Between 2 Oceans (2nd Edn)

N Murfett Malcolm M & Miksin John

Description

Many books have been written about Singapore's much vaunted position as a crucial maritime centre along the East-West trading route, but one aspect of its history-the military perspective-has, for the most part, escaped serious scholarly attention. Between Two Oceans plugs this historical gap. Drawing on an impressive range of archaeological and historical sources gleaned from research and documents in Britain, India, Singapore, United States and Australia, the book traces the geo-strategic development of Singapore from its first settlement in the thirteenth century through the turbulent phases of the Early Modern period to the dramatic military episodes of the twentieth century. In presenting a balanced view of this momentous story, the authors have sought to dispel many of the myths about Singapore's military history that have grown up in the past and are now assumed to be factually correct. Between Two Oceans breaks new ground in revealing the difference between fact and fiction in Singapore's fascinating military past. This updated edition contains new findings which have come to light since the publication of the last edition, giving an unprecedented breadth and depth of perspective to this historical account.

Sujets

• Military history
• Histoire

Informations

• Publié par: MarshallCavendishM
• Date de parution: 01 avril 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9789814435451
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

BETWEEN TWO OCEANS

BETWEEN TWO OCEANS

© Malcolm M. Murfett, John N. Miksic, Brian P. Farrell, Chiang Ming Shun 2011

Published 2011 by Marshall Cavendish Editions An imprint of Marshall Cavendish International 1 New Industrial Road, Singapore 536196

First published 1999 by Oxford University Press

All rights reserved

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National Library Board, Singapore Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Between Two Oceans : A military history of Singapore from 1275 to 1971 / Malcolm H.Murfett ... [et al.]. – Rev. ed. – Singapore : Marshall Cavendish Editions, 2011. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. eISBN: 978 981 4435 45 1 1. Singapore – History, Military. 2. Great Britain – Military policy – History. I. Murfett, Malcolm H. UA853 355.03305957 — dc22 OCN695935830

Printed in Singapore by Times Printers Pte Ltd

CONTENTS

List of Maps and Illustrations Prologue Acknowledgements Notes on the Authors

CHAPTER I Geography and Traditional Warfare in Pre-British Southeast Asia: The Place of Singapore The Nature of Early Southeast Asian Warfare The Srivijayan Era, A.D. 100–1000 A New Phase: The Rise of Malayu-Jambi, 1025–1075 The Classical Singapore Phase, 1275–1400 The Melaka Phase, 1400–1511 The Johore–Riau Phase, 1511–1780 The Dutch-Bugis Phase, 1700–1819

CHAPTER II Why the British Came to Singapore Crossroads of Empire: The Sea Route to China 1819 and Early Growing Pains

CHAPTER III From Fieldworks to Fort Canning, 1823–1866 Creating a Defended Port Threats, Forts and the Basis of Defence A First-class Field Fortification

CHAPTER IV Britannia Rules the Waves? Singapore and Imperial Defence, 1867–1891 Defending a Crown Colony Russians, Guns, Money, and Bureaucrats

CHAPTER V The Weakest Go to the Wall: From Money to Mutiny, 1892–1918 Paying for Defence: The Paper War The Great War and Singapore: Cruisers, Volunteers and Mutineers

CHAPTER VI A Keystone of Imperial Defence or a Millstone Around Britain’s Neck? Singapore 1919–1941 The Genesis of the “Singapore Strategy,” 1918–1929 Developments on the International Stage, 1929–1937 The Acid Test for the “Singapore Strategy”

CHAPTER VII Too Little, Too Late: Preparing for War, 1941–1942 Strike South Disjointed Defence

CHAPTER VIII Bitter Harvest: The Defence and Fall of Singapore The Fall of Malaya The Naked Island The Fall of Singapore

CHAPTER IX Living under the Rising Sun: Singapore and the Japanese Occupation, 1942–1945 Coming to Terms with the Occupation: The View of the Local Singaporeans Life as a Prisoner of the Japanese Life as a Civilian Internee The Japanese Administration’s Role during the Occupation Singapore’s Military Significance

CHAPTER X Old Wine in a New Bottle: Singapore and British Defence Policy, 1945–1962 Return to Singapore British Defence Policy and the Role of Singapore The Growth and Use of the Base and its Impact on Singapore

