The surprising fall of Singapore

Discussions on WW2 in the Pacific and the Sino-Japanese War.
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Lightbob
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Re: The surprising fall of Singapore

#106

Post by Lightbob » 13 Sep 2010, 23:41

Rich and Mike
Your statement about the British being in India 200 years was the difference between the PA and the IA this would have been a valid remark if it had taken the British 200 years to train the Indians

The following is an extract from Philip Masons ‘Matter Of Honour’ an account of the Indian Army Its officers and men Page 38

On May 29th, 1752,near Volconda, the British sepoys, ‘veterans of Arcot’
(writes Fortescue),
out marched the Europeans and caught up with the enemy; it was
decided to attack without waiting for the Europeans and the sepoys ‘ran
precipitately to attack them ... receiving the fire of the enemy’s
cannon and musketry, which killed many but did not check the rest
from rushing on to the push of bayonet.’ D’Auteuil’s whole force
eventually surrendered. ’


Yet only six years earlier the Indian forces of the Company had
been described as a ‘rabble of peons’. Now they were becoming a
disciplined body with a high morale, co-operating with British troops
to defeat the French, as capable as the Europeans of defeating ten
times their number of native forces. It was not solely the brilliance and
determination of Clive that had made the change, but hard work and
organization, on which gallant leadership had set the seal.

Now Robert Clive was a clerk in the East India Company who took up soldiering and became a great trainer and leader of men. It took six years to create an effective Indian army not two hundred, however the action in the first paragraph above was after a matter of weeks. He was an hero who was derided for taking a bonus from some of the Indian Princes and suffered allegations of corruption As you can see from the website the British do not treat their hero’s well

http://ezinearticles.com/?Clive-Of-Indi ... &id=829161

Lightbob
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Re: The surprising fall of Singapore

#107

Post by Lightbob » 14 Sep 2010, 01:18

Mike if you recall I said that their was circumstantial evidence regarding the legality of the half a million payment to Macarthur and that Macarthur knew before hand that he was to be evacuated before the Philippines were captured.

Could I refer you to your posting dated 19th Aug 2010

The first article you quote adds to the doubts I quoted:

Mike says;
The answer is to be found in the letter from the Adjutant General to MacArthur back in September 1935. This gave him complete freedom to accept any amount of money from the Philippine government.


Of course this took place in 1935 the acceptance took place in 1942 so we could assume that the original instructions could have been countermanded?

Later the same entry says;
As he accepted the $500,000 from Quezon, MacArthur may have thought if only for an instant of the irony of becoming rich at the very moment when he, his wife and his child all faced the likelihood of violent death or prolonged, humiliating imprisonment. he accepted this money with poor prospects of ever getting to spend it.
This whole paragraph is only an assumption by the author. But again the question must be asked why if he did not know he was being evacuated why did he not send his wife and child out with the other wives and children earlier?

The second entry says:
One of the most controversial moments in the controversial life of Douglas MacArthur came in early 1942, when he received $500,000 from the Philippine government during the siege of Corregidor and Bataan. This fact remained a secret until historian Carol Petillo broke the story in a 1979 article, and while some of the details may never be known, the incident has received well-deserved attention.
This entry suggest that the payment was kept quite why if it was legal and if legal why controversial

Further it says;
Before he left, MacArthur convinced the War Department to make an exception to the rule forbidding U.S. officers from receiving compensation from the countries they advised. Quezon then promised MacArthur a bonus of 46/100 of 1 percent of Philippine defence spending up to 1942.


Here we see that Macarthur asked for the money and the word persuaded would suggest against opposition from the Government. and this paragraph suggests that the order allowing officers to take the money had been rescinded.
As MacArthur biographer Geoffrey Perret has demonstrated, the payment was almost surely legal. And it's also true that given the dire situation on Corregidor, MacArthur might have assumed he'd never live to spend the money (although he had been informed as early as February 4, more than a week before the money was wired, that FDR was considering ordering him out).
The words almost surely would suggest that the legality could be doubted. Here we also have limited confirmation that Macarthur knew he would be taken out and as the families had been evacuated about this time it would also suggest why he had not sent his own out.

