15 February 1942
Australian defence planning in the 1920s and 1930s was characterised by cycles of funding cuts and boosts. Succeeding governments differed on spending and strategy. At the same time, voters were recovering from the horrors of the First World War.
From the mid-1920s, Australian fears of an expansionist Japan rose. These fears, however, did not lead to consistent defence planning or policy. The planning that did take place hinged on a new Royal Navy (RN) fleet base to be built at Singapore.
From 1920, successive British governments assured their Australian counterparts that, in the event of Japanese southward expansion, a battle fleet could be in Singapore within 6 weeks. this came to be known as the 'Singapore strategy'. Reliance on it proved to be the most significant Australian defence decision of the interwar period.
Australians generally valued their membership of the British Empire. Their historical and cultural ties to Britain made the Singapore strategy seem the best guarantee of Australian defence. Moreover, Australia needed Britain's support to defend its northern approaches. This was especially true after the onset of the Great Depression from 1929.
Japan attacked Malaya and other British and American outposts within 24 hours of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. The Pacific War had begun, and the oft-promised Royal Navy battle fleet had never materialised.
Britain had sent a small naval force at the eleventh hour called 'Force Z'. This consisted of:
- the new battleship HMS Prince of Wales
- the battlecruiser HMS Repulse
- several destroyers including HMAS Vampire.
Japanese aircraft sank both Prince of Wales and Repulse on 10 December off Malaya, the first capital ships to be sunk by aircraft while underway.
On 15 February 1942, water and supplies were running low for the estimated 1million civilians in Singapore. The British-led land forces under Lieutenant General Arthur Percival surrendered to Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita. Some 85,000 British-led troops became prisoners of war, including more than 15,000 Australian soldiers.
HMAS Vampire and Force Z’s other escort destroyers undertook a hurried evacuation of the East Indies. In the weeks that followed, the Imperial Japanese Navy sank HMAS Yarra and other Allied vessels. They also took command of the sea around Singapore and Malaya. The Singapore strategy had failed.
On 16 February 1942, Australia’s Prime Minister John Curtin told the nation that, as the fall of Dunkirk in 1940 had presaged the Battle of Britain, ‘the fall of Singapore opens the Battle for Australia’.
Japanese forces initially celebrated victory after victory. The following 6months represented the greatest threat to Australia in its history. The attack on Pearl Harbor, though, had brought the United States into the war on the side of the British Empire. It was a fact that was ultimately to save Australia.