CHAPTER XI End of Empire: From Union to Withdrawal From Union to Confrontation Withdrawal: End of an Era

APPENDICES 1 Notes on the Forts of Nineteenth-century Singapore 2 Wartime Preparations to Defend Singapore Island 3 Controversies surrounding the Surrender of Singapore, February 1942 4 War Crimes Trials in Singapore, 1946–1948 Glossary List of Abbreviations Notes to the Text Bibliography Index

MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS

MAPS

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Singapore’s strategic importance

Location of forts in Singapore, 19th century (A. Harfield,British and Indian Armies in the Far East 1685–1935)

Siting of the naval base (I. Hamill,The Strategic Illusion: The Singapore Strategy and the Defence of Australia and New Zealand)

Singapore’s defences, 1937 (N. Gibbs.Grand Strategy.Vol. 1. 1919–1939)

Malaya: Topography, roads and rails, 1941

Location of British forces in Malaya, 8 December 1941 (L. Wigmore,The Japanese Thrust)

Japan’s opening moves in Malaya (Wigmore)

The conquest of Malaya

Deployment for the defence of Singapore (S.W. Kirby,The War Against Japan, Vol. 1, The Loss of Singapore)

10 The Japanese assault and advance, and the final defence perimeter

ILLUSTRATIONS

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles (SingaBore National Archives)

Fort Canning viewed from the High Street, 1870s (SingaBore National Archives)

Sembawang naval base (SingaBore National Archives)

Japanese assault troops landing in Singapore (SingaBore National Archives)

Percival surrenders Singapore (SingaBore National Archives)

Thesook chingroundup (SingaBore National Archives)

Tunku Abdul Rahman and Lee Kuan Yew campaign (SingaBore National Archives)

PROLOGDE

THIS VOLDME EXPLORES the military history of the island of Singaore from aroximately 1275 to 1971. In so doing it seeks to disel several myths that over the course of time have become so entrenched and believable that they have been acceted by many eole, often unreservedly, as fact. Because comaratively little is known of the early history of Singaore, the oular view aears to be that Sir Stamford Raffles was the first erson to discover the geo-strategic imortance of this little diamond-shaed island lying off the southern coast of the Malayan eninsula. This assumtion is well wide of the mark, as John Miksic, the noted regional archaeologist, reveals in the first chaters of this volume. Far from being a sleey troical island that escaed the attention of all but a few indigenous natives and isolated remnants of the Chinese diasora, Singaore—in its various guises—was recognised as an imortant maritime location centuries before Raffles set foot on the banks of the Singaore River in 1819. By iecing together fragments of the historical record from an imressive range of sources, Professor Miksic has reached the conclusion that Singaore robably first assumed an imortance in regional mercantile trade in the last quarter of the thirteenth century. His own archaeological excavations in a few selected sites near the river and on Fort Canning Hill in Singaore have tended to confirm this suosition. Although these excavations have unearthed a relatively small number of thirteenth-century ieces, they have revealed a much richer source of artifacts from the fourteenth century.Prima facie, therefore, this would aear to be consistent with the contention that Singaore (Temasik) was used as a ort for certain trading uroses in the thirteenth century and thereafter grew more oulous and imortant. Miksic suggests that the reciitous fall in the fortunes of Temasik at the turn of the fifteenth century was inversely related to the rise of the Malayan ort of Melaka. Although not abandoned entirely, Singaore continued to decline well beyond the Portuguese conquest of Melaka in 1511, culminating in its own defeat at the hands of the Portuguese in 1613, when much, if not all, of the ancient settlement of Singaore was burned to the ground. Singaore lurched on in an inferior osition for another ninety years before the island was offered as a gift by the Sultan of Johore to a British sea catain who was visiting Johore on his way to China in 1703. Abdul Jalil’s extraordinary offer may have been made as a convenient loy to bring British ower into the region and buttress his own faltering hold over his ossessions in the area. esite the sea catain’s olitely declining the Sultan’s offer, news of its issue sread and was to have enormous influence 116 years later in 1819 when Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles was looking to establish a settlement south of the Malayan eninsula for the urose of rotecting the exanding East India Comany’s trade routes between India and China. Although Raffles began his quest for the develoment of a British base south of the Melaka Straits by referring Bangka (off Sumatra), Bintan, Karimun (both in the Riau archielago), Sambas, and Pontianak (both on the west coast of Borneo), he eventually oted for Singaore and came ashore for the first time on 29 January 1819. Of Singaore’s ost-1819 socio-economic and olitical history, much is known. Far less attention, however, has been given by the academic world— with some notable excetions—to the military and geo-strategic asects of the island’s develoment. In this volume, the four authors concentrate their attention on this relatively neglected shere of Singaore’s history. Both John Miksic and Chiang Ming Shun show that British lans for the defence of the island assed through a series of hases in the nineteenth century— some enlightened, others not—but with the essential catalyst for action and effective

