Early in December the Admiralty's anxiety over the exposed position of Admiral Phillips's force deepened, and they urged him to take the two capital ships away from Singapore. The Repulse accordingly sailed for Port Darwin in North Australia on 5th December; but when a Japanese convoy was reported off Indo-China next day she was recalled to Singapore to rejoin the flagship. On the 7th the Japanese suddenly struck not only at the American Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbour, but also at the Philippine Islands, Hong Kong, Siam and Malaya. The very situation which the Naval Staff in London had feared from the beginning thus at once arose, and the stage was set for high tragedy.
On the evening of 8th December Phillips left Singapore with the Prince of Wales, Repulse and four destroyers to attack the Japanese amphibious forces which had just made landings at Singora on the north-east coast of Malaya. Before sailing he requested the R.A.F. to reconnoitre the seas to the north of his intended course, and to provide fighter cover over the scene of his intended attack; but early on 9th December Singapore warned him that the fighter cover could not be provided, and also reported that strong Japanese bomber forces were believed to be assembling in IndoChina. This information, combined with the sighting of his force by enemy aircraft, caused Phillips to abandon his offensive purpose, and at 8.15 p.m. that same day he reversed course for Singapore. Then shortly before midnight Singapore signalled that an enemy landing had been reported at Kuantan, which lay much farther south than Singora, and was not far off the British squadron's return course.
At 1.00 a.m. on 10th Phillips turned to the west to close Kuantan; but he did not tell Singapore of his new intention, nor did he ask for fighters to be sent to meet him off the coast. His reluctance to break wireless silence is understandable; but it was perhaps too much to expect the authorities at the base to anticipate his reaction to the reported landing at Kuantan. In any case the report of the landing was false, and as no fighters were sent to meet him his ships were very dangerously placed to deal with a heavy air attack. In fact, the Japanese, acting on earlier sightings of Phillips's squadron by patrolling submarines, had sent 34 high level and 51 torpedo-bombers from Saigon to attack it. They missed their quarry on the southward flight, but by ill-luck found it on the return journey.
Determined and skilful attacks started soon after 11 a.m. on 10th December, and the British flagship soon received two torpedo hits, which inflicted very serious damage on her propellers and steering gear, and put almost all her anti-aircraft guns out of action. At first the Repulse, by skilful manoeuvring, avoided the torpedoes aimed at her; but before long the sheer numbers of the attackers overwhelmed her defences, she received four torpedo hits, and was plainly doomed. The Prince of Wales had meanwhile been hit twice more by torpedoes and was steaming slowly north with a heavy list. At 12.33 the Repulse rolled over and sank, and fifty minutes later the Prince of Wales capsized. The destroyers picked up 2,081 officers and men of the 2,921 on board the two ships; but neither Admiral Phillips nor Captain J. C. Leach of the Prince of Wales were among the survivors.
Thus, after only 48 hours of war, did the Japanese accomplish their purpose of crippling British and American maritime power in the western Pacific; and the virtually undisputed command of the sea which they thereby gained enabled them to strike almost at will against the vast and rich territories which were their next objectives. From the British point of view the sinking of the Prince of Wales and Repulse had immediate and disastrous effects; for the morale of the defenders of Malaya and Singapore was gravely shaken, and the fate of all our possessions in south-east Asia was plainly sealed. Rarely can a defeat at sea have bad such far-reaching consequences.
In retrospect the strategy of sending out a weak and unbalanced force to an exposed position in a theatre which the enemy was threatening to command with very powerful forces is surely open to criticism; and we may regret that the Admiralty yielded to those who hoped that such a force would have a "deterrent" effect on Japan. As to the actual conduct of his last/operation. Admiral Phillips's original purpose to attack the landing force at Singora was reasonable enough; for he could hardly stand by idle while Malaya and Singapore, whose defence provided the principal reason for his presence, were being seriously threatened. His reassertion that the risks entailed in such a venture were too heavy may have been rather tardy; and it is of course impossible to say whether his squadron would have escaped had he not accepted the report of the Kuantan landing. The failure to keep his base informed of his change of intentions on the night of 9-10 December is harder to explain; but even had he done so it is unclear that the hard-pressed R.A.F. would have been able to/protect his ships adequately.
The Admiralty plainly foresaw the danger in which the British force stood early in December, when they urged Phillips to take is ships away from Singapore; and one may regret that they did not send an order to him rather than advice. It may be that the defence of the Singapore base, and the large quantities of fuel, stores and ammunition which we had assembled in it, exerted excessive influence in London. But the truth was that the base, on which so much time and money had been expended, was useless while we had no proper fleet to work from it. After the loss of the Prince of Wales and Repulse Admiral Sir Geoffrey Layton resumed command of the Eastern Fleet, which post he had recently handed over to Admiral Phillips; but in fact there was nothing resembling a fleet for him to command, and the reinforcements for which he at once called simply did not exist. Only light naval forces remained in Malaya and Hong Kong, and although a new command, called ABDA was hastily set up early in January, 1942, with headquarters in Java, to co-ordinate American, British, Dutch and Australian resistance, the naval commander of the theatre (Admiral T. C. Hart, USN) had only a motley collection of cruisers, destroyers and submarines with which to meet vast responsibilities and oppose what was temporarily the most powerful navy in the world.
Other Accounts of the Battle
Samuel Eliot Morison - from "History of United States Naval Operations in World War Two"
Corelli
Barnett - from "Engage the Enemy More Closely"
