Indian III Corps
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The British Indian III Corps was the primary ground formation that took part in the campaign in Malaya in 1942.
- After the independence of India, a new III Corps was raised by the Indian Army in the 1980s. It is based at Dimapur in northeast India, and contains mountain formations and is tasked for use in any future Indian war against China.
III Corps was formed in mid-1941 when the increase in tension in the Far East necessitated the dispatch of large reinforcements to the area to deter Japan. By the opening of the campaign, it had three divisions under its control, the Australian 8th Division and Indian 9th and 11th Divisions. Due to the rapid expansion of the British Indian Army, many of the formations in the Indian divisions were ill-trained and lacked large enough cadres of experienced troops.
After the Japanese attacked Malaya in early 1942, they quickly gained the upper hand. There had been a plan to move forward into the south of Siam early in the campaign to forestall Japanese advances. However, lack of forewarning, combined with caution over upsetting Japan needlessly with precipitate actions, prevented the plan from being implemented. This rocked the garrison back on its heels, a position from which it never recovered.
III Corps was pushed down the Malayan peninsula by Japanese units, who employed novel tactics. When confronted with an Allied strongpoint on a road, the Japanese troops would leave a screen in front of the position, and then send infiltrators round through the jungle to ouflank the position. Having been surrounded, positions were usually relatively easy to take.
Alarmed at the progress of the campaign, reinforcements were dispatched by the British Government to Malaya. Those included the British 18th Infantry Division, which was ill-prepared for its task, being a relatively inexperienced Territorial Army formation, with virtually no training in jungle warfare. A further Australian division was also sent to Malaya by the British, but Australian intervention saved it from being landed.
With Japanese air power supreme, Japanese tactics greatly superior to Allied tactics, and a large number of low quality Allied troops, the end was inevitable. III Corps, and the rest of the mobile land forces were pushed back to Singapore itself by February 1942. There they endured a short siege before the island surrendered.
It was the greatest defeat in British military history, with 130,000 men surrendering.
External links
Australian War Memorial: Remembering 1942 The fall of Singapore, 15 February 1942 (http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/remembering1942/singapore/transcript.htm)