Free Battle Story by Chris Brown Page A

a period after the start of the campaign as the Japanese concentrated on targets on the mainland, but started again in earnest on the night of 29/30 January. A force of fifty-one Hurricane fighters had arrived in January with a complement of twenty-four pilots, but however determined their efforts – and those of the few surviving Buffalo fighters’ pilots who now had to struggle to familiarise themselves with a new aircraft – there was little they could do to prevent attacks. A second group of Hurricanes were dispatched from the carrier HMS Indomitable between 27 and 29 January and were dispersed to operate from airfields in Sumatra, but several of these were destroyed on the ground by Japanese bombing raids and others in engagements with Japanese fighters in the first couple of days after their arrival. From 12 January onward, the Japanese could mount bombing raids by day at little risk.
    Although the mainland had been evacuated on 31 January, General Yamashita did not press on with an attack immediately. His troops had been fighting continuously for eight weeks and were exhausted. Men had become scattered from their units so had to be located and returned; ammunition stacks had to be replenished and assault craft had to be brought in before he could mount an operation. Although their ammunition supply was low, Yamashita was determined to allow the Allied troops no respite. As such, sporadic and relatively minor artillery bombardments started on 1 February, directed from observation posts on high ground and at least one observation balloon. Such balloons were rather anachronistic by 1942 but the Japanese had virtually complete control of the air so there was little threat of the balloon being shot down.
    The Allied artillery was not silent, and sections (two guns) of various regiments were moved around the island (in the hope that the Japanese would not be able to identify their positions quickly enough to arrange counter-battery fire) to deliver harassing fire. They were, however, limited to no more than twenty rounds per day. This restriction had been imposed to preserve ammunition stocks for the main battle since Percival was planning for a struggle of three months, in the hope that a major relief operation could be mounted in that period. With stocks of 25-pounder and anti-aircraft ammunition already running low, Percival felt that he needed to retain as much of an ammunition reserve as possible as there was little prospect of replenishment for several weeks at least. The order would have unfortunate unintended consequences, for it was construed as a general policy for the entire battle rather than a temporary restriction to be observed until the Japanese attempted a landing. The absence of British air support and the firing restrictions allowed the Japanese to regroup and prepare their forces almost with impunity.
    Remarkably, no effort had been made to arrange for observers to be left in Johore who could report on Japanese movements by wireless, and there was no realistic possibility of garnering suchintelligence from local sources since the telephone lines to the island had been cut. Even if this had not been the case, it is not at all certain that any information provided by local people would have been taken seriously, nor that it would have been acted on. Deprived of aerial reconnaissance as well as any other form of intelligence material, the Allies were forced to rely on patrols crossing the strait to Johore by night in small boats. There seems to have been no sorties across the strait from the Western Area before 6 February, but there were a number from the Eastern Area, none of which reported any extensive movements of infantry or artillery concentrations. It was not until the night of the 6th that Bennett’s Western Area headquarters was instructed to send patrols across the strait to investigate activity to the west of Johore.

    35. Typical pre-war ‘atap’ house of the kind found in kampongs