Thailand And The Fall Of Singapore

Focusing on the period between 1932 and 1968, this comprehensive study bridges the gap between recent political studies and available historiography, which generally conclude with the 1932 revolution. Dr. Brailey discusses the 1942 Japanese capture of Singapore that dragged a reluctant Thailand into World War II--a war Thai leaders believed was irrelevant to their national interests. He argues that this country, which had launched one of the East's earliest nationalist revolutions, had its political development reversed for a quarter century by the arrival of Japanese troops. Ironically, the Japanese presence in the region enabled most of Thailand's neighbors to promote their own development through decolonization. Dr. Brailey demonstrates that Thailand, once freed from post-war trauma, achieved a level of political freedom unsurpassed in Asia without seriously compromising its stability.

Focusing on the period between 1932 and 1968, this comprehensive study bridges the gap between recent political studies and available historiography, which generally conclude with the 1932 revolution. Dr. Brailey discusses the 1942 Japanese capture of Singapore that dragged a reluctant Thailand into World War II—a war Thai leaders believed was irrelevant to their national interests. He argues that this country, which had launched one of the East's earliest nationalist revolutions, had its political development reversed for a quarter century by the arrival of Japanese troops. Ironically, the Japanese presence in the region enabled most of Thailand's neighbors to promote their own development through decolonization. Dr. Brailey demonstrates that Thailand, once freed from post-war trauma, achieved a level of political freedom unsurpassed in Asia without seriously compromising its stability.

Shortly after midnight on 8 December 1941, two divisions of crack troops of the Imperial Japanese Army began a seaborne invasion of southern Thailand and northern Malaya. Their assault developed into a full-blown advance towards Singapore, the main defensive position of the British Empire in the Far East. The defending British, Indian, Australian and Malayan forces were outmanoeuvred on the ground, overwhelmed in the air and scattered on the sea. By the end of January 1942, British Empire forces were driven back onto the island of Singapore Itself, cut off from further outside help. When the Japanese stormed the island with an an-out assault, the defenders were quickly pushed back into a corner from which there was no escape. Singapore’s defenders finally capitulated on 15 February, to prevent the wholesale pillage of the city itself. Their rapid and total defeat was nothing less than military humiliation and political disaster. Based on the most extensive use yet of primary documents in Britain, Japan, Australia and Singapore, Brian Farrell provides the fullest picture of how and why Singapore fell and its real significance to the outcome of the Second World War.

Shortly after midnight on 8 December 1941, two divisions of crack troops of the Imperial Japanese Army began a seaborne invasion of southern Thailand and northern Malaya. Their assault developed into a full-blown advance towards Singapore, the main defensive position of the British Empire in the Far East. The defending British, Indian, Australian and Malayan forces were outmanoeuvred on the ground, overwhelmed in the air and scattered on the sea. By the end of January 1942, British Empire forces were driven back onto the island of Singapore itself, cut off from further outside help. When the Japanese stormed the island with an all-out assault, the defenders were quickly pushed back into a corner from which there was no escape. Singapore's defenders finally capitulated on 15 February, to prevent the wholesale pillage of the city itself. Their rapid and total defeat was nothing less than military humiliation and political disaster. Based on the most extensive use yet of primary documents in Britain, Japan, Australia and Singapore, Brian Farrell provides the fullest picture of how and why Singapore fell and its real significance to the outcome of the Second World War.

This book presents one of the most vivid descriptions of day-to-day life in a Japanese POW labour camp to have appeared so far. The story follows the experiences of the Norfolk Territorial Regiment from 1942 to 1945, under the command of Lt. Col. Knights, during and after the fall of Singapore. Many will recollect having seen the film, The Bridge on The River Kwai. It tended to fictionalise certain matters of fact. This book, drawn directly from a memoir only recently uncovered, reveals that the Japanese designed railway was successfully completed with the forced labour of Allied troops in conjunction with Chinese and Malay captives. The Royal Norfolks were allocated a section of the line which required excavating deep cuttings in the rock hills parallel with the river. They had their 'own' camp with a Japanese officer in charge. He constantly pressed for quicker progress, and for work to be done by all the prisoners, including those in the camp hospital and their officers, contrary to international law. The Regiment's experiences are reported by Lt. Col. Knights in his book. He gives details of his own and others' sufferings, both those inflicted by their captors and those occurring from tropical diseases and insects, all being worsened by a lack of medicines and food. Some of the local Thais, at great risk to themselves, provided a little of both of those commodities. After the railway was completed, the survivors were marched back into Thailand. There they were required to dig a deep ditch round their camp. It was suspected that this would be their grave when they were shot, if the Japanese decided that they had lost the war. Fortunately the two atomic bombs resulted in the Japanese Emperor himself announcing their surrender, forestalling that action. The final chapters of the book are filled with excitement and tension in the efforts of the British officers to hoodwink their captors.

No man has the command of words needed for conveying...the courage and the cowardice; the loyalty and the treachery; the dedication and the dereliction; the strengths and the frailties; the kindness and the brutality; the integrity and depravity; the magnificence and the enormities of men, as revealed by and to those fated to pass through the entrails of hell, in Thailand Burma, during and after the Railway was built.' Descent into Hell is a scrupulously researched and groundbreaking account of one of the most traumatic calamities in Australian history - the Malayan Campaign, the fall of Singapore and the subsequent horrors of the Thai - Burma Railway. Unpicking the myths and legends of the war, Peter Brune goes to the heart of the Australian experience. He describes the shambolic planning by the British in Singapore and the failures and incompetence of some of the Australian command. He debunks the claims about Australian deserters in Singapore, and we learn of the black market in Changi and the beatings, torture and murder on the Thai - Burma Railway. Here too are stories of the war's many heroes and villains: of officers who looked after their men and optimised their chances of survival, and others who looked after themselves at their men's expense; the heroes of battle who became ineffectual and lost in the camps and on the Railway, and the least liked and least respected battlefield officers who came to be great leaders. And then there are countless acts of kindness and decency performed by one POW for another in the most cruel of circumstances. Impressive, compelling and rich in human spirit, Descent into Hell is an unprecedented chronicle by one of Australia's finest military historians.