Thread by @CollinSLKoh

Besides the genius of “Tiger of Malaya”, what’s most interesting in the course of my research that prepared my lecture on Malayan Campaign to the officer cadets back then, was the handy tactical pamphlet issued to each soldier, Read This Alone - And The War Can be Won.

https://twitter.com/asiainww2/status/1456889278538162176

What’s so interesting about this pamphlet is to start with the background in the run-up to December 1941. War in China back then bogged down; it’s akin to a python attempting to swallow an elephant instead of a deer. Imperial Japan needed resources to fuel this war effort. 1/

The imperial GHQ was generally split into two camps: go north vs go south. Go north camp advocated exploiting the sizeable IJA presence on Korean Peninsula and Manchuria to stage a knock out blow at Stalin’s USSR in the Far East to reach Siberia’s resource riches. 2/

IJA’s elite fighting formation, the Kwantung Army, was well poised for the Go North plan. It’s well trained, ably led (if also by fanatical and aggressive senior officers), well equipped and had a proud combat history. To the GHQ, the Soviets would be a cake walk. 3/

Some historians would argue that the Battle of Nomonhan between Imperial Japan and USSR, in the arid and desolated plains of the Manchuria border, was strategically decisive. The campaign turned out to be a colossal disaster for the IJA, thereby dashing Go North camp’s hopes. 4/

With Siberia’s resource riches out of reach, Go South camp in GHQ prevailed in the debate, and so plans were afoot for a campaign in Southeast Asia, to seize Malaya and Singapore, and Dutch East Indies. But problem is IJA wasn’t optimised for tropical warfare. 5/

GHQ set forth with an elaborate blueprint to prepare IJA for combat in the tropics, literally from scratch. Intel operatives in the region took painstaking efforts to scout and map out the invasion routes in Malaya, using guises to mask their intent. 6/

These initial field recce and survey work churned out invaluable data for GHQ planners. Taiwan, then under Imperial Japan’s colonial rule, was a key base to research on surviving and operating under tropical conditions, including research on tropical diseases. 7/

The long preparation paid off for GHQ; the IJA eventually produced from scratch its own operating manuals for combat under tropical conditions. Thus Read This Alone - And The War Can be Won, was born. It’s a simple pamphlet that guides the individual IJA soldier. 8/

Read This Alone was designed to be easy to read and follow by any rank and file soldier in IJA touching on the basics of tropical jungle fieldcraft, fire and maneuver, etc. Formations that Yamashita led in 1941 were also adequately structured and equipped for the tropics. 9/

This pamphlet prepared Yamashita’s soldiers better for the Malaya Campaign than his counterpart under Percival’s command. What stood out was how the British Army applied a completely unsuitable fighting concept - positional warfare which would be useful in desert not jungle. 10/

By contrast, the IJA applied more superior fire and maneuver fighting concept suited for the jungle terrain, allowing the troops to quickly outmaneuver, bypass and isolate, literally overrun Percival’s defenders in a campaign that lasted much shorter than expected. 11/

On top of that, of course, is to mention that Percival’s troops were not suitably equipped for jungle warfare; many of them only entered the theatre shortly before hostilities broke out, and they had little preparation for combat in the tropics. 12/

So while not over exaggerating the factor of this humble pamphlet, it’s not presumptuous to assess that Read This Alone had been instrumental in preparing IJA troops better for the campaign. It contrasts sheer determination combined with meticulous planning against hubris. END