“The worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history.” – Winston Churchill.
Introduction
This article is intended as a reply to Major-General Lindfors et el.’s article on training[1]. But when thinking of training and the changes needed in the Swedish Armed Forces it might be of use to think about training failures of the past and see what lessons might be learnt. With that aim, I have decided to look at the training failure in the Malaya campaign of the Second World War. Training isn’t done in isolation. What and how an army trains is part of a cascade that starts at the political level. And the training failure that the British experienced in Malaya was part of a cascade failure that started at the end of the First World War. In this context, what went wrong is the primary focus of this article so I will only do a quick overview of the Malaya campaign (for a more detailed review, see[2] [3]) before looking at the cascade failure and the effect on training.
The Campaign
Just after midnight on the 8th December 1941 soldiers of the Japanese Imperial Army landed at Kota Bharu in the north of British Malaya after an initial shelling. The invasion met heavy resistance from soldiers of the British Indian Army defending the beaches. Indian artillery fire along the beach and heavy machine gun fire from the Indian soldiers positioned in two pillboxes initially held up the Japanese invasion until a concentrated Japanese attack eliminated the Indian positions. The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) provided air support in the form of Lockheed Hudson bombers. The RAAF was able to sink the transport Awajisan Maru, which was the first Japanese ship to be sunk in the War.
The initial engagement at Kota Bharu resulted in a number of damaged ships, over 300 Japanese dead, and over 500 wounded. The Indian Army lost 68 killed with over 360 wounded. Despite the resistance, the Japanese were able to take the beach and the town by the 9th.
Between the 10th and 13th December, Indian units of the British and Commonwealth forces engaged with units of the Imperial Japanese Army, that had previously landed in Thailand, at Jitra in the northwest of British Malaya. The Japanese units had tanks, which the Indian units did not. However, the Indian units did have anti-tank guns and one tank was destroyed. The battle of Jitra ended with the defeat of the defending Indian units.
The British and Commonwealth forces were now forced into a retreat down the Malayan peninsula. The Japanese were able to advance at a rapid pace due to the use of bicycles and multiple amphibious assaults along the coast. The Japanese were able to gain air superiority and the situation at sea was also going badly for the British after the defeat of the Royal Navy’s Force Z.
The British and Commonwealth forces were further defeated at Kampar between the 30th December 1941 and the 2nd January 1942. Later, they were defeated again at Slim River, when the Japanese attacked at night, between the 5th and 7th of January. The Japanese captured Kuala Lumpur by the 11th January. Australian units were able to inflict some heavy losses on the Japanese at Muar between the 14th and 22nd January, but the British and Commonwealth forces were still forced into a retreat to Singapore by the end of January. Singapore, itself, fell to the Japanese by the 15th February 1941. Over 80,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers were captured by the Japanese.
So, what went wrong for the British?
The War to End all Wars
Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival was the commander of the British and Commonwealth forces in Malaya during the campaign. Therefore, he was responsible for the failure. However, it could be argued that there was very little he could have done to stop the inevitable. The fate of the British and Commonwealth forces had been signed and sealed long before Percival arrived in Malaya. He just happened to be the general on the spot when the fate of the British and Commonwealth forces was delivered.
Faults don’t usually occur in isolation, there’s usually a chain of faults, leading from one to another. Starting with an ultimate cause and then through a number of proximal causes. For the British defeat during the Malaya campaign, the roots of the disaster go back to the First World War. Not so much the war itself but more the attitude after the war. The First World War was the “Great War”, the “war to end all wars” and despite engaging in wars after the First World War, Britain did make an active effort to ensure that there would never be a war like the First World War again. In the UK, women achieved equal voting rights with men in 1928 and there was a strong peace movement among women in the UK, which meant that the politicians had an extra motive for doing what they could to prevent another major war.
Frenemies
“War is merely the continuation of politics by other means” – Carl von Clausewitz, On War.
War might be an extension of politics but it doesn’t mean that the military and the politicians walk hand in hand.
In 1919 there was introduced the 10 year rule. This was a guideline that limited the development of the UK armed forces. The idea being that there would be no significant war in the next 10 years, so the armed forces were dimensioned for policing the empire and territorial defence. This led to large cutbacks in the armed forces. This rule was introduced by Winston Churchill, who in 1928, ensured that it became a permanent rule (despite opposition). The cut backs were so severe that in 1931 the First Sea Lord, Admiral Field, stated that the 10 year rule had “rendered the fleet incapable, in the event of war, of efficiently affording protection to our trade”. Although the rule was eventually abandoned in 1932, this did not lead to an increase in defence spending.
