters and the right, the Norfolks. The Reconnaissance Corps' battalion engaged the Japanese at the Bukit Timah railway station and were met with stiff resistance as did the Sherwood Foresters. The 4th Norfolks' advancing in extended order, closed up to go down the straight of the Bukit Timah race course after which they found the overground water pipe-line that ran from the causeway with the island's additional water from Johor's Gunong Palai waterworks. This was a terrain of many small hills, and the unit followed the pipeline up towards the summit of a hillwhen sporadic bursts of firing was heard. The unit quickly climbed the hill, and ran into the waling wounded from the advancing A company. This being the unit's first real experience, it faltered for a moment, seeing their friends, even relations among the wounded. Then, their training set in, and they quickly got on the move again, increasing their momentum as they neared the crest of the hill. This action might not have seemed overly impressive, but it won the admiration of Col. Tsuji, one of the most important men planning the invasion of Malaya and Singapore, watching the resolute and tenacious British advance below him. '"This is gallantry, is it not?" I said to myself and involuntarily I was lost in admiration," wrote Tsuji. Gallantry was not enough, perhaps because of insufficient men, the Tomforce counter-attack eventually grounded to a stop. Said Brig.Massy-Beresford, who would shortly take over Tomforce and merge it with his own Massyforce, "What we lacked was blooding... You have got to begin gently. If we had gone to Africa we would have been put into strict training, then into a reserve position and then into a non-quiet position. it would all have worked up. But to plunge them into that place was hopeless. One couldn't have expected anything better." Massey forgot to add that Japanese medium bombers, Nells and Bettys had been switched away from targets in Keppel harbour and the city to deal with the British counter-attack, pulverising the British infantry in lower than their usual standard 27-aircraft formations. Ahead of Tomforce, and behind the hilltop position Tsuji was on, Col. Stewart's cut-off Argylls, now about 200 men, fragmented into a dozen or so parties. After they had delayed the Japanese armour long enough for Maj. MacDonald to set up the anti-tank guns, Stewart had his men retire about 100 yeards into the rubber plantation to the east of the road. His intention was to go into ambush mode, lying silent and low and awaiting first light when they would ambush the infantry reinforcements that would follow behind the Japanese T95s. However, by 4 a.m., Japanese patrols probing the plantation proved disconcerting even if they failed to draw out the Argylls with their English-speaking mimics "Is anyone there?" One patrol got to with 10 yards of Stewart's battalion HQ and in the firefight, the Argylls lost 4 men. Stewart then decided he could not afford to start a dogfight in the dark when the enemy had the tactical advantage of controlling the road and started to withdraw to their emergency rendezvous point - an experimental dairy farm on the northern side of Bukit Timah hill. Stewart and his HQ company were able to escape, however two forward companies, A and D, were cut off. While some made good their escape, others died, killed in action dring sudden collisions with the enemy. Some, twelve men in all, appeared to have bumped into the Japanese confronting the Foresters around Bukit Timah village. Taken prisoner, they were trussed up with barbwire, bayoneted, then shot. One man, Private Hugh Anderson, stabbed six times, survived. left for dead and rescued by local Chinese who at considerable risk to themselves, hid him in their home and nursed him back to health. Also taken prisoner was Lt. Hubert Strathairn, whose prisoner of war experience was entirely different. The officer, who volunteered to go alone on a scouting mission around the dairy farm buildings was suddenly pounced and wrestled to the ground by three or four Japanese soldiers. Relieved of his watch as well as his pistol, he was guarded for the next 24 hours by a soldier who obviously relished making frequent apologies for his up-coming execution. When Strathairn was finally lead away, he found himself facing a Japanese Major who spoke fluent English and had a gentle sense of humour. After ascertaining that Strathairn could drive a car and ride a motorcycle, he was tasked with pushing a bicycle to which most of the Major's kit appeared to be attached. In return, Strathairn's welfare was looked after by the major and he was allowed to sleep in the latter's tent. Meanwhile, his Argyll comrades hidden in the dairy farm correctly deduced from Strathairn's non appearance that the area was now under Japanese control, and taking a compass bearing from the smoke arising from the burning godowns at Keppel harbour, tiptoed away on a more circuitous route to the