Malaya.

This is coolbert:

I recommend this You Tube video without qualification or reservation.

The Malaya Campaign. WW2. British and Japanese.

"Generals at War (National Geographic) - The Battle of Singapore"

My comments:

* General Yamashita [Ya-mah-shee-ta] his ground combat force only ONE-THIRD the size of the combat units available to Percival. Yamashita not even for a moment hesitant to assume the offensive and maintain the initiative.

* Yamashita  eschewing the presence of two additional divisions for the Malay Campaign. Doubling the size of the Japanese army tasked for Malaya would create too great of a logistical problem?

[lieutenants think tactics, generals think logistics!]

* Japanese Chief of Staff serving Yamashita the famous/infamous Colonel Tsuji. Of Tsuji we will hear more later.

* Capture of British airfields intact a prime objective of the Japanese. Total Japanese air domination plus the presence of two-hundred Japanese tanks crucial. Japanese naval assets in the area also dominant.

* The use of bicycles by the Japanese often commented upon. A measure not solely for speed of advance. The individual Japanese soldier able to carry a greater existence load for self-sufficiency.

* Axis of the main Japanese attack on the western side of the Malay Peninsula very constricted without much possibility for maneuver [other than amphibious end-run] not seeming to pose any difficulty for the Japanese. 

*The British General Percival apparently rather dull, plodding, unimaginative and uninspiring. Prior to Singapore his reputation however relatively good. Percival having served as Chief of Staff for the British garrison Singapore prior to the war I would have thought the man the ideal candidate as in command of British forces.

* Percival having to command a multi-nation army. This created conflict? Decision making complicated as a result?

* Treachery on the part of a serving British officer part and parcel of Japanese success in Malaya.

* Percival on the defensive prior to the climactic ground assault on Singapore Island his force spread out, too thin. Attempt to guard everything meant nothing was guarded.

* Repeated and almost frenzied entreaties from Churchill to defend Singapore to the last man, the last rifle round of ammunition going more or less unheeded by Percival. 

 Thanks once more to You Tube and as extracted from Japanese archival military film footage. The advance [600 miles/1,000 kilo-meters] on Singapore requiring the crossing of over two-hundred fifty rivers. Bridges as destroyed  by the retreating British repaired by Japanese combat engineers using basic field expedient measures, hard pick and shovel type labor. Forward movement of the Japanese greatly facilitated, impediment removed. Combat engineers vital.

IT IS NOT THE BRITISH WERE SO BAD BUT THAT THE JAPANESE WERE SO GOOD? THIS  MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE ACCOUNTS FOR BRITISH DEFEAT?

coolbert.