The Argylls suffered 25% casualties, 250 men including 13 officers, and received no replacements

Stewart ordered the road in the 5/2 Punjabs’ sector (positioned to the rear of the Hyderabads) to remain undamaged so that carriers and armoured cars might access the Hyderabads farther forward.

Twenty-four anti-tank mines went to the 5/2 Punjabs and, for additional support, they received a single troop of anti-tank guns and a battery from the 137th Field Regiment.

The remainder of this battalion was positioned in the Cluny rubber estate between Slim River Station and Slim River Bridge. Brigade HQ was west of the railway and road in the Klapa Bali estate nearly two miles west of Trolak village, as was the Argylls’ battalion HQ, on a plantation track off the road.

After the battle, Brigade HQ’s position was criticised. To avoid attack from the air, Stewart had chosen a secluded location but it prevented the commander and his staff from seeing properly what was happening.

Angus’s decision to withdraw the Hyderabad Company on January 5 was wise as Major Brown, acting commander of 4/19 Hyderabads, rang Brigade HQ to say A Company had noticed the Japanese were attempting to outflank the battalion on the east side of the road and railway. Withdrawal A havildar (a non-commissioned officer in the Indian Army equivalent to a sergeant) from Deakin’s battalion had also seen the enemy close by, so the commander advised Stewart that they should withdraw.

Because Brigadier Paris, positioned at Divisional HQ, suspected the enemy were trying to work their way around 12th Indian Infantry Brigade at Trolak, he planned to withdraw the 12th behind 28th Indian Infantry Brigade on the night of January 6-7, and leave the 28th for another night’s rest, before they took up positions north of Slim River at noon on the 7th.

As a result of the Japanese 42nd Infantry Regiment’s failure to rout 12th Indian Infantry Brigade down the railway on January 5, their colonel prepared a deliberate assault. He told his battalion commanders that on January 7, a section of his troops would advance through the jungle around the enemy’s right flank towards Trolak.

The rest of the regiment would attack down the road with tanks. Their commander, Major Shimada, persuaded Colonel Ando to launch the attack that night. As 12th Indian Infantry Brigade settled in for the night of January 6, the Argylls’ B Company, billeted in huts once belonging to Tamil estate workers, tried to rest.

They washed their clothes, swam in the river and ate stew and drank hot, sweet tea but were harassed by enemy planes. The Argylls suffered 25% casualties, 250 men including 13 officers, and received no replacements, unlike the Japanese who brought up fresh troops every 36 hours.

Although Stewart underestimated the report that Japanese tanks were approaching, he decided to play it safe and have his two forward battalions (4/19 Hyderabads and 5/2 Punjabs) complete their withdrawal by first light the next morning.

For added security, he also ordered his reserve battalion, the 5/14 Punjabs, to position themselves south of Trolak village at the same hour.

Within hours of the battle’s commencement, reinforcements arrived: seasoned Argylls and 30 to 40 new men, whose short training in Singapore was to serve as a bulwark against the rigours that were to follow. Recovered Among the veterans were Captain David Drummond Hay, a convivial, affable fellow, tough Platoon Sergeant Major Jimmy Love, who fought tigerishly in C Company up the lonely Kroh-Grik road, and Lieutenant Kenneth McLeod: some recently recovered from wounds received earlier in the campaign; others were ‘milked’ – taken from the battalion for non-combat duties in Singapore.

At midnight on January 6, the 4/19 Hyderabads began their withdrawal and shortly afterwards, their forward companies came into contact with soldiers from the Japanese 42nd Infantry Regiment on the road. British artillery and mortars met the enemy attack.

By 3 am, and in brilliant moonlight, a column of 30 Japanese tanks, followed by infantry in lorries, attacked straight down the trunk road.

Nobody in their wildest dreams had conceived of a tank attack at night (not even in Russia or the North African desert was this form of assault considered) but during the early hours of January 7, Japanese tanks performed this feat at Trolak.

The procession was too fast to enable an observation officer of each forward company to alert in time other units.

The tanks made mincemeat of the obstacles before them and within 20 minutes had crashed through barbed wire barriers, removed concrete cylinders serving as roadblocks and put out of action the battalion’s anti-tank guns. Still in the dark, the tanks blazed away unimpeded, with enemy infantry following them.

While the quartermaster and some drivers from the beleaguered Indian battalion threw grenades at the column, most of the men from the remaining companies were cut off in the jungle on either side of the road and were never seen again. Enemies Rab Kerr, an Argyll writing after the end of the war, claimed that as the Hyderabads withdrew in trucks and tracked vehicles, they noticed to their horror that their last vehicles were not Bren carriers but enemy tanks.

Stewart’s plan was to have a row of half-sawn trees dropped across the road after the last tracked vehicle had passed through and, while clearing the obstacles, the enemy would come under heavy fire.

However, in the pitch dark the Japanese tanks drove through before the roadblock of fallen trees could be implemented. After the battle, Stewart admitted that he was culpable for failing to employ anti-tank measures like road-cratering and the laying of mines.

The acting brigade commander’s response was that his forward Indian battalion had sufficient tank obstacles in front. The leading 20-ton medium tanks advanced at 10 to 20 yard intervals and had .303 machine guns and a light mortar, which fired indiscriminately to one side. Behind these came light tanks, each armed with one .303 machine gun.

The vehicles’ speed was between 3-6mph, although they could reach 28mph.

Their machine gun and cannon fire were intense but ineffective except against targets actually on the road. Major Shimada may well have suspected that 12th Indian Infantry Brigade’s forward battalion was a cinch, but he was under no illusion that the other two would fall away so easily. More tomorrow