Singapore: the chain of disaster
Kirby, S. Woodburn (Stanley Woodburn)1971
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The book is an authoritative account by the British Official Historian on the loss of Singapore, in the war against Japan. In this incisive, forthright book, General Woodburn Kirby argues that the blame for this defeat, the greatest national humiliation ever suffered by Britain, must be placed squarely on the shoulders of successive British Governments, whose decisions from as early as 1919 built up the chain which led inevitably to disaster. Kirby allows that two major errors were made in the military conduct of the British campaign, but claims that at that stage nothing could have been done to save the gallant but ill-trained and ill-equipped garrison. The airforce was obsolescent and at barely half the strength agreed upon by the Chiefs of Staff; the mainland of Malaya was virtually without protection; the so-called fortress of Singapore had no defences on the landward side - in short, the naval base was lost even before the foundation stone of the great dry dock which was to make Singapore the keystone of British interests in the Far East was laid in 1928. -- SAF Professional Reading Programme, 3rd edition, Dec 2003.
Main title:
Singapore: the chain of disaster / [by] S. Woodburn Kirby. With a foreword by Earl Mountbatten of Burma.
Edition:
[1st American ed.]
Imprint:
New York, Macmillan [1971]
Collation:
xiv, 270 p. maps. 22 cm.
Notes:
Bibliography: p. 259.
Dewey class:
940.5425
LC class:
D767.5D767.5 KIR
Language:
English
BRN:
39311