The Fall of Singapore (February 1942)

 Earlier this year my wife and I spent a few days in Singapore on the beautiful resort island of Sentosa, which is linked to the mainland by a modern day causeway. Nowadays, it is a magnet for tourists attracted by the pristine beaches, the lush vegetation, the up-market hotels and the ultra modern attractions such as Universal Studios and the Singapore Marina. It was a different story in the late 19th  Century and early 20th Century though - when apart from the swamps and abundant vegetation, four substantial sea-facing gun batteries were in operation on the island - Fort Serapong, Fort Siloso, Fort Connaught and the Imbaih Battery. These batteries originally built to deter Russian intruders gained a new importance in the late 1930s and early 1940s as expectations grew that Japan would invade. When they did come - from the landward north rather than the sea, Sentosa was used by the Imperial Japanese Army as a squalid prisoner-of-war camp until the liberation of the territory in 1945.

One of the guns at Fort Siloso, Singapore

Conveniently, a free beach shuttle runs along the full length of Sentosa, linking a string of beach resorts and turning around beneath the landward end of a spectacular walkway which leads tourists into the restored Fort Siloso, a heritage area which is now designated as Singapore's 74th National Monument. So off we went!

There are four colour coded walks around the Fort. The red and yellow routes cover 'Singapore during WWII' and 'the Life of a Soldier'. the other routes cover the wider history and include some truly spectacular viewpoints. In post war history the sea facing batteries on the southern side of Singapore are often dismissed as an irrelevance given that when the Japanese did invade, they came in from Malaysia on the mainland to the north. However, as the Japanese moved towards Tengah Airfield to the north-west of the Singapore city area, the Fort's guns were turned 180 degrees and used to try and slow the advance - but to no avail.

Fort Siloso Guards Room (now a Museum)

There is plenty to see and learn. Some of the Second World War era gun batteries and observation posts have been restored and other structures have been converted into exhibition spaces where the story of the unsuccessful defence of Singapore by British and Commonwealth forces in 1942 is told. In particular, General Percival's surrender of the 80,000 strong Allied defenders is depicted in a reconstruction of the actual ceremony which took place at Fort Canning on mainland Singapore. Described by Winston Churchill as the worst disaster and capitulation in British history, as an aside, it was one of two World War II events that angered my father (the other being the the treatment of Bomber Command veterans post 1945).

Fort Canning Hotel, formerly Far East Command

The entrance to the Battle Box Bunker, Fort Canning Hill

The next day we headed across the Sentosa Island Bridge to mainland Singapore and explore a couple of other sites associated with the Second World War. Our first stop was Fort Canning Hill which was the epicentre of British command and control during the 1942 battle. The British and Commonwealth Far East Command was based in what is now a luxury hotel (see picture above) from 1926-41. The hill on which this impressive building sits was a highly secure military zone and as the tide quickly turned in favour of the Japanese, Percival and his headquarters staff, who had since set up a field command centre in the Sime Road area to the north of the island, moved into a nearby bunker complex on Canning Hill in order to avoid enemy bombing sand artillery fire. It was in the Battle Box bunker that the surrender was signed on the 15th Feb 1941 and afterwards the whole of the Canning Hill complex, including the Battle Box (now a museum), was used by the Japanese until the return of British colonial authority over Singapore in 1945.

Then & Now, Japanese Surrender, 12 September 1945

Several years ago I had the privilege of meeting a WWII veteran, Gordon Smith-Gander who was a resident at a care home where my wife worked. Gordon was a real gentleman and it was a pleasure hearing him talk about his service. He had completed a tour with Bomber Command flying Hampdens over Germany before transferring to Coastal Command where he flew Sunderlands on u-boat hunting missions over the Bay of Biscay. At the end of hostilities in Europe, Gordon volunteered for service in the Far East and was present when the Japanese signed their unconditional surrender in Singapore's Municipal building (now City Hall) on the 15th Febriuary 1945. The contemporary photo above is from Gordon's photo album and the image which accompanies it was captured by me during our recent visit.

