LONDON -- Recently released British war documents blame alleged cowardice of Australian troops for the fall of Singapore to the Japanese in February 1942.
The War Office papers, officially released on Jan. 1 after a 50-year suppression order and reported in London newspapers Monday, said Australian troops deserted, raped, looted and even murdered during their retreat in the face of the Japanese advance through the Malay Peninsula.
The documents were part of a response by Prime Minister Winston Churchill's wartime government to Australian requests for evidence to back up repeated allegations that Australian troops had performed badly in Malaya.
The report was based on statements from some 50 British officers and residents and compiled by the staff of the British regional commander at the time, Gen. Sir Archibald Wavell. Wavell endorsed the report describing it as 'fair and accurate.'
One officer described in the report how the desertion of Australian troops allowed the Japanese to advance on Singapore.
'An effort was made to drive the Japs back into the sea. Three battalions were to advance in line,' the unnamed officer wrote. 'But there was a battalion missing and the Japs walked through the gap. The missing battalion was an Australian battalion. It reappeared in Singapore town, preferring drink and rape to its duty.'
While the report said Australian troops were responsible for the fall of Singapore, it concluded with a defense of the Australian Infantry Force saying that discipline and morale had only broken down after a heavy Japanese bombardment of the Australian battalion.
Australian veterans' associations reacted angrily to the documents, which were uncovered at the Public Records Office in London by author Peter Elphick during research for a book on the fall of Singapore.
Brig. Alf Garland, president of the Returned Services League of Australia, said Sunday the report was an unfair assessment of Australia's role in the Singapore campaign.
'Wavell was sitting in comfort in India regurgitating what other people told him -- people who had escaped from Singapore,' Garland was reported as saying in The Independent newspaper. 'You'd have to ask how and why these people escaped. The people who were making these reports were doing so to cover their own backsides.'
The documents had originally been scheduled for release in 1973 after a 30-year suppression order, but the embargo was extended for a further 20 years because Britian was anxious not offend Australia at a time when it was moving into the Common Market, The Daily Telegraph reported.
