Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, APRIL 1, 1942. EQUIPMENT AND MORALE.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 April 1942, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, APRIL 1, 1942. EQUIPMENT AND MORALE.

4 ~ I ORD BEAVERBROOK lias given able and successful service J in the higher ranks of British war leadership, in organising and expediting war production and in other ways. He has acquitted himself with distinction, also, in negotiations with Russia and the United States directed to the advantageous coordination of the Allied war effort. In view of the name the former British Minister of War Production has made for himself in the discharge of important and responsible duties, a good deal of weight is likely to be attached, in general, to anything he may have to say about the conduct of the vai. It must be hoped, however, if he has been reported accurately and fairly in some observations on the Malaya campaign, attributed to him in a message from New A.oik, published yesterday, that these observations will be challenged sharply in the United States, Britain and other Allied countries, not least the Pacific Dominions.

Tn a broadcast from Miami in which he spoke of the Russian front as the one on which the hopes of humanity were centred, Lord Beaverbrook said incidentally that morale and determination would prove as vital as munitions and equipment and went on, as he is reported, to declare that: ■

Singapore was not lost to superior equipment. On the contrary the weight of equipment was on our side. There is danger in setting all our faith on great quantities of equipment. Unbreakable morale is the first necessity. It is the absolute condition of triumph. It is the fixed star of victory. While they embody some general contentions which will be endorsed unreservedly, these’ sentences as they stand are grotesquely unjust to the British, Australian and Indian soldiers, sailors and airmen who bore themselves from first to last most’valiantly in extended but hopeless conflict in Malaya and in Singapore Island.

The statement credited to Lord Beaverbrook that Singapore was not lost to superior equipment is flatly at variance with apparently well-authenticated reports on the disastrous campaign in which Malaya and the great naval and air base were lost. Many questions of detail remain to be cleared up, but it seems to be established finally and conclusively that Britain lost two great capital ships—the Prince of Wales and the Repulse—for want of air fighter protection, and that the Japanese thus gained an extended command of the sea which enabled them at will to outflank any land defensive line established in Malaya. The enemy also enjoyed a numerical superiority in the air which became absolute as the campaign moved to its climax.

In the final stage—the defence of Singapore Island —the British and Imperial troops were left to fight, without air support, against an enemy able to fill the sky with bombers and fighting planes. Where, then, was the weight of equipment on our side ? It seems to be nearer the truth to say that the story of Singapore was in essentials the story of Greece and Crete over again—first-class troops sacrificed for want of adequate equipment.

Millions, of course, had been lavished on defence works and armaments at Singapore, but the bulk of this was useless in the campaign as it developed. Any suggestion that the weight of adequate and available equipment was on our side appears to be as complete a misrepresentation of the facts as could be imagined. It is very probable that grave errors in planning and organisation were made, but nothing in the known and disclosed facts warrants any slur being cast on the brave men who did all that men could do in defending Malaya and Singapore against hopeless odds. It would be outrageous if the statement attributed, correctly or incorrectly to Lord Beaverbrook, who occupies still the position of a distinguished and responsible agent of the British Government, were not emphatically challenged and denied.