Kranji CWGC, Singapore

Having visited the spot where the Allied surrender took place, my wife and I made use of Singapore's excellent transit system to travel up to Kranji where a ferocious battle was fought during the first few days of the Japanese incursion. On the 9th February 1941 two Divisions of the Imperial Japanese Army under General Yamashita undertook an amphibious attack in this area. The Jurong-Kranji defence line was a natural obstacle which was defended by primarily Indian and Australian troops who fought a strong and effective defence before being ordered to abandon the line and retreat. It's an action which is mired in controversy but that's not a topic I'm going to unpick in this post. Suffice to say a lot of brave men and women are now buried with many others in the beautifully maintained Kranji Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery.

The Singapore Memorial, Kranji

Gardeners of Kranji

It was quite a long walk from the bus stop up to the cemetery and we were visiting on a very hot day. Once through the gates my wife and I were delighted to be ushered into an air-conditioned office and offered cold drinks. The custodian was very keen to give me a tour of the cemetery and I grasped the opportunity whilst my wife 'manned the front desk' enjoying a respite from the midday heat. As with every other CWGC site the headstones all have stories to tell, and there were many to be told at Kranji. It's a spectacular site on a hill which is home to over 25,000 fallen service personnel. At the top of the hill stands the striking Singapore Memorial and from the crest one can see the tall buildings of the Malay peninsular on the other side of the Strait of Johor - see the images above. 

My final observation is that the planting at Kranji is spectacular - a fusion of colour and shape which complements the war graves perfectly. It was a pleasure to meet some of the gardeners and to hear from the site custodian about the planning of the gardens and how the planting is designed to meet local conditions and to reflect the culture and homelands of those who are buried nearby. 

My photographs (copyright reserved) of Fort Siloso, Sentosa Island, Singapore - click here

My photographs (copyright reserved) of Kranji Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery - click here

The Pilot Officer Gordon Smith-Gander Collection (copyright reserved) - click here 

The Woodspring Bay Wrecks (1944) - The Sequel

 A couple of years ago I spent a fascinating few hours with three farming friends in the village of Kingston Seymour on the North Somerset coast. We were exploring the history of two Second World War era wrecks which had been deliberately sunk in Woodspring Bay by the so-called 'Wheezers and Dodgers', a group of scientists and Admiralty personnel based at Birnbeck Pier. The pier had been taken over by the Admiralty from 1941 to 1945 and designated as HMS Birnbeck by the Department of Miscellaneous Weapons Developent (DMWD). I wrote about the history of the two ships - S.S. Staghound and S.S. Fernwood, on my blog at the time and made a number of observations about why the Navy might have taken the trouble to re-float these ships and bring them up into the Bristol Channel. The original post can be accessed on this link. 

The Woodspring Bay Wrecks - Curme Collection

As part of the research I'm carrying out for North Somerset Council's Birnbeck Pier restoration project team, I visited the National Archives in Kew last week and was pleased to find that the answers could be found within the meticulously kept DMWD files which sit within the ADM/277 papers deposited by the Admiralty in the 1970s. Amongst the papers one can find a report on what the DMWD scientists referred to as Project No. 86 - 'Wreck Dispersal'.

Birnbeck Pier - HMS Birnbeck (1941-45) - Curme Collection

To understand what Project 86 was all about, a little bit of context is required. In January 1944, an approach was made to the DMWD by planners working on 'Overlord', a large scale amphibious assault aimed at liberating Nazi occupied France (D-Day and the 1944 Normandy Campaign). It had come to their notice that the enemy had prepared a number of blockships filled with concrete in order to obstruct progress when a landing in Europe is attempted. (The idea of using blockships to protect harbours and ports or force ships to take a circuitous route was not new, indeed there are examples going back as far as the Viking era - click here for my post about the blockships of Roskilde, Denmark). What the D-Day planners were getting at, was that in order to supply a large scale army after an amphibious landing, port facilities needed to be made available without delay. So, the blockships in the Cherbourg Harbour needed to be cleared!

