The two men would have a very tempestuous relationship in the years ahead, but it was one where something would arise from their interaction to define a new truth. Like yin and yang, they would both oppose and define one another at the same time, and something sublime would result.
“Well General,” said Churchill, “We have a rather delicate situation here. Wavell wants Montgomery back for his big operation in North Africa, but the man has only barely warmed the chair in the Pacific. ”
A veteran of the First War, Brooke specialized in the hammering work of the heavy guns in that nightmare, developing a tactic that came to be known as “the creeping barrage.” His thunder was heard at the Somme, and at Vimy Ridge, and after that war he moved on to the Imperial Defense College. There he met many of the men who were now running the war, including General Montgomery, who had 3rd Division in Brooke’s II Corps in France. Both men saw eye to eye. In fact, it had been Brooke who quietly put forward Montgomery’s name when the decision was made to relieve Percival.
“I recommended him wholeheartedly,” said Brooke, “but it will seem a bit of a snub to Percival to have Monty say ‘there, I’ve gone and fixed your little mess, and now I’m off to my desert again.’ The problem is, Monty is just enough of an old goat to say something along those lines. He can be somewhat blunt at times.”
“That is the least of it,” said Churchill, handing Brooke Wavell’s latest communication. “After all this shuffle and bother, Wavell wants to pull out of Singapore! He’s of a mind that, in spite of every effort made to hold it, the place is now indefensible with the Japanese landing on Sumatra. Outrageous!”
Brooke studied the letter for some time, with Churchill pacing about the close confines of the War Cabinet Map Room beneath the Treasury building near Whitehall. Here was a perfect case of the danger in knowing too much. Churchill had learned the truth from Fedorov as to the actual force disparity between the Japanese troops and those under Percival. He had then dispatched his close advisor Brendon Bracken to try and convince Percival to stand fast, but he remained a weak stone in the wall there. Montgomery had been the solution, but now, in spite of that intervention, events were already conspiring to undermine that whole effort. It seemed Singapore was a rock destined to sink, and the question now was what would it take down with it when it fell?
“I know on the face of things that your reaction would seem fully justified,” Brooke said at last. “Quite frankly, I must tell you I personally never believed there was much hope of saving Singapore. Montgomery did a bang up job, stopped the Japanese right in their tracks, but now that island is no more than a solid rock in the stream.”
“Exactly,” said Churchill. “The Rock of the East. Do you realize the political and moral capital we’ve put in the treasury as a result of this one small victory? Here we finally find a General who can win in a good fight, and now Wavell loses his nerve and wants to simply give it all back to the enemy! And for what? Java? We couldn’t hold Gibraltar, and losing it we virtually lost the Mediterranean, at least in the public’s eye, even if Admiral Cunningham still holds sway in the east. To lose Singapore will mean we’ve lost the Pacific, and with the war there only months old.”
“It may mean that to the man on the street,” said Brooke, “but to those of us lurking in the War Cabinet, we must take a wider and longer view.” Brooke quietly laid Wavell’s letter on the table. “Yes, I certainly never expected to see things fall apart as they have,” he said. “I was of a mind to send the British 18th Division to Rangoon instead of Singapore, but Monty made good use of it, and was bull headed enough to stop the Japanese. Yet now they have gone right around him with these landings in Sumatra. They’ve gone after the airfields he was counting on for air cover over the island. Without them, we’ll be forced back to Batavia, and with the Japanese already on Borneo, Singapore will be sitting there like a pearl in a Japanese clam. It will be completely isolated. Mister Prime Minister, the fact of the matter is this…. For the moment we hold that island on the strength of our ground troops there, and the man who led that defense. Yet to hold it further, we will need control of the air and sea around it.”
“You will recall my proposal to secure a lodgment in northern Sumatra?” Churchill wagged a finger.
“Yes, I do recall it, but there was simply no suitable port. Banda Aceh was the only prospect that could be supported from Colombo. Pedang on the west coast was just too small.”
“Yet we might have made a good fight there on Sumatra.”
“With what sir? The Australians have just recalled their entire first Corps from North Africa, and they certainly would not hear anything about sending them to Sumatra. Would you have us divert the 70th Division from Burma to Sumatra? That would be madness. It was all we could do to get the 18th Division to Singapore, but I think all we have done is throw good money after bad. Percival lost his battle before we gave Montgomery a chance to win it for him. He lost it on the Malayan Peninsula. The fate of Singapore always rested on the assumption that we could hold Malaya for at least six months. His Operation Matador decided everything when it squandered all his strength in piecemeal defensive battles followed by chaotic retreat. By the time those troops got to Singapore, they were beaten three times and ready for another good licking. It was a miracle that Monty pulled things together, but remember, he did that with fresh British troops, including the New Zealand Brigade Wavell sent him.”
“But do you seriously propose we should now simply abandon the city? It would give the Japanese the greatest harbor in the Pacific!”
Brooke smiled. “They don’t need it. All they wanted there was a moral victory.”
“And we denied them that, while savoring the very same dish ourselves. Singapore was about the moral fiber of this Empire, of the fighting British soldier, and of the word we gave to our friends and allies that we would hold it safe and secure.”
“All well and good,” said Brooke, “but to the Japanese, taking Singapore was a defensive move to shore up their right flank as they push south. They won’t be using it to carry out further offensives, as the only prize west of Singapore is Burma, and they already have troops there. That’s also a defensive move, and one we should strongly oppose.”
“Agreed,” said Churchill. “If they push us out, they’ll be knocking on the door to India.”
“Possibly,” said Brooke. “I rather think they will have other designs in the near run. They’ll take Sumatra. The Dutch can’t hold out for long there, and we simply can’t get sufficient reinforcements there to stop them, but we might do better on Java. That’s where they will turn next. If they take Java, and the islands leading east, then things point in a very dangerous direction—Australia. That’s why the Aussies are pulling their troops out of the Middle East. They’ll need them at home, and on New Guinea. We’ve also received disturbing intelligence that the Japanese are looking over the Bismarck Sea. That would be a prelude to a move into the Solomons, and once they have control of those islands, Australia would be completely cut off. They already have the New Hebrides. When the Yanks ever do muster up to get into the war, they’ll have to operate from Fiji and Samoa. Now then… we might wail over the loss of Singapore if we take Wavell’s advice, but consider the loss of Australia. It isn’t Java we may be trading now for Singapore, it’s Australia.”
That remark so darkened the air in the room that Churchill remained silent, sitting with the grim prospects of their situation for some time. “I see it as plainly as you do,” he said sullenly. “Wavell’s arguments certainly sting. We can’t control the Malacca Strait because the Japanese are sitting on all our airfields in Malaya. The front door is closed, and the only other way in is through the back door in the Sunda Strait between Sumatra and Java.”