Churchill to blame for fall of Singapore? Remarks on Spore's defence came from unreliable source says Dr. Brian P.Farrell I REFER to the discussion regarding points raised by Dr Ong Chit Chung in his recently published work on preparations for the defence of Singapore in World War II. Mr Roger Boniface (ST, May 6) takes issue with Dr Ong on whether the central direction of the war in London wrote off Malaya and Singapore as indefensible by July 1941. He cites as the authority for his claim the 1992 work Bloody Shambles, a narrative description of Allied air operations in the war in South-east Asia. The last paragraph of his letter is drawn nearly word for word from a passage on page 28 of the first volume of Bloody Shambles. In this paragraph Mr Boniface makes two errors of fact, misrepresents an opinion as a documented fact, and claims greater authority for a source than it can bear. The German raider Atlantis seized the Chiefs of Staff appreciation in question in November 1940, not November 1941. That this copy was lost to the enemy could not be the reason "Dr Ong cannot find it" as there were others kept in the files of the War Cabinet secretariat in London. These were later passed to the Public Record Office and made available to researchers, where both Dr Ong and I, in different years on different projects, used the document. The Chiefs of Staff made regular appreciations of the strategic situation in the Far East, as Mr Boniface noted, but never restricted publication to one sole copy likely to be lost to the enemy and posterity. The paper in question was only the most important of this series. It can be found in the Public Record Office, in series CAB66/10 or CAB80/15, document number COS(40)592(Revise), dated Aug 15, 1940. A more accessible and complete description of the appreciation is in volume 1 of the British official history series The War against Japan, subtitled The Loss of Singapore, by S.W. Kirby, on pages 33-36. The claim that the War Cabinet and Chiefs of Staff regarded Malaya as indefensible by July 1941 is an assertion put forward by the authors of Bloody Shambles with no source quoted. It is an assertion rejected by every serious study of preparations made by the British for the war against Japan. Bloody Shambles is a largely narrative history of the operations of the air forces at the squadron level, drawn heavily from the memories of the airmen themselves. It is not, nor does it claim to be, an authority on problems of higher strategy. The authors draw their own information on the point at issue from other secondary sources. Historians recycling the opinions of other historians cannot be taken as credible on a point of such importance. Serious studies must go to the primary sources available, the records of the men and agencies who pondered the problem and made the decisions. By Brian P. Farrell (Dr) The writer is a lecturer in Military History, Department of History, National University of Singapore. This letter appeared in The Straits Times forum page on May 8, 1997. Fall of Singapore: Should Churchill take the rap? Correlli Barnett, former keeper of the Churchill archives Dr Ong Chit Chung Chan Kwee Sung Dr Brian P. Farrell Chan Kwee Sung (second letter) Dr Ong Chit Chung (second letter) Roger Boniface Roger Boniface (second letter) Fight to death, Churchill told British Army Moses' start page Copyright © 1998 Singapore Press Holdings. All Rights Reserved.