The Washington Naval Treaty was another limiting factor placed on the UK armed forces. The Washington Naval Treaty was signed in 1922 and limited the tonnage of warships. This effectively limited the Royal Navy to 15 capital ships (battleships and battlecruisers) and about six aircraft carriers. Two more treaties followed in 1930 and 1936. The aim of the treaties was to limit an arms race but the also served to support the UK commitment to no more major wars.
Meanwhile, the Royal Navy was developing the Singapore Strategy from 1919. The Singapore Strategy was a set of plans for defending the empire in the Far East. It centred around building a major naval base in Singapore and saw the Japanese Imperial Navy as the main threat to the area. The plan required 16 capital ships and four aircraft carriers as well as other ships. Which meant that the 10 year rule and the various naval treaties at the political level effectively scuttled the defence of the Far East long before the Japanese invaded. Other factors, such as prioritising the war in Europe in 1940, meant that in the end, the Royal Navy was only able to send two capital ships and no aircraft carriers (one was sent but failed to arrive) to the defence of the Far East.
Train as you Fight
“You fight as you train” – General George S. Patton.
But how do you fight? Predicting the future is always best done with hindsight. Yet, despite the evidence to the contrary, we still think we can predict the future. Thus, it is common to allocate a military unit to a task and then train for that task. Then we act all surprised when we find we have to send that unit to do another task. Military history is full of such examples. The Swedish Cold War era invasion defence is one example. All ready and trained for a Soviet invasion that never came. Another example is the British Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) fleet of the late 1960s and into the 1980s. The fleet was allocated the task of defending British interests in the North Sea against Soviet submarines where air cover was provided by the Royal Air Force (RAF). But the ASW fleet ended up fighting a war in the South Atlantic against the Argentinians where aircraft were the major threat. For more examples see[4] [5].
The Malaya Campaign provides another example of this type of error. First, the knock on effects of the 10 year rule and allocating the task of policing the empire and territorial defence to the armed forces as well as the commitment to not engaging in another major war meant that the British soldiers stationed in Malaya did not train for the conflict they would eventually find themselves in (there was an exception to this). Despite Malaya being covered in jungle, the army, in general, didn’t train in the jungle. And when it came to 14:00, the officers would take a siesta and training came to a halt as it was felt it was too hot in the afternoon to train.
The training was sufficient for the task the armed forces had been allocated. But there was still a problem with training, especially with many of the officers, as Percival pointed out[6]:
“Many of those in responsible positions of command, although they had fought with distinction in the First World War, had had little or no practical training for many years prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. This was to prove a serious handicap. It is not sufficient that a commander should be merely brave himself, though that is naturally an important attribute. He should also be fully versed in the conduct of modern war and, as far as possible, be practised in the art of command under conditions approximating as nearly as possible to those of actual war.”
The running down of the armed forces as a result of the 10 year rule meant that there was insufficient troops when the war broke out and there was a rapid need to expand the armed forces. That included the Indian army which meant that many of the new Indian soldiers did not have adequate training before they were sent to fight. When talking about the Indian soldiers, Percival said[7]:
“During the campaign which followed some units showed themselves fully qualified to take their place with other fighting troops in the general scheme of defence; others found their lack of training and of war experience a great handicap in operations which were a severe test for even the most highly skilled troops.”
The rapid expansion and poor training led to other problems as Percival noted[8]:
“All of this considerable expansion called for a corresponding expansion of Command Headquarters, but this was difficult to meet. Apart from establishment restrictions, there was a pronounced shortage of staff officers and clerks with the necessary training and experience, to fill vacancies in an establishment which had grown in a comparatively short time from the peace-time headquarters of an overseas base to the headquarters of a field army and the military staff of a country on the eve of war.”
The Australian units that served in Malaya had been raised for the War and the soldiers serving with those units did receive some training but there were still training problems here. The Australian units had been trained to fight in the desert. They were then diverted to the jungles of Malaya, many didn’t know anything about the change in destination until they arrived in Malaya. Percival also felt that the commander of the Australian forces had not received sufficient training to be up-to-date[9].