city. Striving to keep up the pressure by exploiting the momentum of the assault, Yamashita, running low on ammunition, hoped to deny the British and Commonwealth forces any form of respite to reform and reorganise for the next dig in. As Japanese infantry moved in for the assault on the village, Hill 200 became the site of one of the fiercest of battles surrounding Bukit Timah, the focal point being a three-way junction where today sits the magnificent head-office of McDonald's. Gen. Percival sent reinforcements from the east and ordered a heavy bombardment of the southern 3-way crossing at Bukit Timah to cut off and isolate the Japanese forces there. British artillery opened fire with 25-pounder barrage and what the Japanese soldiers called "drum cans" - these were A.P. or Armour Piercing shells and many parts of Bukit Timah village was ablazed. Recalled Perceival: "During the period 9th-11th February the Johore 15 in. Battery and the Connaught 9.2 in. Battery had co-operated by shelling the Tengah, Johore Bahru and, later, the Bukit Timah Village areas. The fire, most of which was with A.P. shells, could of course not be observed but from reports subsequently received it is believed that heavy casualties were inflicted on the enemy by these guns." The A.P. shells were designed to pierce then disembowel battleships, they eached weighed almost 2,000 pounds about as much as a small car and could make holes in the ground as big and much deeper as a swimming pool. Interestingly, all but one of the 250 rounds in the Johore battery's underground magazine were of the armour-piercing type. Chua Liang, a resident of Bukit Timah at the time recalled, "Only our family managed to flee from calamity. Our house was burned and all those whom we knew were all killed. The (people) in the whole village were killed. That was because when the Japanese was coming up to Bukit Timah, they met wiiith resistance. I think they were met with resistance from the Chinese Volunteer Force (Dalforce or as some of its members would like to call it: The Overseas Chinese Anti-Japanese Volunteer Army) outside the Nanyang Girl's School." When Col Iketani Hanjiro, a senior planning officer, suggested
to Yamashita that the assault be halted because supplies of shells,
gasoline, and food were dangerously low and further supplies were
unlikely, Yamashita insisted on maintaining pressure on the enemy.
he said, "The enemy is also going through a hard time. If we halt now,
we will lose the initiative over the battle and the enemy will
discover our shortage of supplies and counterattack us!" At nightfall on 10 February, Japanese troops secured the west
side of the race course along Bukit Timah Road and Gen. Matsui
ordered his Division to break through British lines at 8 p.m.
His 5th Division overwhelmed the 12th Indian brigade after dark
and by midnight, tanks and infantry arrived at Bukit Timah where
fortunately for the British defence, they paused for the night.
Meanwhile south of Bukit Timah, the 22nd Australian and the 44th
Indian Brigades reqrouped, forming a strong defensive line south
of Bukit Timah.e They then engaged the 18th division and after
a good deal of confused fighting in the dark, stopped its advance
at dawn. Lee Kip Lin recalled seeing the soldiers after the battle of Bukit Timah. He said, "Hundreds of them. They were in a terrible state. Torn shirt, torn trousers and wrapped in bandages. They were more or less 'retreating in disorder' as they would describe it in military parlance. And there was this Australian who had a terrible ulcer on his leg, he was cursing the British all the time for not sending enough aeroplanes." The Japanese now had control of Bukit Timah and Bukit Timah hill, the highest point in Singapore but from here on were slowed by logistical problems across the Johor Straits. Percival recounted,"The loss of the food and petrol depots and dumps in the Bukit Timah area, in spite of all our efforts to hold them, was a very serious blow. We now only had about 14 days military food supplies in the depots which remained under our control. As regards petrol, so little now remained that I issued an order that no further supplies, either Army, Air Force or Civil, must be destroyed without my permission." Tomorrow, the 11th of February was Kigensetsu, the anniversary of the foundation of the Japanese Empire 2,602
years ago. According to Gen. Yamamoto, this was the day that Singapore
was supposed to capitulate. It was to be a grim day for the British...
and the Japanese forces. It was also at the beginning of that
day, when Gen. Percival, driving up a deserted Bukit Timah road
to see how Tomforce was doing felt "terribly naked" as Japanese aircraft, indifferent to anti-aircraft fire, circled
overhead looking for targets. "Why, I asked myself, does Britain, our improvident Britain with
all her great resources, allow her sons to fight without any air
support?"
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