Free The Other Side of Paradise by Margaret Mayhew

And whoever holds Singapore also enjoys all the rich resources of Malaya and the Indies. Oil, tin, rubber, tea, coal, iron … with cheap labour thrown in for good measure. The Japs are desperate for raw materials, especially oil. Added to that, the Johore Straits form one of the best natural harbours in the south-west Pacific. They
have
to take Singapore away from us if they want to realize their dreams of expansion in Asia. Their aim and ambition is to be rid of white colonial races in South East Asia. To wipe them out.’
    ‘Not quite so simple for them, surely. We’re well defended here.’
    ‘You only
think
you are. There are endless official propaganda bulletins put out about army manoeuvres, naval exercises, troops arriving – all to make everyone feel nice and secure. Yes, there are some fixed defences on the mainland east-coast beaches where the Japanese army might be expected to attempt a landing – Kota Bahru, Kuantan and Mersing – and the big naval-base guns are covering the sea approaches to Singapore, but there are no fixed defences along the Malayan
west
coast, and Penang has precisely two six-inch guns. Incidentally, Singapore Island’s north shore has nothing at all to fend off any attack coming from across the Straits. No barricades, barbed wire, ditches, pillboxes, gun emplacements. Nothing. A contact of mine on General Percival’s staff tells me the general’s view is that to construct anything like that might have a bad effect on public morale.’
    ‘But that’s ridiculous.’
    ‘It’s more than ridiculous, it’s utter folly. Do you realize that the Royal Navy hasn’t a single battleship in this area, not one aircraft carrier and no heavy cruisers or submarines? All we have is a handful of destroyers and about a hundred RAF planes that are mostly obsolete – old Wildebeestes and Buffaloes and the like. Our army and the navy need good air cover and they simply haven’t got it. We’re dangerously vulnerable to attack. The Japs will know all this, of course. Their intelligence is bound to be excellent – after all, there are plenty of them living and working in Singapore. They’ll know all about the poor defences. They’ll know that there are almost no public shelters in the city, that practising air raid drills or blackouts or local defence isn’t taken very seriously, that most civilians are only thinking about the next party or the next cricket match or the next picnic on the beach. A lot of the whites have come out here to get rich quick and enjoy the life, never mind any other considerations. Nobody, including our military commanders, believes the Japs are capable of causing any serious trouble for us. The Nips are generally held in contempt, and that could prove fatal.’
    There was a silence. Susan waited.
    ‘Surely the top brass must be aware of the situation.’
    ‘The consensus of top-brass opinion seems to be that the Japs are more concerned with fighting Russia, that they’d never attempt a landing in Malaya during the monsoon and that, even if they did, they’d never get through the jungle. None of those things is necessarily true. What
is
true is that when they took Indo-China in July the Japs gained an ideal base for launching attacks in all directions – the Philippines, the Dutch East Indies, Thailand and Malaya. But all the warning signals are being ignored: Jap submarines in Malayan coastal waters, increased Jap military activity in Indo-China … nobody seems very worried. Heads are firmly stuck in the sand. I’ve heard a rumour that two Royal Navy battleships are being sent out here but without an aircraft carrier to protect them, and one of them, the
Repulse
, is an old lady built in 1916. Too little has been done and it’s getting much too late.’
    There was another silence before her father spoke again. ‘I’ve offered my services to the civil defence here but I must say it’s been something of a let-down. I speak the native languages pretty fluently