Oh God, I wish I'd never begun . . .

I'm really depressed and it's all my own fault!  I have decided to design another of my military history PowerPoint talks.  It is some time since I created the last one and I have forgotten most of the ins and outs of PowerPoint - but that's not the reason for my depression.  Before I can begin to lay down the outlines of the talk I have to re-read the history, and when I tell you that the title is How the Japanese Lost WWII in the First Six Months some of you will guess from whence my misery springs.

My first source is Ronald H. Spector's book Eagle Against the Sun.  For those Brits, and there are many of them, already wired for maximum, lip-curling disdain for American stupidity, Spector provides plenty of it.  Indeed, it is precisely his ice-cold gaze at the follies of his own country's military and political leadership prior to Pearl Harbour which makes me trust him as a historian.  However, no sooner has he finished with the self-flagellation than he turns his whips onto the Japanese leadership and its very own, not very inscrutable, blind ambition, arrogance and stupidity worthy of comparison to pre-1914 Prussia-Germany.

Happily, in the early chapters at least, we Brits, not being the main subject of the book, are allowed to escape.  But then I had to turn to Christopher Thorne's  book Allies of a Kind which takes a much wider but also deeper look at the whole period leading up to the war with Japan, at which point, British idiocy of the very worst kind is all too toe-curlingly apparent.  Perhaps summed up by Churchill's romantic but delusional decision to send HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse out to Singapore to stem the probable Japanese attack.  Suffice to say, that on one grim day whilst serving myself in Singapore, I flew over the hulks lying on the sea-bed but plainly visible from the air.  I think they come under the heading of a 'gallant but futile gesture', the sort of thing we Brits do so awfully well!

I will almost certainly return to this subject because apart from its inherent historical interest, it also produces contemporary vibrations in a world with an apparently weakened America and a rising power in the east - this time China.  Here are three quotations chosen by Thorne to open his book:

PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT:  I do not want to be unkind or rude to the British, but in 1841, when you aquired Hong Kong, you did not aquire it by purchase.

OLIVER STANLEY (Colonial Sec.):  Let me see, Mr. President, that was about the time of the Mexican War, wasn't it?

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WINSTON CHURCHILL:  Why be apologetic about Anglo-Saxon superiority [to other races].   We are superior.

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Each of our friends has his defects so markedly that to continue to love him we are obliged to seek consolation for those defects - in the thought of his talent, his goodness, his affection for ourself - or rather to leave them out of account, and for that we need to display all out goodwill.  Unfortunately our obliging honesty in refusing to see the defect in our friend is surpassed by the obstinacy with which he persists in that defect ...

Marcel Proust: A la recherche du Temps Perdu

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I had no idea that Proust was such a witty fellow, he almost cheered me up!

 

Comments

[Whyaxye]

The only reason we lost Singapore is that Churchill, the old humanitarian, would not allow us to use PowerPoint against the Japanese.

Please go easy on your audience.

[David Duff]

Take no prisoners! that's my motto!

[Hank]

David

Perhaps a question you should ask is what did the Japanese need to accomplish to win?

Possible reading.
Guardians of Empire: The U.S. Army and the Pacific, 1902-1940
Brian McAllister Linn
http://www.amazon.com/Guardians-Empire-U-S-Pacific-1902-1940/dp/0807848158/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1322347156&sr=1-4

A history of the US Army up to WWII in the Pacific. The balanced discussions of the strategic problems would be very helpful.

http://eclecticmeanderings.blogspot.com/
Hank’s Eclectic Meanderings

[dearieme]

It's a notable feature of the American attitude to empire that they object violently to empires assembled by ship - e.g. British, French, Spanish - but not by horse - e.g. Russian. Why might that be?

[David Duff]

The Americans, DM, took exception to any and every empire - except their own! And they weren't averse to using ships to grab a few Pacific islands including the Philippines. Unfortunately, just like Whitehall, they then failed to produce the money to build the ships to protect their gains which left the Philippines hanging like a nice, ripe, juicy fruit ready for Japanese plucking! Likewise, Singapore, of course. Which all goes to prove that we and the Yanks have much in common, not least our 'stoopidity'!

[Umbongo]

One of the favourite books of my youth - The Naked Island by Russell Braddon - informed a young Umbongo that (part of) the reason for the Fall of Singapore (apart from execrable generalship) was that the massive guns constructed to defend Singapore all pointed South to the sea rather than North from where the Japanese appeared. Worse, apparently Singapore's fresh water supplies had to be imported from the mainland.

In response to DM: weren't the sea-based empires all represented in the Western hemisphere while the Russian Empire was expelled from there by the purchase of Alaska. Actually, the American dislike of the British Empire was a bit one-eyed since the Monroe Doctrine could only have been applied with the tacit support of Britain and the Royal Navy.

[David Duff]

Quite right, Bongers, the 'Brass' thought it inconceivable that anyone could manouvre an army through the Malayan jungle and rubber tree plantations, so they ignored the land approach from the north and concentrated on spending £60m (a huge amount in those pre-war days) on making Singapore impregnable from the sea. As Calvocoressi & Wint put it in their superb one-volume history, Total War, it was the British equivalent of the French Maginot line!