AAustralians should not get too upset or defensive about the report (released last week 50 years after the event) by the Allied Commander-in-Chief for the South-West Pacific, General Sir Archibald Wavell, on the behaviour of Australian troops in the lead up to the fall of Singapore. The autobiographies, memos and reports of politicians and military “”leaders” are full of self-justifications and scapegoats. Indeed, the episode teaches us more about leadership (from the both the Australian and British perspective) than about a national traits of valour or cowardice. Would Montgomery have said similar things about the Australian Rats of Trobruk, whether true or false? Of course not. Montgomery was a leader. Let’s also bear in mind that Wavell was üAllied@ Commander-in-Chief. If he accuses Australian troops of cowardice, insubordination, rape and drunkenness, then it is an admission that troops under his command misbehaved. What does that say for his leadership? More likely, however, he was seeking a scapegoat for the Singapore fiasco. In doing that, it may have been as a result of having been put in an impossible position in the first place.
Clearly, the British High Command underestimated the likelihood of Japan entering the war and its strength once it had. Those on the receiving end in Singapore could hardly report back to their political and military bosses in London that those bosses were to blame. How much easier to blame those below, especially those of another nation, even if an ally, especially if that nation has a larrikin image anyway. Once again, it tells us more about Wavell’s lack of leadership than any national characteristics. The leadership failure was not solely within the British forces. The commander of the Australian troops in Singapore, Major-General Gordon Bennett does not come out unscathed. Questions will always remain about why he did not stay with his troops. Other commanders have been shot for less.
You wouldn’t see Montgomery or Monash behaving like Wavell or Bennett. Once again, a leadership question, not a question of nationality.
It is thus dishonourable to throw blame down the line when so many ordinary soldiers from both nations suffered so horribly. Upon the fall of Singapore 38,000 Britons and 15,000 Australians were taken prisoner. Before the fall soldiers of both nations fought bravely against the odds, and no doubt a minority of soldiers behaved badly. To lay the blame for the fall on Australian soldiers was clearly misguided. Australians (all volunteers) made up 13 per cent of the garrison, but suffered 20 per cent of casualties. This hardly supports the view that Australians refused to fight or fled to the evacuation ships.
No doubt some Australians behaved badly. Two thousand untrained Australian troops (who had expected to go to the Middle East for training before engaging the enemy) arrived in Singapore on January 24, three weeks before the fall. No doubt some of these did not behave as well as fully trained troops, British or Australian.
War’s ghastly toll need not be made worse by recriminations 50 years after the event, nor should the probably self-serving or ill-founded observations of one dead British general be allowed to sour the solid, mature and affectionate ties Australia and Australians have with Britain and the British people.
That relationship will not doubt be under greater scrutiny as the republican issue gets more discussion. No doubt, the Prime Minister, Paul Keating, who quite reasonably defended the Australian soldiers, will use the raking over of the Singapore coals to further the Republican case. If so he should not use Wavell’s report in that pursuit. Wavell’s report should be seen for what it is: one man’s report. The debate over republicanism and British-Australian relations deserves a wider foundation. All that the Singapore fiasco demonstrates is that world-wide colonial empires ultimately sow the seeds of their own destruction. As events during and since World War II demonstrate, Australia has its own interests, often different from Britain, to pursue.
The defence and fall Singapore (in a wider context than Wavell’s allegations) illustrated that in the 1940s. It has been illustrated in the 1990s by the Queen going to Europe and speaking the words put into her mouth by the British Government, often putting views contrary to Australia’s interests.
To some extent the Wavell revelations play into Mr Keating’s hands. Because of the Wavell revelations, insulted Diggers (normally Queen-and-country men) will be less likely to feel animosity to him as he attempts to rekindle republican sentiment to obtain votes among younger Australians who otherwise might regard his Government’s economic failings as the main issue. It would be a shame if this happened. It would unnecessarily keep the unsubstantiated Wavell allegations alive and be the wrong base for an otherwise meritorious debate.