The serial: Largie Castle, A Rifled Nest Day 73

Angus’s role was complex and, during the campaign, exhausting

That morning, the 5/2 Punjabs followed from Singapore. “The men are in very good heart, yelling out their respective religious cries as the train steamed out,” wrote the commanding officer, Colonel Deakin, who had trained recruits before he arrived in Malaya.

With the intention that it be used as an instruction manual for young officers, he wrote a diary of the campaign while imprisoned by the Japanese in Kuala Lumpur Central Jail.

The Indian battalion’s progress was interrupted by trains carrying hordes of European refugees from Penang, which was being bombed by the Japanese. The third battalion of 12th Indian Infantry Brigade, the 4/19 Hyderabads, was posted to Kelantuan State on the east coast of Malaya to block the Japanese advance south from Kota Bahru.

After a meeting on the 12th with commanding officers at Brigade HQ in Singapore, Angus departed for Ipoh. The Argylls and Punjabs followed the next day, arriving in the large town lying on the banks of the Kinta River, north of Kuala Lumpur. As staff officer, Angus was not employed in armed combat but his job at Brigade HQ put him in danger. Camouflaged During the 10-week Malayan Campaign, when the brigade made lightning withdrawals down the length of the peninsula, its headquarters was set up in different places and moved many times. In one battle, it was camouflaged in a rubber plantation, and in another, a jungle clearing.

For effective communication with fighting units it was best positioned near a road. A requisitioned tin miner or planter’s bungalow was welcome; invariably the owner, in his hasty evacuation, left well-supplied refrigerators and larders and some houses were replete with magazines and other comforts. But, up country in the north, all they might have for a headquarters was a tent or the back of a lorry. Whatever the location, it was best to be inconspicuous and that, generally speaking, ruled out large, luxury homes.

Angus was the brigadier’s most senior staff officer. After deciding what to do, the brigadier created the orders and the brigade-major wrote them down and carried them out. With his boss or alone if necessary, Angus would leave the headquarters and confer with commanders of combat units and provide directions. He also controlled the battle, sat on the wireless receiving information from fighting units, and saw to it that they had reinforcements, ammunition and other supplies.

Occasionally, if the brigadier was called away, the brigade-major would take over. However, if it was for a long time or if his commanding officer was killed or wounded, a battalion commander would take command. Angus’s role was complex and, during the campaign, exhausting.

He should have felt proud of himself; after the war Lieutenant General Percival claimed that 12th Indian Infantry Brigade “having been over two years in Malaya when the campaign began, was probably the best-trained and most experienced brigade in the country.” Disasters How much was Angus aware of the disasters that met the defenders of Malaya? He would have learned of the 11th Division’s defeat at Asun on the 11th and at Jitra on the 12th, as the reason his brigade was sent north was to aid the beleaguered formation. As for the sinking of the two British battleships, HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse, not only was Malaya aware of the debacle, it was also front-page news in the UK.

It meant the Japanese had gained mastery of the seas. Enemy assault on airfields in the north resulted in allied aircraft being withdrawn from Alor Star and Sungei Patani in the west and Kota Bahru, Machang and Gong Kedah in the east. By December 9, the British had only 10 operative aircraft at Butterworth aerodrome. By contrast, the Japanese possessed 150 making frequent sorties into Malaya from the Singora-Patani area. Within days of landing on the peninsula, the enemy had gained control of the skies.

It was up to the army alone to repel the enemy. On December 14, the bulk of the brigade departed Ipoh and travelled north into jungle and mountainous terrain to Baling in the northern state of Kedah.

Legend has it that the town was founded by a cannibalistic monarch who, after being banished from his kingdom, recanted, tore out his teeth and threw each to the winds. The place where they landed was Baling. There was a danger that the retreating 11th Division might be cut off by the Japanese 42nd Infantry Regiment advancing from Patani across the Thai border. Here, in a remote, mountainous region where tigers roamed, Japanese infantrymen threatened to pour down the narrow road from Kroh to Grik towards the Perak River in central Malaya.

To deny the enemy access to Malaya Krohcol, a British force, was sent across the border to occupy The Ledge, a piece of high ground 35 to 40 miles into Thailand. But the Japanese moved too fast, nabbed The Ledge, pushed back Krohcol and crashed southward towards Grik.

It was crucial, therefore, that this road be blocked, so Lieutenant General Sir Lewis Heath, commander of III Indian Corps, sent the Argylls’ C Company to deal with it. At this point, Heath, who had distinguished himself earlier in the year and in the previous one when he commanded 5th Indian Division against the Italians in Eritrea, decided to take under his control Paris’s 12th Brigade, normally attached to Malaya Command. Communication Meanwhile, another Japanese formation was expected to advance south along the main road on the west coast. So 12th Indian Brigade (Argylls’ A, B and D Companies and the 5/2 Punjabs) was ordered to hold the road at Baling. Effective communication was one of the challenges facing brigade staff.

Having attended signalling courses in India, Angus was practised in this field but his skills were sorely tested in Malaya. Communication was by wireless, cable, runners or dispatch riders who travelled by motorbike. Wireless communication in Malaya was unreliable, as transmissions broke up or were limited because of the humid climate, frequent tropical storms and jungle-covered hills.

As with ammunition, weapons and vehicles in Malaya, signalling equipment was in short supply also; infantry battalions possessed one signal set only to communicate with Brigade HQ. Forward companies and platoons used cable but this form of communication was vulnerable to shelling, and there was a shortage of telephone cable. More tomorrow © 2017 Mary C Gladstone, all rights reserved, courtesy of the author and Firefallmedia; available in hardcover and paperback online and from all booksellers.