Re: Bloody Shambles
Singapore was a mixed of a military and a civilian screw up.
For example the military wanted to employ a whole lot more dock workers to get goods off supply ships as quickly as possible when they arrived. The Governor General of Malaya was opposed as it would almost certainly raise the wages of the people working in the rubber plantations and tin mines - the owners of which were his golfing chums. The result - a number of freighters loaded with urgently needed supplies were sunk at their berth, still unloaded.
On the other hand the military was also being run on a peacetime basis, even after the Japanese attacked. A story is told of an Australian unit that tried to get mines and barbed wire to help protect the shore they were guarding. A unit was sent to the supply depot to get some - it was closed because it was Saturday.
It was not the Empire's finest moment. The US at least could point to Bataan holding out until April - exactly what it was supposed to do under the old War Plan Orange. Singapore, "the Gibraltar of the Far East" lasted a week.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
