Operation Tiderace

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Operation Tiderace

General Itagaki Seishiro signs the surrender of Singapore on board the heavy cruiser HMS Sussex. 4 September 1945

Date	August 21, 1945 - September 12, 1945
Location	Malaya and Singapore
Result	Unopposed British Victory, Liberation of Malaya and Singapore, Establishment of British Military Administration

Belligerents

7th Area Army

United Kingdom

5th Division

Commanders

Seishirō Itagaki ^#
Hisaichi Terauchi ^#

Louis Mountbatten

Strength

96,000

N/A

Casualties and losses

300 suicides
96,000 captured

N/A

Operation Tiderace was the codename of the British plan to retake Singapore in 1945. The liberation force was led by Lord Louis Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander of Southeast Asia Command.

The British had originally planned Operation Zipper, which involved the liberation of both Malaya and Singapore through military force. However, it would have meant a prolonged fight down the Malayan Peninsula before Allied troops reached Singapore. The operation was cancelled following the Surrender of Japan.

[edit] Return to Singapore

Operation Tiderace commenced when Mountbatten ordered British troops to set sail from Trincomalee and Rangoon on August 21 for Singapore. However, the liberation fleet was not armed with enough offensive weapons as he believed that the Japanese in Malaya and Singapore would surrender without a fight. Had the Japanese put up a fight, it would have been disastrous for the British. The fleet arrived in Singapore on September 4, 1945, meeting no opposition.

General Itagaki Seishiro, commander of the Japanese 7th Area Army defending Singapore, was brought aboard HMS Sussex to discuss the surrender. By 6pm, the Japanese had surrendered their forces on the island. 70,000 Japanese troops from Singapore became POWs, plus another 26,000 from Malaya.

The formal surrender was finalized on September 12 at City Hall. Lord Louis Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander of Southeast Asia Command, came to Singapore to receive the formal surrender of the Japanese forces in the region from General Itagaki Seishiro on behalf of General Hisaichi Terauchi on September 12, 1945 and a British Military Administration was formed to govern the island until March 1946. Terauchi and Itagaki then became prisoners.

[edit] Reaction to the Surrender

Japan's defeat in World War II caught the Japanese Command in Singapore by surprise. Many were unwilling to surrender and had vowed to fight to the death. Three days after the emperor's announcement, Itagaki flew to Saigon to meet Field Marshal Count Terauchi, Commander of the Japanese Southern Army and forces in South-east Asia.

General Itagaki Seishiro had initially baulked at the decision to surrender, and instead ordered the 25th Area Army defending Singapore to resist when the Allies arrive. There was even a secret plan to massacre all Allied PoWs on the island. But on August 20, he signalled Mountbatten that he would abide by his emperor's decision and was ready to receive instructions for the Japanese surrender of Singapore. Newspapers on the island were finally allowed to carry the text of the emperor's speech, confirming what many already knew from listening to All India Radio broadcasts from Delhi on forbidden shortwave radios.

Itagaki met his generals and senior staff at his HQ at the former Raffles College in Bukit Timah and told his men that they would have to obey the surrender instructions and keep the peace. That night, more than 300 officers committed suicide using grenades in the Raffles Hotel after a farewell sake party.

About 200 Japanese soldiers decided to join the communist guerillas whom they were fighting just days before in a bid to continue the fight against the British. But they soon returned to their units when they found out that the MPAJA, which was funded by the Malayan Communist Party, did not plan to fight the returning British.

Nonetheless, some stayed hidden in the jungles with the communists, and when Chin Peng and remnants of the Malayan Communist Party ended their struggle in 1989, two former Japanese soldiers emerged from the jungle with the communists and surrendered.