Ghost of Sea Power

Singapore's great naval base, supposedly the reason why Singapore must be held, lay abandoned and defenseless between the two Japanese landings. But it did not have the air of a mighty fortress. It looked like a ghost of power. This huge establishment for sea war, which had cost the British Empire $400,000,000 and 19 years, which had been promoted even by the late great Socialist Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, this cradle big enough for the entire British and U.S. Fleets, had been rendered powerless because the Nips had come unexpectedly by land instead of by sea. Lying on the north side of the island, it was separated by only the mile-wide Strait of Johore from Japanese artillery. It was useless, and so it had been evacuated before the first Japanese troops were sighted.

Over the weekend the nearby conversation of field guns echoed in the empty, close-packed machine shops and warehouses. In the offices the files were stripped; the tools were gone from the benches. The great graving dock lay covered with oily scum, its caisson gone. The surface oil tanks were hollow, burned-out shells. And out across the anchorage-- "There's 26 square miles of deep-sea anchorage," Singapore's Vice Admiral Sir Geoffrey Layton used to boast--there was nothing but little choppy unburdened waves.

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