Action At The Mental Hospital, Singapore Island, (Feb 1942)

 The Mental Hospital, Singapore – Feb 1942

‘While most of Singapore uneasily awaited a fate of which they could not be certain, the General Hospital was in turmoil. On the Monday the Japanese announced that every single one of the thousands of patients had to be evacuated within 24 hours. They wanted the hospital for their own wounded by Tuesday afternoon. Over a thousand civilian patients who could walk had to leave for their homes almost immediately. More that seven hundred civilians were hastily sent in convoys of ambulances to the Singapore Asylum, from which mental patients had already been evacuated to an island in the harbour.’

Source: Sinister Twilight: The Fall of Singapore by Noel Barker, pg 244.

“In all of Malaya, of all types – Tiger Moths, antiquated bombers, inferior fighters – there were only 141 aircraft, none of them, by Japanese standards, first line.”
(General Percival’s Report on the Malayan Campaign)
Source: The Naked Island by Russell Braddon; 1955 edition Pan Books Ltd, Pg 285

‘We are not in disgrace for letting Singapore be captured so easily, as we have feared we might be. Possibly it is now accepted that we were never given a chance to fight properly, never had the weapons and support which we should have had. To that we would add that political interference and ineptitude, coupled with military incompetence at high level in certain places, is a combination which the ordinary soldier cannot overcome. All he can do is fight and die or, as in our case, become a prisoner, while those responsible retire on undeserved pensions.’
Source: One Fourteenth of an Elephant, by Ian Denys Peek, 2005, Pg 490

Extracts from One Fourteenth of an Elephant by Ian Denys Peek reprinted by permission of Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd. Copyright © Ian Denys Peek 2003

“When, before the war, a Government official, now Lord Llewellyn, queried Major – General Dobbie about the complete absence of fortifications on the north coast of Singapore, though the east and the west and the south bristled with armaments, the General replied simply: ‘The north needs no fortification. No one could get through the jungle that leads to it’
Unfortunately, the Japanese were never informed of this fact!”
(Sir John Dill, May 6th, 1941)
Source: The Naked Island by Russell Braddon; 1955 edition Pan Books Ltd, Pg 284