In a the final part of the same paragraph it says;
MacArthur either failed to see or chose to ignore the fact that accepting such a gift compromised him, and left him open to accusations -- true or not -- of being bought off.

I’m afraid this sentence suggests that the whole affair was in some way a little sordid.

I’m afraid that my statement of circumstantial evidence is corroborated by these articles

Mike I feel that from the tenure of this articles suggests that the author was using veiled and not so veiled criticism of MacArthur


Lightbob
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Re: The surprising fall of Singapore

#108

Post by Lightbob » 14 Sep 2010, 02:42

Rich Says
The problem here is that Lightbob is arguing with his usual lack of rationality that for some obscure reason the language barrier was or should have been a lesser problem between the Americans (because so many "probably" might have spoke Spanish ) and the Filipinos. Unfortunately the official American histories say exactly the opposite. That means that Lightbob logic now requires him to warp reality to fit to what he has claimed so that all remains right in his world; it's his SOP.[


With your usual slip of mind you are putting words in my mouth Considering that 30% of Filipinos spoke English in 1940 and at the same time 6 Million spoke Spanish plus approx 1.5 million spoke Chavacuno a Spanish derivative.
There are eight major dialects (not different languages) - Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilocano, Hiligaynon or Ilonggo, Bicol, Waray, Pampango, and Pangasinan all are a Malayo Polynesian and all have an English and Spanish contents, All are Malaya a language that is relatively easy to learn. These 8 dialects account for 67.5million of the population

Considering the military always mirrors civilian society how on earth did the Spanish rule the Philippines for 400 years and the US for almost 60, And how did an army of Filipinos of almost 100.000 fight US if it was all some tower of Babel

It may be that your historian is making excuses for the debacle.
I have read Louis Mortons 'The Fall of The Philippnes' A few things struck me that he deals with the PA and its difficiencies maily for the period of their embodyment in 1941. He failes to mention the neglect for the previous 6 years under MacArthur. He mentions the problem of the rifle being to big. but surely if the enfield was to big the alternatives would have been to big also. although he mentions the rifle once he speaks many times about faulty small arms ammunition and mortar bombs. he does not metion that in August 31, 1940: President Roosevelt calls 60,000 National Guardsmen into Federal service. Why not the PA?

Sid Guttridge
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Re: The surprising fall of Singapore

#109

Post by Sid Guttridge » 14 Sep 2010, 12:26

A quick glance at a general history of WWII in the East remarks that the Japanese met no significant resistance and suffered very few casualties before reaching Bataan. What were Japanese casualties before Bataan?

Hoist40
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Re: The surprising fall of Singapore

#110

Post by Hoist40 » 14 Sep 2010, 14:14

Lightbob wrote:
Considering the military always mirrors civilian society how on earth did the Spanish rule the Philippines for 400 years and the US for almost 60
The Spanish ruled central Philippines but the outlying parts was barely controlled. The US government separated the US Army from control of the Philippines soon after the conquest was over and created a separate civilian administration which was increasingly Philippine controlled. The US Army in the Philippines was isolated from the civilian Philippines. And the Philippine Army was isolated from the US Army. They had a different chain of command, different funding, different goals.
He failes to mention the neglect for the previous 6 years under MacArthur.
The first Philippine army recruits did not report for training until 1937 . So that would be five years, and they were not suppose to be responsible for defending the Philippines until 1946. It was only in late July 1941 that this plan was changed.
he does not metion that in August 31, 1940: President Roosevelt calls 60,000 National Guardsmen into Federal service. Why not the PA?
Because the Roosevelt administration/Army war plans did not want to divert resources away from the US Army mobilization in the US nor from supplying European allies and they also did not want in 1940 to provoke the Japanese. Both the US Army in the Philippines and the Philippine government recommended calling up the Philippine Army in 1940 but Roosevelt did not sign the order

RichTO90
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Re: The surprising fall of Singapore

#111

Post by RichTO90 » 15 Sep 2010, 00:04

Gee, it’s good to know that some things can always be relied upon.