Beehive hollow charges - National Archives

The preferred solution that the 'boffins' at HMS Birnbeck came up with, was to break up the concrete using modified hollow charges - effectively bombs designed in such as a way to project the force of an explosion into concrete. At a meeting on the April 7th 1944, a decision was made to use two concrete filled blockships at Weston-super-Mare in order to test whether beehive charges could work as required. Subsequently, the two ships were towed to a coastal area north of the DMWD outpost at St Thomas's Head (now part of the National Trust owned Sandpoint scenic area), partially filled with concrete and weighted to the seabed. Like many other DMWD experiments run out of HMS Birnbeck, the nearby coastline was ideal because of the exceptionally high tidal range. The beehive mines could be ignited whilst the ships were under water and at low tide when the water receded the damage could be easily assessed without the need for diving equipment.

S.S. Staghound at Woodspring Bay - National Archives

S.S. Staghound (2015) - Ross Floyd Collection

The first trials took place between May and June 1944. Both S.S. Staghound and S.S. Fernwood were fitted out as blockships by W.P.S. Cardiff. In order that the ships could be manoeuvred into position the concrete filling was not to exceed their usual carrying capacity. In the case of the former 630 tons of concrete were poured, forming a large block extending from the floor of the hold to the main deck. The mix was one part cement, two parts sand and four of aggregate and the concrte block was 34 ft long, 26ft wide and just under 12ft deep. In conducting the first trial the Staghound's deck plating was removed and 12 'beehives' each containing a 70lb hollow charge and modified for use underwater, were fitted vertically on top of the concrete. The beehives would be fired together from the shore using an electronic detonator. 

Beehives in place on S.S. Staghound - National Archives

The approach taken for the test involving S.S. Fernwood  was deliberately different. The quality of concrete used by the German Kriegsmarine was unknown so it was decided to use a better quality mix for the S.S. Fernwood trial. in this case it was felt that the beehives would blow out cavities in the concrete and 'main charges' would need to be inserted to break up the block. 

So, what happened in the tests? Well, the general effect in the case of Staghound was that the surface of the concrete was irregularly shattered and the structure was deeply cracked in places. The height was reduced in the centre by about eighteen inches and the ships sides were forced out by the force of the explosions. 

The Fernwood explosion - National Archives

The Staghound aftermath - National Archives

Taking learnings from the Staghound trial, modifications were made in blowing up S.S. Fernwood  on the 12th October. Fernwood was not a complete ship in that after it had been sunk by the Luftwaffe in September 1942, the damage was so extensive that the ship was cut in two. It was the mid-section and fore part of the vessel which was towed to Woodspring Bay via Cardiff Docks. Having said this, the fact that the Fernwood was not a complete ship did not effect the efficacy of the trials.

Prior to the trial, in order to make the demolition more effective, vertical cuts were made in the Fernwood's structure and line-charges were attached by magnets across the roots of the ship's frame outside of the hull-plating. The hull was also cut vertically. Two holds were filled with high-grade concrete and the number of Beehives attached was greater than had been the case with Staghound. Thirty were fixed onto the top face of the main concrete block and twenty four on the smaller one.

The Fernwood Trial - National Archives

S.S. Fernwood (2015) - Ross Floyd Collection

At high water with a minimum depth of 12ft of water above the tallest part of the ship, the initiating chargeswere fired. Examination at low water showed that the forward part of the concrete was entirely dispersed, almost to the keel of the vessel. The reinforced portion was found to be reduced in height by from two to six feet. The ship's sides were thrown outwards, but were not laid flat. They were, however, sufficiently weakened to become detached in the tideway.

The trials had been very successful and the 'beehive' method of wreck dispersal worked. In a final report published in 1946 (ADM 277/1), the DMWD reported that the Beehive wreck dispersal technique had proved successful when 'in service' during the Second World War and remained effective in clearing access to ports in the post conflict clean-up.

Note: Where indicated images are sourced from The National Archives (UK), ADM 277. Reproduced under the Open Government License.

For Part One of the Woodspring Bay Wrecks (1944) story click here.

To view the wrecks in Woodspring Bay walk my Clevedon Military History Trail at low tide.

The research that I’m carrying out for North Somerset Council’s Birnbeck Pier restoration project team has been made possible thanks to funding from the council’s social value agreement with its contractor, Mackley. To find out more about the project, click this link.