ABSTRACT
We need little imagination to reconstruct the sense of what passed between Slim and Wavell. John Connell's biography describes how disturbed Wavell had been by what he had seen in Malaya – British, Indian and Austra lian troops outfought by Japanese skill and boldness. He drafted a note on what he had deduced and sent it to Percival, concluding:
As in all other warfare, in thick or open country, in Asia or Europe, in advance or retreat, in attack or defence, the lead ership of the officer and the fighting spirit of the soldier – the determination to beat the other man whatever happens – is the deciding factor. There are three principal factors in all fighting – good equipment, tactical skill and guts. But the greatest of these is guts*1
In a telegram to Churchill (II February 1942) Wavell made the point again. Percival did not have as many troops on the Island as Churchill believed, he said, but he should have 'quite enough to deal with the enemy who have landed if the troops can be made to act with sufficient vigour and determination.'32 When the surrender was an accomplished fact, Wavell looked back on the atmosphere of Malaya. That was the root cause of the Army's inability to hold out long enough for him to rally the rest of his command, long enough to bring in enough reinforcements. He had wanted only a month, but the Malayan front had crumpled in his hands:
The trouble goes a long way back; climate, the atmosphere of the country (the whole of Malaya has been asleep for at least two hundred years), lack of vigour in our peacetime training, the cumbersomeness of our tactics and equipment, and the real difficulty of finding an answer to the very skilful and bold tactics of the Japanese in this jungle fighting.
