NigG (#226),
...I sense a debate coming on, Danny!...
That's what Forums (Fora ?) are for. Keep the pot boiling !
...The Japanese landed at Endau, on the coast of Malaya, opposite Singapore. Both squadrons were sent into action. They had no genuine chance to inflict damage on the Japanese invasion fleet, because they were shot out of the sky by Japanese fighters...
Our Great White Hope was the Navy. "Repulse" and "Prince of Wales", commanded by an Admiral Phillips, who had declared: "
A properly handled capital ship can always beat off air attack" (and to be fair, that reflected Admiralty belief at the time), would destroy the invasion transports. As we know, it didn't work out that way ! The fate of Singapore, Malaya, Burma (and maybe India ?) was sealed.
...Because it was a different age... one where it was understood that sacrifices would be made and the only appropriate response was a stiff upper lip. I suggest that the British of this time were made of sterner stuff than some of the British of today...
Our generation "lived in different times". Brought up in the Great Depression and the "hungry thirties", we'd all learned, from the adults, a detailed knowledge of the world war which had ended little more than a decade before. Most of our fathers, uncles and workmates had served in that war; as a small boy I'd seen crippled ex-servicemen begging in the streets of Liverpool, or eking out a pitiful living as buskers or pavement artists (some of these were good - but you can't do much with coloured chalks when it's raining).
Our Mothers and Aunts (a fair number of them "maiden" - not from choice), had endured all the privations, rationing and heartbreaks of War. When we saw WWII coming, we knew what to expect ! The "Stiff upper lip" was the only option.
Things are so different today. WWII is slipping out of living memory. But, as far as the RAF postwar "new" entries I had experience of (up to 1972), I have said: "The "Right Stuff" was still as "Right" as ever it was - just different, that's all".
... I think the local ruler may have had a British administration, who decamped to Mt Abu during the hot season. ..
Certainly he would have had a "Political Agent", an
éminence grise (from the ICS) who pulled the strings of Raj policy. If he didn't "toe the line", he was removed (not always by means that would be approved today), and another, more compliant member of his clan was appointed to succeed him. If he "played ball", he would be backed-up by all the "Pomp and Circumstance" of Empire. Mostly, they saw which side their bread was buttered on.
Danny.