With Michael Arnold, author of “The Sacrifice of Singapore”
After the fall of Singapore in the spring of 1942 and under the orders of Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita, the Japanese decided to build a memorial to all those of their men who had died in the Battles for Malaya, Singapore and Sumatra. The project was announced in the Syonan Times on May 8th 1942. It was to be located on top of Bukit Batok Hill and built by the captured allied POWs. A grand staircase leading up the hill was first constructed and then a Shinto Shrine and the memorial monument called the 'Chureito' was erected.
British and Australian POWs from the various camps around Singapore were pressed into service building the roadway, staircase and memorial which was completed and dedicated on September 11th 1942. More than 10,000 boxes of ashes of the Japanese dead were stored inside the Shinto Shrine memorial.
Following the construction of the Japanese Memorial the POWs asked if they could build a memorial to their dead and permission was given and a lovely cement cross was erected behind the Japanese monument.
Shortly before Singapore fell in 1945, the shrine and pagoda were destroyed by the Japanese and the ashes were moved to their present location in the JAPANESE CEMETERY on Chuan Hoe Avenue, Hougang, Singapore where they were placed in a huge metal container underneath a simple concrete obelisk.
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JAPANESE MILITARY MONUMENT - SINGAPORE
The English translation of the Inscription on the front and back of this Monument reads:
“HERE LIE ENTOMBED OVER 10,000.
A MONUMENT TO THE FAITHFUL WHO DIED IN BATTLE”
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So now further regarding the issue of the numbers of Japanese vs. the allies in Malaya and Singapore - by applying comparative combat fatality rates it is possible to use these 'over 10,000' ashes to calculate the approximate size of the Japanese forces involved in the Malayan campaign of 1941-42. Sumatra involved only the very brief battle for the Dutch oil refinery at Palembang where the overall Japanese casualties were very low.
Also bearing in mind the difficult jungle terrain in which much of the fighting took place, it is likely the bodies of many of the Japanese war dead were never found and therefore the figure of 10,000 is a minimum of only those casualties that were recovered.
Locations during World War Two where some of the fighting was at its fiercest, were Omaha Beach on D-Day and the campaigns in the Pacific for Iwo Jima and Okinawa. The American combat fatality rate at Omaha Beach was in the order of 4-5% while at Iwo Jima and Okinawa it was 6%.
It is known that the allied opposition faced by the Japanese in Malaya was fairly weak, but if even the highest rate of 6% is applied, which is most unlikely, then by extrapolation - if 10,000 represents 6% of their army, the Japanese forces would have numbered over 160,000. Since the combat fatality rate was almost certainly lower than that, it seems probable that the Japanese forces which attacked Malaya in 1941 were much larger than has previously been estimated.
In his confidential dispatch to London shortly before the surrender, and also later in his own book, General Percival estimated the Japanese forces at about 150,000, and some Japanese reports suggest much higher figures than this. He was ridiculed at the time, but he has now been proven to have been correct.
It is amazing really that with today's vast storehouse of information and knowledge, that this memorial in Singapore with its 10,000 dead has not been considered by those so-called historians when trying to take into account the truth about the numbers in Malaya and Singapore, but yet they still continue to perpetuate the myth that the British were defeated by a Japanese force 1/3 their size.
The Monument is still there and can be seen today. Copies of the Syonan Times can be obtained through the Singapore Archives.
FURTHER NUMBERS TO SUPPORT THE TRUTH. . .
The complete fabrication that "Thirty thousand Japanese soldiers wearing spectacles and riding bicycles, had overwhelmed the British Garrison of 150 thousand men" is absolute nonsense when one considers that the Japanese forces of General Yamashita's 25th Army used in the attack on Malaya and Singapore consisted of:
5th Division under General Matsui - 30,000 men.
9th/11th /41st Inf Brigades - Gen Kawamura, Col Watanabe, Col Okabe - 30,000 men
21st Inf Brigade - Gen Sugiura
55th Inf Regiment - Col Harada
42nd Inf Regiment - Col Ando
18th Division - Lt General Mutaguchi - 20,000 men
23rd Inf Brigade - Gen Takumi
55th Inf Regiment - Col Koba
56th Inf Regiment - Col Nasu.
