Chapter 25 Farewell for three days, when you look at each other with admiration

Parcival has served in Malaysia for a long time and is known as "Malaysian Hand".In Malaysia, the northeast monsoon climate is from November to March of the following year. At that time, there will be strong winds and waves along the east coast of the peninsula, which is not suitable for Japanese troops to land.From this, he speculated that May to October is the most dangerous season, and the Japanese army is likely to launch an attack at this time. However, the Japanese army did not attack during this period. In November, Parcival's tense nerves gradually relaxed. In the character of the commander, Parcival is quite similar to the declining national power of the United Kingdom: good at socializing, but lacking in ambition and enterprise.

It is conceivable that he and MacArthur are two completely different types of people, and they are even more different from tiger-wolf generals like Yamashita and Yamamoto. Japan didn't move for a while, and Percival regarded it as not moving.This gentleman has the unique sense of superiority of Westerners, and he looks down on Easterners in his bones, including Japanese of course. Percival's opinion is that although Japan can manufacture aircraft with far superior performance than the "Buffalo", it can also build aircraft carriers and high-speed fleets, and has carried out landing operations on the Chinese battlefield many times, but that does not mean that Japan has any A remarkable ability, but can imitate it.

When Parcival said that about the Japanese, he didn't completely wrong them.After World War I, as long as any country built a new aircraft, Japan must import a small amount, drag it back to the land for research, and finally change the skin and carry out quantitative production. To put it bluntly, this is imitation, but to put it bluntly, it is plagiarism.The aircraft designers in Europe and the United States were so angry that they rushed to the top of the door, but they had nothing to do with them, so they had to comment with sarcasm: "If Japan does not buy one aircraft every time, then I will be very grateful." For this reason, Western society even called Japan an "imitation nation" of monkeys and humans.

Parcival didn't realize that after three days of farewell, he should look at him with admiration.Today, the Japanese aviation industry has long bid farewell to the era of imitation, let alone the era when they were so poor that they had legs and no pants. Their "Falcon" and "Zero" are all their own technologies, and they are all in the world's advanced fields. But because of this inexplicable sense of superiority, Parcival took it for granted that it is okay to "imitate the nation" to attack a weak country like China. As for attacking Malaysia on a large scale, I am afraid that it does not have the ability.

However, there is one thing that Parcival's judgment is extremely accurate, that is, the Japanese army will either not attack Singapore, or it will not land in Singapore, but will land from northern Malaysia, and then launch an attack from north to south. Thailand is the only way to choose this offensive route, but will Thailand allow Japan to use itself as a base for attacking Malaysia? No way!Although Thailand is not a British colony, it has always been pro-British and will not easily hook up with Japan.Therefore, even if the Japanese army insisted on coming over regardless of the wind and waves and the limitations of their capabilities, they would not be able to pass the test in Thailand.This is called kissing while wearing bamboo hats, and there is a gap between each other's hats.

However, the development of the situation did not go exactly as expected. As the news of the breakdown of the Japan-US negotiations continued to spread, the crisis seemed to be approaching Singapore.Parcival thought that if the Japanese were daring, they might not dare to do the same thing as a tiger jumping on a fly. How do you know that the Japanese army is about to land? It depends on whether they have entered Thailand. Parcival sent a group of officers in civilian clothes to the Thai border to investigate.As a result, the military officers repeatedly encountered some Japanese soldiers in Thai restaurants. Although these Japanese soldiers were also dressed as civilians, the soldiers could recognize them at a glance.

From this, Parcival judged that, first, the Japanese army was indeed planning to control Thailand; second, the idea was just an idea and had not yet become a reality, or they were still so sneaky? Parcival was quite relieved, but just in case, he still made a plan and named it the "Matador" plan.The plan made it clear that in the event of a war, the British coalition forces would control Songkhla and Pattani in the northern part of the Malaysian peninsula ahead of Japan. These two places are located on the southern border of Thailand. Not only do they have airports, but they are also important transportation hubs from north to south.Parcival predicted that the Japanese army would definitely land from here.

In the second half of 1941, as the German army turned to the east to attack the Soviet Union, the pressure on the British mainland gradually decreased. At the same time, Japan's intention to go south to the Pacific became more and more obvious. Churchill then sent the "Prince of Wales" and "Counterattack" to Singapore. Help out.However, in view of the fact that the United States is still undecided, he also asked Parcival not to implement the "Matador" plan early, so as not to affect the overall strategic layout of the United Kingdom. Parcival set a line for the "Matador": launch at least 24 hours before the Japanese army landed.

The news of the Japanese army going south continued to spread thereafter.On the same day that the "Prince of Wales" arrived in Singapore, Japan's mighty landing fleet also set sail from Sanya, Hainan, China, and headed for Peninsular Malaysia. Knowing the movement of the Japanese fleet, even the Thai border guards were caught off guard and blocked the roads leading to Songkhla and Pattani first.Percival was shaking his head with a skeptical expression all the time. I don't know if he thought the Japanese army would not take action, or if he was confident that his plan was really chopping vegetables with a horseshoe knife—it was watertight.

On December 7, 1941, the day Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Parcival received a report: "(Japanese fleet) a transport ship and a cruiser are sailing to Songkhla." It is possible to reach Songkhla late at night. Facing the tense situation, the senior officials of the British Allied Forces had a discussion. Some people advocated launching the "Matador" immediately, but Parcival still did not agree. Parcival's habit is to think about difficulties in advance, prevent choking when eating, and prevent falling when walking.He said that even if the "Matador" plan is ordered now, the British coalition forces will have to reach Songkhla after 2:00 am on December 8. At that time, the Japanese army has already arrived in Songkhla ahead of schedule, and it is useless to go there.That is to say, the "launch 24 hours before landing" has failed.According to Parcival, even if the "Matador" troops rushed over, they could only become victims of Japanese tanks, wasting their troops in vain.

Percival, who was broken and broken, simply chose to give up. Yamashita had predicted that before he landed, the British coalition forces would not strike ahead.He was right, and Percival would pay dearly for it.