Henry Goodall

Singapore Memorial Column 71

He was killed aboard the Rakuyo Maru.

1/5th Battalion Sherwood Foresters in Singapore

1/5th Battalion, The Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment) along with 1st Battalion the Cambridgeshire Regiment and the 5th Battalion Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment arrived in Singapore in late January 1942 as the 55th Infantry Brigade, 18th Division. Disembarking from the troopship Orcades on January 29–31, recalled Arthur Bates, they were greeted by Australians saying ‘hello prisoners of war.’

They were immediately thrown into the fierce, losing battle against the invading Japanese forces. ‘We were greeted by Japanese tanks,’ remembered Les Pearson, ‘they blew one of our ammunition trucks up which killed some of our boys and injured others, one fellow in my company was underneath it when it went up. It was just like hell for about an hour, it mowed trees down with its cannons and everyone was in an uproar trying to get to a place of safety.

We all knew we were going into a battle that was already lost, but my conscience is clear to know I did my little bit in trying to save that little island... We were told too that by holding out as we did we saved Australia.’

We held that position for three days until we capitulated.’ Following the British surrender on February 15, 1942, the surviving troops spent over three years as Prisoners of War (POWs) under brutal conditions. Many were forced into slave labour on the notorious Burma-Siam (Death) Railway, enduring starvation, disease, and violence. Roughly 450 men from the battalion lost their lives in captivity.

Was the 18th Division betrayed as is popularly believed?
‘The loss of Singapore was later to be described by Churchill as ``The greatest disaster and capitulation in British history." He neglected to mention however, noted Paul Morrell, the betrayal of a Division, the British 18th Division’.

The British 18th Division were sacrificed strategically. Deployed to Singapore in January 1942 straight from the sea, they arrived without their heavy equipment, heavily fatigued, and into a military campaign that was already fatally lost.
The sacrifice of the 18th Division is considered a betrayal by military command for a few key reasons:

• Strategic Miscalculation: The division was originally destined for the Middle East but was diverted to Singapore. They arrived on January 29, 1942, weeks after the Japanese had already overrun the Malayan peninsula.

• Churchill's Concession: The deployment was primarily made to appease the Australian government, which had pressured Winston Churchill to reinforce the island rather than Burma. Because of this, the 18th Division was thrown into the "Fortress Singapore" where they served only to swell the numbers of Allied prisoners of war.

• Piecemeal Deployment: Upon arrival, the division's units were broken up and fed into the losing battle piecemeal. They were given little opportunity to put their training into proper effect before Lieutenant General Arthur Percival surrendered the 85,000-man garrison to a much smaller Japanese force on February 15, 1942.

• Brutal Captivity: Following the surrender, the men of the 18th Division suffered the same horrific fate as the rest of the garrison.