35th Inf Brigade - Gen Kawaguchi - 15,000 men
114th Inf Regiment
124th Inf Regiment Imperial Guards Division - Lt Gen Nishimura - 35,000 men
3rd Guards Inf Regiment
4th Guards Inf Regiment - Col Kunishi
5th Guards Inf Regiment
56th Division - Gen Watanabe - 15,000 men
In total the Japanese attack on Singapore consisted of a minimum of 145,000 men plus air power, naval support and artillery support from mainland Malaya, and 100 tanks.
The British forces consisted of:
The remains of Singapore Fortress Garrison - 10,000 men
9th /11th Indian Divisions - 30,000 men
Australian 8th Division - 20,000 men
British 18th Division - 22,000 men
Local forces - 8,000 men
Remnants of Royal Air Force and Royal Navy - 4,000 men
A total of approx. 84,000 defenders - they had no air power or naval support and no tanks!
The total losses on both sides in the battle for Singapore were:
British killed in action and missing - 8,000
Japanese killed and missing - 25,000.
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Lt. General Arthur Percival gave this report on the numbers and the fall of Singapore:
"Singapore was the place above all others in southern Asia which the Japanese wanted to capture and that against it they threw the pick of their armed forces. Of what did those forces consist? Here again many misleading statements have been made. I have seen it stated that 100,000 British surrendered to 30,000 Japanese. That, of course, is sheer nonsense. Does anybody seriously think that the Japanese, advised by their German friends, would have been so foolish as to try to win the prize they wanted so badly with 30,000 men? The Japanese may have been inexperienced in the higher direction of a modern war, but they are certainly not fools where the military arts are concerned.
There is now no doubt, however, that we under-estimated their strength, but it is safe to say that they employed a minimum of 150,000 men in the Malayan campaign, though some Japanese reports suggest much higher figures than this. They also employed two tank regiments which probably contained somewhere between 200 and 300 tanks each. For the attack on Singapore Island the Japanese say they employed some 68,000 combat troops in addition to their administrative units. They also had reserves of troops on the mainland. There can be little doubt therefore that at the end of the campaign there were over 100,000 Japanese troops on Singapore Island and in South Malaya.
In addition as they moved forward down Malaya, they kept the same strong divisions in the front line and fed them from behind. In this way they had fresh troops in action every thirty-six hours or so while our troops were fighting for weeks on end without rest.
On the British side, at the time of the capitulation the total of British forces in the Singapore fortress area was in the neighbourhood of 85,000, but this included a large number of administrative troops, some of them non-combatant and all inadequately trained for a fighting role, and also the very poorly trained reinforcements which had recently arrived.
It was in the air and on the sea, however, that there was the greatest disparity of strength. The Japanese say that their Third Air Division which took part in the Malayan campaign was composed of three army air brigades and two additional air regiments, and that its strength at the outset was 670 aircraft, which included 100 heavy bombers. Later 270 replacement aircraft with their pilots were received from Japan. That would give a total strength of 940 aircraft.
Our air force had all told, including reinforcements, little more than a quarter of this number. Many of them were obsolescent types and there were no reserves. The Japanese fighters and medium bombers had ranges of 1,500 to 1,600 miles, which enabled them to operate from bases outside the range of our own aircraft. On the sea the Japanese had complete superiority after the sinking of the Prince of Wales and Repulse."
Excerpt from THE WAR IN MALAYA by Lt. General A. E. Percival - from his official report to the government, 1946.
iTHE ORIGIN OF THE MYTH
The matter which created the myth that "30,000 Japanese soldiers had taken Singapore", was that on February 16th - the day after the fall of the colony, General Yamashita sent a message to the Emperor in Japan stating that Singapore had fallen with the loss of only 30,000 men - his estimate at that time.
The message was picked up by British listening posts in India and transmitted to Whitehall. Either the message was not sent or received properly, or someone in Whitehall sculptured or adjusted it to read that Singapore had been taken with just 30,000 men.
Further proof of this can be found in the Japanese memorial on Victory Hill which the Japanese had built by the Allied POWs immediately after the fall of Singapore, and which was dedicated to the 25,000 Japanese who gave their lives for their Emperor in the battle for Singapore. This memorial was completely destroyed by the British in 1946 after the war.
Another memorial constructed at the same time in Gemas Malaya was dedicated to the 35,000 Japanese who fell during the fighting in Malaya, Giving a total of 60,000 Japanese who were lost from the 8th of December 1941 to the 15th of February 1942.
One can clearly see from these numbers that there were more Japanese killed and missing than the number who supposedly took part in the attack, and thus the claims by Churchill and the British Government were far from correct, and most likely concocted by them to save face for both.