Lightbob on 14 Sep 2010, 02:42 eructed with:
With your usual slip of mind you are putting words in my mouth Considering that 30% of Filipinos spoke English in 1940 and at the same time 6 Million spoke Spanish plus approx 1.5 million spoke Chavacuno a Spanish derivative.
There are eight major dialects (not different languages) - Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilocano, Hiligaynon or Ilonggo, Bicol, Waray, Pampango, and Pangasinan all are a Malayo Polynesian and all have an English and Spanish contents, All are Malaya a language that is relatively easy to learn. These 8 dialects account for 67.5million of the population”
First, ethnologist’s do identify them as languages, each having their own dialects; Tagalog for instance has Lubang, Manila, Marinduque, Bataan, Batangas, Bulacan, Puray, Tanay-Paete, and Tayabas. The actual classification is Austronesian, Malayo-Polynesian.

Next, oddly enough, my “slip of mind” was that Lightbob mangled the English language with the following on 17 Aug 2010, 23:49:
The UStrainers were supposed to have language difficulties whilst training Philipinos and this was used as a further excuse for poor performance. I would have thought after 40 odd years as a colony they would have had sufficient English speakers and considering the US involvment in Central America and a mexican border the US would have had many spanish speakers.
He was then queried as to why he would think that Spanish would be so important, which resulted in him hemming and hawing on 18 Aug 2010, 18:12 with:
Whilst training the Philipino Constabulary I learned that they speak about 170 languages or dialects but most can understand pidgin Malay Almost all could speak English The Catholics could speak Spanish Latin and English. But India has over 200 languages and dialects and the British raised arguably one of WW2s.
I’m sure we’re all still wondering just what it was that the British had “raised” that was arguably what “one of WW2s”? :roll: Or just what exactly that his experience with the Philippines’ “Constabulary”, whenever it may have been, had to do with the documented language problems between USFIP and the Philippine Army. :roll:

The next Lightbob utterance on 19 Aug 2010, 01:27 was:
The original question was I aware of how many languages were spoke in the Philippines and I did, I was a reasonable Malay speaker.
Why it is that now the important facts are not whether Spanish was a common language between the average US Army officer acting as an advisor with the Philippine Army and the average Filipino he interacted with as was documented at the time, but rather that Lightbob was a “reasonable Malay speaker”. Whenever that may have been. :roll: I leave the reader to wonder if this is a result of Lightbob’s chronic inability to stay on track and write coherently or if it is an attempt to shift the goalposts and distance himself from the awesome silliness of his original comment...not that his later comments are any less silly.

That little bit of lunacy was followed on 05 Sep 2010, 19:50 by:
On the topic of the formation of the PA and its Language. I have looked at the following history of the PA and its so called language problem

I refer you to; The Philippine Army, 1935-1942 By Ricardo Trota Jose

The Birth of the modern PA is said to be in 1896, Andres Bonifacio founded the Katipunan to prepare the Filipinos for armed revolt. The Katipunan formed the nucleus of the Revolutionary Philippine Army. The language of this infant army was Tagalog. Which was the language of commerce, higher education, the law, national administration and could therefore be understood by the majority of Filipinos.
Apparently Lightbob is unaware that selective clipping of source material to make it say something that it in fact does not say is idiotic at best, since anyone can look at the original source and evaluate its actual meaning, and, at worst, is blatantly dishonest. So, for example, Trota Jose actually says on page 203 when describing the actual problems encountered in the mobilization that:

“Apart from the shortage of experienced officers and key enlisted men, other immediate problems were practical; land an space, equipment, and language.”