“Among the senior officers who had, so to speak, been out of harness for some years was the commander of the A.I.F., Maj.- Gen. H. Gordon Bennett.”
One interesting failure of the British and Commonwealth forces in Malaya was the failure to build adequate defences. Efforts were made to build defences but they were not always up to the level needed. This was partly due to finances and partly due to weather conditions but it was also felt such activities would negatively effect morale. Kota Bharu was one of the few exceptions. Construction of the defences was also done by the soldiers themselves. This failure also extended to training, where it was felt that practising the withdraw would negatively effect morale. Thus, what training was done focused on winning scenarios and what building of defences was done interfered with training.
The Imperial Japanese Army, in contrast, was not only well trained they also had a number of years of experience and a well developed jungle warfare doctrine. As Percival stated[10]:
“There is no doubt that the Japanese army and air force had both greatly increased in efficiency since the start of their war with China, partly as a result of their close liaison with the Germans and partly because they were able to use China as a training-ground for their troops and to try out their new weapons and new methods of warfare.”
There was an exception to the general poor training that the British and Commonwealth forces received. Lieutenant-Colonel Ian MacAlister Stewart commanded the 2nd Battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, 12th Indian Brigade. He earned a reputation for being a “crank” as he went against the grain and general consensus of the other officers in Malaya. He took his men out into the jungle and trained them in jungle warfare and developed new tactics. As a result his unit was one of the most effective units in Malaya and, in the tradition of no good deed goes unpunished, was given the difficult task of acting as a buffer as the British and Commonwealth forces withdrew down the peninsula.
Percival summarised the state of training as[11]:
“The standard of training among the various units in Malaya at this time varied greatly. There were some, especially those which had been in the country longest, which were well trained. The best trained units were undoubtedly those whose commanders were ready at any time to go and spend a few days in the jungle. Other units, chiefly the more recent arrivals, were much less well trained. Practically all the Indian Army units had suffered severely from the rapid expansion of that army which had only been commenced a year after the outbreak of war with Germany. Officers and non-commissioned officers had been withdrawn to meet the needs of this expansion until the lack of leaders, and even of potential leaders, reached a dangerously low level. Few units had more than two or three British officers with experience of handling Indian troops and of the junior British officers only a few had had Indian experience. The majority of the troops were young and inexperienced. Both British and Australian units suffered from the lack of leaders with experience of modern war.”
We Are All On The Same Side
Cooperation between military units is vital for success on the battlefield. Yet, cooperation was something the British and Commonwealth forces failed at. For a start, the RAF Far East needed new bases. These bases were positioned close to the sea as the planes they used were to attack the Japanese at sea, before they could land. These new air bases needed to be defended on land and that was the army’s job. However, there was no coordination between the RAF and the army to the extend that the army didn’t even know of the bases until they were virtually built. As Percival pointed out[12]:
“The role of the forces in Kedah, apart from the possible implementation of matador, was to protect the aerodrome at Alor Star and the group of aerodromes in South Kedah and Province Wellesley. The former, unfortunately, like the aerodrome at Kota Bharu in Kelantan, had been converted from a civil aerodrome and had thus been sited without any consideration whatever being given to its defence.”
Even during the campaign, there was poor cooperation. Air bases were abandoned without informing the army, which had been left to defend them. The abandoned air bases ended up being taken by the Japanese and were found to still be fully stocked, greatly aiding the Japanese supply lines.
Training for combined operations was done and a combined operations headquarters was built. But even here there were problems due to the system not being fully tested, as Percival noted[13]:
“The conditions in the Combined Operations Room were not conducive to good work or clear thinking. They were too cramped and there was too much noise.”
Discussion
Politics
Si vis pacem, para bellum
It could be argued that the UK had a strong commitment to the idea that the First World War would be the last major war. This commitment can be seen in Neville Chamberlain’s attempts to appease Hitler and his “peace for our time” statement. However, this commitment led to a decline in Britain’s military capabilities as if “peace” is something separate from the military. However, I would argue that this divorce of the state of peace from the defence increases the probability of war. If Britain had maintained an effective defence, would have Japan invaded Malaya? Possibly, but it would have been far less likely. One country tends to invade another if their leaders see victory. Russia, for example, invaded Ukraine with a view that victory would have been achieved in a matter of a few days. If the Russian leadership had foreseen a war dragging on for years, they most likely would not have invaded.
