Penang, Malaya October 25, 1942
A well placed bomb would have destroyed the Commonwealth’s leadership in the Far East. A fighter squadron was circling overhead while at least three more squadrons were on strip alerts. An additional regiment of light anti-aircraft guns had been brought into the city. The Royal Navy had stationed a trio of anti-aircraft cruisers in the harbor protecting both the hotel and the dozen merchant ships unloading the supplies needed for the next three months.
General Percival had called together almost his entire senior leadership team for a conference before the ground had fully dried up. Malayan forces could have started an advance this week but the divisions in Burma and Siam may have been caught in the last few weeks of standing water and muddy roads.
His command responsibilities had been clarified. His domain was all of southeast Asia from the east bank of the Ganges River at Dhaka to a line starting on the northern tip of Borneo going through the southern port town of Banjamasin before jagging back to the east to include all of Java and Bali. South of the Malay Barrier, he only had coastal responsibilities as the Northern Australian command and the Royal Navy’s Far East Fleet were responsibility for the great waters of the Indian Ocean. The Dutch were in operational control of reconstruction and reconstitution operations on Java. Most of a corps of now battle hardened men defended that island as they rebuilt.
A division would soon be needed to clear Bali of the Japanese regiment and the handful of squadrons that were still holding out on the last southern gasp of their initial advance. He, and his staff, had debated as to the value of clearing Bali versus leaving the Japanese garrison to wither away. If the reports of the treatment of civilians were better, that would have been an easy choice, but clearing the spotters and denying the Japanese the intelligence data that they gained from just being able to watch the skies and the seas had value in and of itself.
More importantly than the mopping up operations scheduled along the southern Malay Barrier was the series of mutually supportive offensives planned along the western rim of his command area. 14th Army, which really was a reinforced corps, consisted of two Indian infantry divisions, a East African division, a Burmese Division, a single British infantry division as well as a reconstituted brigade of the 7th Armoured Division that had been chopped from divisional control and relabeled as an independent armoured brigade. The RAF could, on good days put up 150 somewhat modern machines and another 100 machines that were death traps against Germans but adequate on a tertiary front. The Chinese army guarding the Burma Road was also available as its divisions now had the firepower of commonwealth brigades instead of merely being equal to large regiments when they first entered Burma last January. These forces would attack west over the Sittang River until they secured crossings over the Thanlyin River. If the forces were still in coherent shape to attack, the next objective would be to drive south along the coastal road for as long as possible. A secondary attack with the objective of Tak, Siam was also contemplated. A brigade sized amphibious assault along the southeastern Burma coast was resourced for the follow-on phase.
The Burma offensive OPERATION ROUNDTOP, was scheduled to go off first. The main event would be the 11th Army’s OPERATION CHEVALIER was the main event. CHEVALIER would commence five days after ROUNDTOP.
General Montgomery had been planning this offensive for months as his men trained in the rain and the mud of the monsoon season. Three infantry heavy corps were the main force. Three Australian divisions were on the army’s right. Four Indian infantry divisions, two of them blooded during the spring time fighting and another that had fought in the Mediterranean were the center. The west coast corp was almost entirely from the British Isles with odds and sods of Indian and Colonial detachments and specialists. The 18th Division was the only combat hardened division. The 2nd and 5th Divisions were well trained with more than a few veterans of fighting in Northern France. Finally, the motorized corps consisting of a reconstituted 7th Armoured Division and a reinforced 1st Australian Armoured Division were the exploitation force.
The Australian Corps would initially screen the two Japanese divisions holding the east coast ports while the III Indian Corps and the XXVII Corps would break the line held across the isthmus. Two Japanese divisions were holding the jungle line from coast to coast in good field fortifications. Each of the assault divisions would be focusing all of their effort on a narrow front, no more than two miles wide to bring overwhelming power to bear. Once the Japanese front had been broken into, the assault divisions would shoulder the breakthrough while the corps reserves would pour through the gaps to demolish the near rear of the Japanese even as the heavy armored divisions would seek deep penetration battles to destroy whatever theatre reserves the Japanese could commit. The most recent intercepts had shown that there were less than 200 tanks south of Bangkok. A few dozen were remotely competitive with the Valentines and Grants that made up the armored fist. Most were tankettes and obsolete by continental standards even in 1940.
The RAF promised 750 aircraft over the 11th Army on the first day. Another hundred and fifty were devoted to long range bomber raids against Japanese and Thai strategic targets around Bangkok or Saigon.
The Navy had promised to close the Gulf of Thailand to anything bigger than a fishing boat while also guaranteeing a steady flow of supplies to Penang and Kota Bharu.
Follow-on attacks were also being planned. Tentatively, an amphibious assault on southern French Indochina under the planning name of MERMAID was being penciled in for Spring 1943. That would isolate Bangkok which the Foreign Office could then take with pointed words and lukewarm tea.
Over the next eight hours, the entire plan of the offensives was reviewed. Sharped eye soldiers and logisticians pointed out rough points. Solutions were proposed; one quartermaster was taken to the medical wing after losing an argument and gaining a black eye. By nightfall, the high command of the Far East Armies was safely dispersed as they sought out final planning sessions around a multitude of restaurants and bars in the old port city.