And then goes on more specifically, after describing the major problems with regards to manpower, training, and equipment, to describe some specific language-related problems on page 205:

“There were language difficulties in many divisions. In one division, eleven Philippine languages were spoken among the men. The Fifty-first Division had mainly Tagalog officers who could not speak the Bicolano of their men; the American advisors spoke neither Tagalog nor Bicolano; and several of the Filipinos knew but little English.”

Oh, BTW, the “Revolutionary Philippine Army”, the Katipunan, was not the Philippine Army that was mobilized in 1941; Trota Jose is evoking the revolutionary movement against the Spanish of Rizal and Bonifacio, but after Rizal was executed by the Spanish and Bonifacio by Aguinaldo, it was effectively replaced by Aguinaldo’s organization. And, even more oddly, I can’t find an actual source for that quote in Trota Jose’s work. Gee, I wonder if Lightbob was working from yet another unattributed source talking about what they thought was said, just like the little snippet on the Philippine languages he lifted from someone else?

Lightbob of course couldn’t resist adding on 05 Sep 2010, 21:17:
That the main language was of Malay origine (Tagalog) but many could speak English Spanish and even latin (Convent educated I suppose) In fact it was almost 30% who could speak either English or Spanish
However, the 1939 census showed that only 22.1% of the 16,000,303 Filipinos spoke Tagalog, while 77.9% spoke non-Tagalog Philippine languages (31.2% spoke Bisayan for example). Overall, 25% of all Filipinos spoke one of the 170+ languages found in the Philippines as their native language and at least one other language, but of course that means that 75% spoke only their native tongue. Of those that spoke more than one language, 26.6% spoke English, which was the language of the aristocracy and the civil service, where it had displaced Spanish. In Dagupan 36% of the population were bilingual in English and Pangasian and 20% were bilingual in Tagalog and Pangasian, but that doesn’t mean that 56% spoke English, Pangasian, and Tagalog, which is apparently the logic that Lightbob follows (the notion he implied that Malay languages are so similar that they can be inter-spoken is facile to say the least; Pangasian is 47% cognate with Tagalog, but English is 59% cognate with German).

BTW, in 1940 1.5% of Americans spoke Spanish as their native language and its estimated that about the same number spoke it as a second language. In the Army I know that Terry Allen and Pete Quesada spoke Spanish, but beyond that I doubt it was that common.

As far as the schooling goes 5,135 schools taught in English, 448 in Spanish, 90 in both English and Spanish, and 837 in other native languages...of course to keep that in perspective, it should be remembered that 48.8% of the population over the age of 10 was illiterate.

BTW, if you would like a truthful accounting of what Trota Jose actually said the best source is to go to his account of the mobilization http://books.google.com/books?[url]http ... ge&f=false[/url] pp. 203-205.
Richard Anderson
Cracking Hitler's Atlantic Wall: the 1st Assault Brigade Royal Engineers on D-Day
Stackpole Books, 2009.

RichTO90
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Re: The surprising fall of Singapore

#112

Post by RichTO90 » 15 Sep 2010, 15:16

RichTO90 wrote:BTW, in 1940 1.5% of Americans spoke Spanish as their native language and its estimated that about the same number spoke it as a second language. In the Army I know that Terry Allen and Pete Quesada spoke Spanish, but beyond that I doubt it was that common.
I reviewed the occasionally confusing Census pages and realized this is incomplete. 1.5% of Americans spoke Spanish as their native language of a population where 3.7% were foreign-born of Hispanic origin and 12.4% were native-born of Hispanic origin. In other words, in 1940 although 16.1% of the population were of Hispanic heritage, only 1.5% actually spoke Spanish as their native tongue. Note that in 2008 although the percentage of those of Hispanic origin remained nearly the same at 16%, at least 12% of the US population over the age of 5 spoke Spanish at home and over half of those spoke English "very well", an interesting commentary on the power of assimilation in American society in the first half of the 20th century as compared to the second half.

I will now return you to the normal lunacy of this thread. :lol:
Richard Anderson
Cracking Hitler's Atlantic Wall: the 1st Assault Brigade Royal Engineers on D-Day
Stackpole Books, 2009.