The British had the idea of dimensioning the armed forces for policing the empire and territorial defence for the next 10 years. But the geopolitical situation changed and they were left with having to rapidly rebuild their defences. Geopolitical situations can change far more rapidly than the armed forces can rebuild, hence Sun Tzu:
“The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy’s not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable.” – Sun Tzu, the Art of War.
Percival gives an example of what happens when you have to rapidly rebuild defences[14]:
“The 45th Brigade, commanded by Brigadier Duncan, was part of the 17th Indian Division. All the units of this brigade group had, with the exception of one battalion, been raised during the preceding few months, for the expansion of the Indian Army had not started until a year after the beginning of the war with Germany. The troops were very young, unseasoned and under-trained, and straight off the ship after their first experience of the sea. Such training as the brigade had done had been for warfare in the open spaces of the Middle East, which had been its intended destination until war with Japan broke out. Only a short time before it left for Malaya its divisional commander had expressed his opinion that it was unfit for service overseas. It was typical of many formations and units which came to Malaya. In making these statements I have no wish to blame anybody for sending these troops to Malaya. After all, it was better than having none at all. But it does serve to illustrate the difficulty of expanding rapidly enough for the needs of a major war when our armed forces have been allowed to sink to such a low level as they were before this last war.”
Swedish defence policy over the years makes much the same mistakes. Like the UK, Sweden also cut back on their defences after the First World War and was left to rapidly rebuild its defences as the Second World War loomed. Fortunately for Sweden, Sweden was able to avoid the Second World War. However, Sweden then goes on to repeat the same mistake after the end of the Cold War when it cut back it’s defences as there would be no war in the foreseeable future. Sweden also had it’s own version of the 10 years rule. In Sweden’s case it was assumed that Sweden could take a “strategic timeout” and would have 10 years to rebuild the defences. However, from what I see from my corner of the Universe, there didn’t appear to be any plan for how that would happen. Arguably, the 10 years for Sweden started in 2008, when Russia invaded Georgia, but Sweden failed to act.
The Swedish Armed Forces (SAF) are not perfect but, then, what organisation is? However, I would argue the biggest problem with Swedish defence lies at the political level. Like the British, decisions at the political level leads to a cascade of failures down to other levels. As political decisions regarding dimensioning of the armed forces and limiting the number of ships crippled the military and led to failures in training, among others, for the British, one could argue that we have seen something similar in Sweden[15].
Defence policy in the inter-war years in the UK could be argued to be one dimensional. That is, the political dimension overshadowed other dimensions of the defence policy. I would argue that Sweden has a similar problem. Even if there is some expert input to the political process, defence policy, from my corner of the Universe, looks like it is dominantly in the political dimension at the expense of other dimensions and has errors as a result. I will take “Totalförsvaret 2025–2030” as an example and just look at the goal for the defence, which is given as :
“Regeringen föreslår samma övergripande mål för totalförsvaret som Försvarsberedningen, dvs. att ha förmåga att försvara Sverige och vår befolkning mot väpnat angrepp, hävda vårt lands självständighet, suveränitet och territoriella integritet samt medverka till försvaret av allierade. Verksamhet inom totalförsvaret ska kunna bedrivas enskilt och tillsammans med andra, inom och utom landet och i enlighet med Sveriges åtaganden som medlem i Nato.”
I would argue that the Swedish defence starts with the wrong goal. To defend the Swedish people from armed attack isn’t what SAF should be aiming to do. If that is really the goal, then SAF is a failure of an organisation as it has not achieved that goal since 1809. But having such a goal lays a problematic foundation for SAF. If there is no immediate threat of attack, then what does SAF do? Does it need to train for war? Can we not cut back SAF? Isn’t that what happened after the First World War and the end of the Cold War? Does that then set the start of a cascade failure in a similar way to what happened to the British that ended with defeat in Malaya?
I would argue that the goals of SAF should be :
- Maintain a state of peace.
- If 1 fails, to bring about a state of politically acceptable peace.
SAF achieves the first goal by maintaining a credible defence. And, if that fails, the second goal is achieved through armed conflict. With the above goal, Sweden would then need to maintain a well trained and up-to-date armed forces and would avoid the cycle of cut backs and rapid rebuilding.