rearedness being always the likelihood of attack by a suerior regional ower. In times when that morbid fear was high, defence lans took on much more imressive form than when that factor was removed. Regrettably, inconsistency and imerial arrogance reigned sureme in the days ofPax Britannicaduring the mid-nineteenth century. By the time the First World War broke out in Euroe in August 1914, both the troos and defences of Singaore had become threadbare. This regrettable state of affairs worsened in the months thereafter and finally resulted in the ill-fated Seoy Mutiny of February 1915. As Chiang vividly reveals in his investigation of this incident, the symbolism of the British relying uon the Jaanese, amongst others, to ut down this mutiny was neither lost on the eole of Singaore, nor on those who had been called into the breach in this emergency. The British themselves, however, failed to get the message that defending colonial territories in Southeast Asia under all circumstances was atently more difficult to orchestrate than the Euroean Powers might care to believe. There seemed to be a general unwillingness on their art to accet the fact that the days of Palmerston were gone forever. Being British no longer carried quite the same clout that it had done more than half a century before. This much ought to have been realised by the government in Whitehall if not by the rest of the country. Looking at the much-vaunted “Singaore Strategy” in the inter-war eriod, however, one is hard-ut to see any such recognition save from an enlightened few who nonetheless found themselves outside the charmed circle of real influence in London. Indeed, and almost erversely, the British olicy- makers in suorting this imerious strategic lan virtually defied the logic of contemlating what would haen in a worst-case scenario, referring instead to see imerial defence in the best ossible light. It was seen as a duty that they could discharge even in dire emergencies. Sadly, it was as big a myth as the oular concetion that Singaore had no significant rehistory before Raffles. Even so the British did finally come to their senses after the fall of France in June 1940 and admit that their colonies in Southeast Asia were too far away to defend under all circumstances and that Home Waters and the Middle East now took recedence over Singaore and its immediate environs. Notwithstanding the Dnited Kingdom’s belated brush with reality, the myth grew u that such a rofound olicy change was deliberately ket from both the Australasian ominions. Sinister talk of a great betrayal has been heard for seventy years. Was this yet another examle of “erfidious Albion”? esite the assage of the years and the declassified information that is now in the ublic domain, the myth ersists. This volume addresses the issue and demonstrates that although the British government did act disingenuously, the Australian ministers in Canberra dislayed a myoia of strategic that almost defies belief. In the end neither ower had any real alternative but to trust to luck; and that articular commodity deserted both of them in ecember 1941. Once the Jaanese had launched their attack on southern Thailand and northern Malaya, the lim nature of British defence rearations was immediately shown in grahic relief. What the Commonwealth had wistfully hoed would ultimately be a Fortress Singaore soon turned into a sick and cruel joke—instead of being an imerial redoubt it raidly became a military internment cam. A combination of insufficient money and troos, inadequate military matériel, and a gross underestimation of the enemy’s ability to wage war would have been reason enough for alarm at the best of times, but the British managed to comound these colossal mistakes with a command structure that lacked cohesion, insiration and élan. In the heat of battle when decisive judgment was required, their military leaders either failed to lead or invariably chose the wrong otion with catastrohic results. Exlanations for this débâcle are legion and oular misconcetions have rarely been far from the surface of most of these accounts. For years afterwards the fall of Singaore was often artly attributed to the fact that the guns ointed the “wrong way” (out to sea) and could not be turned to bear on the enemy aroaching from the northern landward side. Convenient scaegoats existed from the outset. British military folklore has ortrayed the men of the Australian Imerial Forces as a cowardly rabble who fled from the advancing Jaanese, thus