Lightbob
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Re: The surprising fall of Singapore

#113

Post by Lightbob » 16 Sep 2010, 00:06

Rich says
I’m sure we’re all still wondering just what it was that the British had “raised” that was arguably what “one of WW2s”? Or just what exactly that his experience with the Philippines’ “Constabulary”, whenever it may have been, had to do with the documented language problems between USFIP and the Philippine Army.

Firstly I commanded an Iban (Borneo Malay) Combat tracking team on operations in Malaya and Borneo. To do so I had to have a working knowledge of Malay and I could converse with Malays, Iban, Brunei Malays Indonesians and Filipinos. As an instructor at the Jungle Warfare Schoo, we trained 40 Allied students per course for 6 courses per year. On each course we had several Americans inc on one course Lt Col Van Horn the Commander designate of the US Jungle school in Panama, I mention him because he used to talk to the PC students in Spanish as did all the US Officers and NCOs of Hispanic decent. In a second tour in Malaya my platoon was attached to the RN for anti piracy patrols between the Philippines and Borneo in the South China sea. I never met one Filipino fisherman who could not understand Malaya

Rich says
in 1940 although 16.1% of the population were of Hispanic heritage, only 1.5% actually spoke Spanish as their native tongue.
Your figures as usual are gobbledy gook and are worth less! Taking your figures at face value The population of the US in 1940 was 132,164,569. With out working it out properly I would suggest that is almost 9 million native Spanish speakers. However Spanish as Native tongue I assume means born in the US and are US citizens (but how many Hispanic spoke Spanish as a second language?) What about all the Latinos who were nor US citizens and would be speaking Spanish as their native language? I don’t suppose that of the 132million Americans ever bothered to learn Spanish as a second language.

However according to the 1903 Filipino census there was 1% of the population were Spanish Born or decent However the census ignored the Mestizo they would have brought together with other national speaking Spanish to a total of 10% speaking Spanish as their first language. Between 1890 and 1940, 70% of the Filipino population made daily use of the Spanish language as a second language. Of course I should mention again that 30% of Filipinos spoke English From 1889 to 1980 800,000 Amerasian children were born in the Philippines and at any time there was between 20 to 30,000 living in the Philippines. Please read the following

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filipino_language


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_s ... hilippines


As Tagalog was the language of Commerce, further education, The Law and administration 22 million spoke it and almost everybody could understand it. It contained many imported Spanish and English words and phrases.
Col. Clifford Bluemel paints a poor picture of the PA language problem in the official history. But speaks only for one division, and even so there is nothing wrong that training and organisation would not have put right. But perhaps if the PS had have been incorporated into the PA from the beginning the language problem would have been sorted The Scouts did not seem to have a problem neither the PC The Regular division seemed to manage too. I can not under stand the statement that the Scouts had sworn allegiance to the US and could not be used by a foreign country (the Philippines). MacArthur seemed to think that the PA was OK he refused a National Guard division as reinforcement. His staff officers directed to supervise the the forming of the PA, Eisenhower included gave the infant army a good rap!

Earlier mobilization would have solved the problem. The weakness of the Philippines Garrison was incompetence at all levels The British had their problems with incompetence but at least the official history is honest about it.

Rich says;
I’m sure we’re all still wondering just what it was that the British had “raised” that was arguably what “one of WW2s”?
Sorry about that I should have said was arguably one of WW2 best and certainly formed the major part of the single largest and successful allied army in the war.