Treasure the Crazy Ones
They might just be right! Lieutenant-Colonel Stewart was considered to be a crank because he went against the consensus but the events in Malaya could be argued to have proven him right. It was realised that his approach was the right one and he was evacuated out of Singapore before the island fell. He then went on to train soldiers in India. What made Stewart right was that he was focused on what the armed forces are there to do; fight wars. Regardless of what a units task is, be it home defence, territorial defence, or a front line unit, fighting in a war is every units first task. Any other task is secondary to that. Yet, we often allocate a task to a unit and forget the primary task.
It is understandable how Stewart was seen as a crank. We tend to like to go with the group. Even more so in Sweden as Sweden has an extreme consensus seeking culture where dissent is relegated to silent whispers in the darkness. But just following the crowd can lead to group think and other forms of stupidity. But dissent for the sake of dissent is also problematic as it wastes time and resources correcting it.
Training and Exercising
“The sense of personal effectiveness and self confidence created by realistic training is as much a stress reducer as when the muscles go on autopilot” – Dave Grossman, On Combat.
Every unit has war fighting as its first task but is still has to be able to operate at any point along the continuum of violence. To my mind, training is about teaching what needs to be done and exercises is about testing what we have learnt. The British did not train to operate along the continuum of violence. The main training they did just focused on one part of the continuum.
Exercises did not test the system. To know how well trained a unit is they would have needed more than sunny day scenarios where they always win. In engineering we have black box testing, white box testing, stress testing, and smoke testing.
Black box testing is to see what outputs you get given a set of inputs. You can test the ideal inputs and check you get the right behaviour but you can also give inputs that challenge the system or are unexpected and see if errors are handled correctly.
You can do much the same for white box testing but for white box testing you are looking at what is going on inside the system.
Stress testing tries to push the system to its limits and smoke testing pushes the system beyond its limits. These tests help to understand what the unit is capable of and how it will recover from error. But the British only trained to handle desired inputs and didn’t stress test nor smoke test their units.
Reality is a Harsh Mistress
“If you spend years and years dialling 4-1-1 and never dialling 9-1-1, then under stress you are likely to dial 4-1-1” – Dave Grossman.
Testing and training needs to be as realistic as possible and there needs to be an opportunity to experiment and develop alternative solutions. This is basically what Stewart was doing. In doing so, he was able to develop effective tactics that worked in the jungle. But it is clearly an error to think training should be done for one assigned mission only. Units need to be tested and trained in multiple environments (think about what missions NATO has been deployed on and where). And every unit needs to train for multiple points along the continuum of violence. All units, from home guard to territorial to front line as any one of those units could end up doing a mission that it wasn’t allocated originally to do. All this needs to be done in peace time, long before the war starts, and in cooperation with each other, as Percival says[16]:
“A great many of the causes which contributed to our defeat in Malaya had a common origin, namely the lack of readiness of the British Commonwealth for war. Our shortage in fighting ships and in modern aircraft, our lack of tanks, the inexperience of many of our leaders and the lack of training of most of our troops can all be attributed to a failure to prepare for war at the proper time.”
or as Sun Tzu would say:
“Every battle is won before it is ever fought.” – Sun Tzu, Art of War.
Summary
A cascade of failures starting from the political level led to the defeat of the British in Malaya. Errors at the political level led to cut backs in the British armed forces and led to the armed forces taking on a peace time roll of policing the empire and territorial defence. This led to a situation where the armed forces had to rapidly expand at the start of the Second World War which in turn led to cooperation problems and a shortage of equipment. Further, this then led to training problems. Troops were poorly trained or well trained in the wrong techniques. This resulted in the British and Commonwealth forces in Malaya being ill prepared for the War.
Conclusion
Training isn’t done in isolation. What we do in training is a result of a cascade that starts at the political level.
To address the mistakes made at the political level, I would argue, a multidimensional approach is needed. For example, having defence policy decided by a defence committee composed of politicians, military personnel, experts in defence technology, and researchers with an expertise in what is currently being researched and developed.
It is an error to build a defence policy around the current geopolitical situation. An effective defence is the foundation for peace and needs a multidimensional approach.
All military units are front line units regardless if they are home guard, territorial units, or regular army units and we need to train all units as such. We need to build an army with the expectation that any unit can be sent to the front.
Dissent should be welcome even if it is irritating but dissent needs to be focused on the primary task.
Cooperation between different parts of the defence is vital and needs to be part of training.