The Mastermind Behind Japan's Greatest Victory, Britain's Worst Defeat: The Capture of Singapore 1942

Seventy days that shook the Western world... that was the Malayan campaign of World War II. In book after book the sorry details of Britain’s defeat have been debated. One after another the witnesses for the defence—the generals, the war historians, the correspondents—have had their say. Now, translated for the first time into English, comes the crushing evidence for the prosecution—the story, not of how Malaya was lost, but of how it was won. This book is by the key man—the brilliant strategist who led the research work for the campaign, and who, as Chief of the Operations and Planning Staff of the 25th Army under General Yamashita, initiated vital operations orders in the field from the landing at Singora to the surrender on Singapore Island. How did the Japanese justify, how plan their amazing campaign? Why did they enter the war when they did? What was the strength of their forces, and what did they think of the troops on the British side whom they overran in ten weeks, all according to timetable? These are just some of the questions that this book answers. Colonel Masanobu Tsuji’s story of how Malaya was conquered has exceptional authority and candour. As a major work of military history it compels close attention—for who can say he has learned a lesson of history unless he knows the whole story of what happened?—and as a narrative of personal experience it generates pure excitement: the reader actually finds himself advancing, not retreating, down the peninsula. The atmosphere of jungle pursuit and jungle fighting is created with great truth. The fairness of Colonel Tsuji’s book is its most striking—and perhaps unexpected—quality. His comments about his enemies, whose resistance “lacked sincerity” are sometimes severe, yet there is a justice about them which it would be hard to challenge. Of his own side he writes with equal fairness. His book reveals the existence of fierce inter-Service jealousies, and it candidly describes the “petulance” of the officers of one of the three Japanese divisions in Malaya, who had to be “coaxed and cajoled like cross children”. Colonel Tsuji, though convinced of the superiority of Japanese youth, makes no attempt to conceal examples of cowardice that occurred in his Army. One of the most impressive things about his book is the way it illustrates the truth of his remark that “there is no difference in human nature between one’s own side and the enemy side”. Masanobu Tsuji was born in 1903, became a professional soldier, and served in China and Manchuria. After the Malayan campaign he was in Burma, When the war ended he was ordered to disappear and preserve himself for his country’s reconstruction, and he spent some years wandering in disguise in China, Siam, and Indo-China. Early in the 1950s he was elected to the Japanese Parliament, and he is at present a member of the Parliament’s upper house—the House of Councillors—in Tokyo.