Lightbob
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Re: The surprising fall of Singapore

#114

Post by Lightbob » 16 Sep 2010, 00:23

Hoist says
The Spanish ruled central Philippines but the outlying parts was barely controlled. The US government separated the US Army from control of the Philippines soon after the conquest was over and created a separate civilian administration which was increasingly Philippine controlled. The US Army in the Philippines was isolated from the civilian Philippines. And the Philippine Army was isolated from the US Army. They had a different chain of command, different funding,
In any well run colony the armed forces were always under the control of the civilian administrators. But you miss a very important point that answers many of the language problems In each area there would be Malay speaking Americans and also many English speaking Filipinos, these would have or should have been incorporated into the PA and if the recruits were recruited from specific areas they would have their own Officers and NCOs from the same area. If MacArthur was stupid enough to ignore the language problem,if their was one from 1936 when the Officers and NCO instructors began training. he should have been shot for taking the half million. By the way only approx 10,000 were new recruits the rest of the PA were apart from the regular divisions who were full time reservists

Hoist goes on to say
they also did not want in 1940 to provoke the Japanese. Both the US Army in the Philippines and the Philippine government recommended calling up the Philippine Army in 1940 but Roosevelt did not sign the order.
But, America set the wheels of war turning a long time before look at the following web site which is a review of 'A Time For War: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Path to Pearl Harbor', by Robert Smith Thompson.

http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v16/v16n2p25_Bishop.html


America had persuaded Britain to renounce its own 1901 treaty with Japan. America had required Japan to evacuate the Shantung Peninsula, occupied during World War I, and to return customs control and sovereignty to China. America had demanded, and gotten, cable rights on Yap [Island] in the Pacific. America had forced Japan to leave Siberia, which the Japanese had invaded in 1919, and to give the Soviets the northern half of Sakhalin Island.

Later it says

During 1937-1941, all these factors contributed to the erosion of the remnants of United States neutrality. Writes Thompson (p. 39):
In the mid-1930s, Congress had passed a series of neutrality acts, requiring belligerent countries to pay cash for whatever they bought in the States and to ship such goods in their own vessels (the cash-and-carry principle) -- and requiring the president, when two foreign countries were in a state of war, to declare an arms embargo. Since Japan could produce its own weapons, however, and China could not, having to make purchases overseas, an embargo would hurt China more than it would hurt Japan. So Roosevelt made a move that was not a move. He decided that he would "find" no war. He would wink at the sale of arms to China.

Of course in 1940 plans were made to aid China physically by covertly sending aircraft and fliers to fight for China. I cannot think how the mobilising a a weak untrained militia who could not speak to one and other, armed with a rifle that was too heavy no machine guns or artillery etc in the Philippines would have been a greater provocation than the mobilizing of the National Guard in the US.

Hoist40
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Re: The surprising fall of Singapore

#115

Post by Hoist40 » 16 Sep 2010, 01:08

Lightbob wrote:.
and if the recruits were recruited from specific areas they would have their own Officers and NCOs from the same area.
Officers were chosen by the Philippine government since they were in charge of the Philippine Army. And since most educated Philippine people came from around Manila and since that was the political base for the government that is who mostly got chosen.

Remember, the Philippine Army was not a colonial army, it was created to be the independent army of the Philippines of the soon to be independent Philippines (1946) And so the Philippine government had a lot of control over how that army was manned, paid, financed and built. That is why there was little formal connection between the US Army and the Philippine Army.
By the way only approx 10,000 were new recruits the rest of the PA were apart from the regular divisions who were full time reservists
If you mean by “full time reservists” that they got six months of very basic infantry training and then for the most part got no other training until they were called up after Sept 1941 then I agree. If you mean by “full time reservists” that they were full time soldiers then they were not.
So Roosevelt made a move that was not a move. He decided that he would "find" no war. He would wink at the sale of arms to China.
Since neither Japan nor China officially considered themselves at war at that time then how could Japan object to arms being sold since they themselves did not declare war on China.
I cannot think how the mobilising a a weak untrained militia who could not speak to one and other, armed with a rifle that was too heavy no machine guns or artillery etc in the Philippines would have been a greater provocation than the mobilizing of the National Guard in the US.
Personally I think that Roosevelt should have called up the Philippine Army in 1940. But in 1940 he was fixated on Europe.

