Chapter 30 There are many sad songs about the battle of malaysia

Smith's British brigade was scraped together from the battlefields of the Near East. The troops set out from the African continent, passed through Mumbai and then arrived in Singapore. They had been traveling in the stuffy cabin for two and a half months, and everyone was exhausted.Smith said that in less than two weeks, everyone couldn't slow down and couldn't even hold a gun, let alone fight. No matter how good the equipment is, it must be used by someone.Smith brought 51 "Hurricanes" by ship, but there were only 24 pilots, and the equipment and painted colors on the planes were mainly suitable for desert operations.

The British brigade came here, but it was just a drop in the bucket. The task of stopping the Japanese army finally fell on the shoulders of Bennett's Australian division.Bennett asked Parcival to give him command of all the troops on the peninsula.But during this period of time, Bennett had clearly offended Parcival, so his request was rejected without any surprise. Among the generals of the British Allied Forces, Bennett was known as a brave general. He was a man who dared to come in water and go in fire. Knowing that he was invincible, he was still determined to fight the Japanese army to the death. On January 16, 1942, he issued a statement: "Our army not only wants to prevent the Japanese army from attacking, but also has the confidence to push them into defensive positions. In short, we must surprise the opponent."

Because the 5th Division, which had been the main attacker, was too tired, Yamashita drove the Guards Division to the front and stormed Bakuli, where the Australian troops were defending. Among the three divisions of the 25th Army, and even among all Japanese divisions, the Guards Division is the most special.The other divisions are conscripted in a certain area. Only the soldiers of the Guards Division are carefully selected from all over the country. Every soldier is of good physique. They are called "Prince's Troop" and "Urban Division".However, the problem is also here. Since the Russo-Japanese War, the Guards Division has not really fought a battle, and the training they usually receive is also a guard of honor.

Compared with the 5th Division and the 18th Division, the elite of the Guards Division is only elite on paper.Yamashita didn't like such an army that "flowers are intestines and snow is skin", in fact, the limbs are lazy and the wind blows.Like most Japanese army generals, he admired the barbaric division who could endure all kinds of hardships and dare to break through all kinds of knives and fires. After the Guards Division entered the Malaysian battlefield, Yamashita let this division compete with the 5th Division and consciously practiced it. The spiritual education of officers in the Japanese navy and army is completely different. The navy regards "cooperation" as the cornerstone of operations, while the army does not emphasize "cooperation" but "competition."The Japanese Army's sense of competition has been deeply rooted in its bones. If two divisions appear on the battlefield at the same time, there will be a phenomenon of scrambling for the first.

In bloody battles, even sheep can become wolves.What's more, the Guards Division is essentially an extremely vicious jackal, even more bloodthirsty than before. The Australian division on the opposite side was also able to fight well, and its level of bravery, in Tsuji Masanobu's words, was unprecedented, and the battle between the two sides was extremely fierce. On January 18, 1942, a tank squadron of the Guards Division entered a minefield.The Avant-garde Battalion of the Australian Division took the opportunity to carry out heavy shelling, and eight of the ten Japanese light tanks were destroyed by shells or mines.

Seeing that the frontal attack attracted the opponent's attention, the Dashi Battalion quietly sneaked into the dense forest from the coast, trying to cut off the retreat of the Australian division from behind.After the Australian division found out, it immediately severely injured and repelled the sneak attacking enemy, and the casualties of the Persimmon Brigade reached more than 60%. At the same time, the "Hurricane" fighters also came to help.Most of the original British fighter planes used high-altitude bombing, which was not a big threat to the Japanese army.But the "Hurricane" fighter pilots were as fearless as the Australian soldiers. They flew low over the rubber forest and kept shooting the road with machine guns, causing the Japanese soldiers to hide in the dense forest in a hurry.

Of course, the Japanese bombers were not vegetarians. At 10:00 am on January 19, an aircraft bomb hit Bennett's headquarters, and Bennett's communication with the front line was interrupted. The divisions of the Australian Division that lost their unified command are still fighting independently.In addition to strengthening the pressure of the frontal attack, the Guards Division continued to copy from the coast, and the retreat of the Australian Division's vanguard battalion was cut off. At this time, there were less than 200 people in the avant-garde battalion, and Captain Meha took the initiative to stand up and take command.While singing Australian songs, they rushed towards the Japanese blockade with bayonets and even axes.

It was originally a journey to death, but relying on extraordinary courage, this remnant soldier successfully broke through the blockade and returned to Singapore in the dark. The Battle of Bakuli was the last fierce battle on Peninsular Malaysia.As the positions defended by the Australian division were breached one after another, the "Hurricane" fighters suffered almost the same fate as the ground troops. They were shot down one by one by Japanese "Zero" fighters. The remaining British coalition forces have lost their spirit of resistance, and almost everyone is choosing to give up. Every time they retreat to a position, the retreating team will expand a circle, and the pace of defeat will accelerate.

The 5th Division and the Guards Division no longer need to fight, as long as there is a competition to see who runs faster.The tanned soldiers completely ignored the "imperial dignity of the imperial army". The helmets ran away, and the military uniforms were too worn out and thrown away. Many people grabbed a shirt on the way and put it on impromptuly. The looted chickens and food are like a group of dirty bandits. But now they are the victors. The well-dressed British soldiers and Australian soldiers are all chased to the sky and to the ground. On January 24, 1942, the ship carrying the second batch of reinforcements arrived in the port of Singapore.There were 2,000 Australian troops on board, but most of these Australian troops were recruits who had never fired a single shot.And when they reached the shore, the British coalition forces on the front line had retreated like a tide.

As trucks full of troops and trains full of civilians clogged the road to Singapore, Bennett wrote melancholy: "Here and now we are in complete retreat." At 2 pm on January 31, 1942, the 5th Division was the first to rush into the city of Johor Bahru (now called Johor Bahru) on the opposite bank of Singapore. The British coalition forces were forced to blow up the bridge connecting Johor and Singapore and the dam of the Strait. As the dust from the explosion settled, cloudy water gushed out of the gap and split Singapore apart.But the engineers made mistakes in their busy schedule, and the amount of explosives was too small. As a result, the depth of the water gap was only a little over one meter. If the tide was low, even the shortest Japanese soldiers would be able to wade through.

Parcival has been concealing the defeat from the citizens of Singapore before, and at this time he can only make a candid statement: "The battle in Malaysia is over, and the battle in Singapore has begun..." The Battle of Singapore had already begun, but Yamashita did not immediately launch a strong attack. In the first few days, the other side of Singapore was even quieter. What is he going to do?