CHAPTER 6 – How did World War II affect Singapore?
- WHAT WERE THE EFFORTS MADE BY THE BRITISH TO DEFEND SG?
(Why Singapore was known as the ‘impregnable’ fortress of the British Empire in the East)
- ‘Main fleet in SG’ strategy
- After WWI, Britain was financially drained & could not maintain a strong naval presence in the Far East
- There was a need to keep all the warships in Europe as well as need to defend its empire in the Far East as Japan was building a strong navy
- SG was chosen as naval base & construction of the base was completed in 1938
- British would send ships from Europe if there were trouble in Asia
- 15-inch guns
- To defend naval base in SG, 15-inch guns were installed facing the sea to prevent attack from the sea
- Military airfields
- Built in Tengah & Sembawang
- Underground bunkers
- Built in Fort Canning, Labrador & Sembawang
- Defence from Malaya
- Jungles of Malaya believed to be natural barriers to any form of enemy attack because they were dense & difficult to penetrate
- Indian, British & Australian troops
- Troops arrived in 1941 to defend both SG & Malaya from possible attack
- HMS Prince of Wales & HMS Repulse
- On Dec 1941, both battleships arrived in SG
- WHY DID THE BRITISH FAIL TO STOP THE JAPANESE?
- Japanese intelligence services in Malaya & SG
- Jap intelligence provided info on British defence & readiness
- Jap owned lands in Johor & SG & they observed construction of naval base & coastal defences
- Jap fishing fleet, which accounted for nearly half of fish supplied to SG, conducted surveys of the Malayan coastal areas
- Jap photographers, who operated studios in Malayan towns, took pictures of roads, railways & military installations
- Many Jap military officers operated incognito
- The British underestimated the Japanese
- Brit believed that the Jap army, air force & navy were inferior so they did not send more naval & air reinforcements
- In fact, Imperial Japanese Army had a large modern air force & naval fleet
- Japanese ‘Zero’ fighter planes destroyed about half of the Brit planes which were old & outdated