RichTO90
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Re: The surprising fall of Singapore

#116

Post by RichTO90 » 16 Sep 2010, 03:45

Lightbob wrote:Firstly I commanded an Iban (Borneo Malay) Combat tracking team on operations in Malaya and Borneo. To do so I had to have a working knowledge of Malay and I could converse with Malays, Iban, Brunei Malays Indonesians and Filipinos. As an instructor at the Jungle Warfare Schoo, we trained 40 Allied students per course for 6 courses per year. On each course we had several Americans inc on one course Lt Col Van Horn the Commander designate of the US Jungle school in Panama, I mention him because he used to talk to the PC students in Spanish as did all the US Officers and NCOs of Hispanic decent. In a second tour in Malaya my platoon was attached to the RN for anti piracy patrols between the Philippines and Borneo in the South China sea. I never met one Filipino fisherman who could not understand Malaya
That's fascinating, although you have yet to tell us the fundamental fact that you have skipped around for a while that might possibly make your interesting tale have some relevence to the subject at hand...were you doing this in 1941 in the Philippines? And, if the answer is NO, as I would suspect, then WHEN and WHERE did you actually have these experiences? Or is this anything more than anecdotal and unconfirmed personal experience that you had sometime in the 20th century that has some tenuous connection to the difficulties that were documented by the US Army and the Filipino Army history that YOU introduced? Which I now note has mysteriously disappeared from your argument... :roll:
Your figures as usual are gobbledy gook and are worth less! Taking your figures at face value The population of the US in 1940 was 132,164,569. With out working it out properly I would suggest that is almost 9 million native Spanish speakers. However Spanish as Native tongue I assume means born in the US and are US citizens (but how many Hispanic spoke Spanish as a second language?) What about all the Latinos who were nor US citizens and would be speaking Spanish as their native language? I don’t suppose that of the 132million Americans ever bothered to learn Spanish as a second language.
"Without working it out properly"? Why am I so unsurprised? :lol: They aren't "my figures", they're the figures from the US Census for 1940. So frankly I don't give a fig if you do or don't take them at "face value". Which gives the population as 131,669,275...where did your figure come from? It also defines "mother tongue" in the context of the Census as, "the principal language spoken in the home of the person in his earliest childhood"...so place of birth has absolutely nothing to do with it since we could expect that if they were raised with that language as their home language they would retain some facility in it. The actual figure for Spanish as a mother tongue in the US was 1,861,400. Given that the figure for German was twice that, then by your "logic" the Americans should have had no problem conversing with the Germans either. :roll:

BTW, the Census is of population and not strictly of citizenship, the count includes resident aliens as well.
However according to the 1903 Filipino census there was 1% of the population were Spanish Born or decent However the census ignored the Mestizo they would have brought together with other national speaking Spanish to a total of 10% speaking Spanish as their first language. Between 1890 and 1940, 70% of the Filipino population made daily use of the Spanish language as a second language. Of course I should mention again that 30% of Filipinos spoke English From 1889 to 1980 800,000 Amerasian children were born in the Philippines and at any time there was between 20 to 30,000 living in the Philippines. Please read the following
Pray tell, why is the 1903 Philippine Census of precedent over the 1939 Census and the documentation in the history of the Philippine and US armies? And I read the following, which, like most Wiki articles, is very obviously agenda driven. So now your former claim that "almost 30% who could speak either English or Spanish" is that "30% of Filipinos spoke English" (the actual 1939 Census figure was 26.6%) and that "70% of the Filipino population made daily use of the Spanish language"? Can't you even be bothered to keep your own figures straight?
As Tagalog was the language of Commerce, further education, The Law and administration 22 million spoke it
Er, really? Are you just making this shite up as you go along? Just how do "22 million" speak it when the population of the Philippines in 1939 was 16,000,303? :roll: And the Census showed that 22.1% spoke it? In other words, 3,536,067...if you want to "work it out properely". Or did you just decide that "22" as millions was just as good a figure as it would be as a percentage? :roll:

(snip the rest of the inanity)
Richard Anderson
Cracking Hitler's Atlantic Wall: the 1st Assault Brigade Royal Engineers on D-Day
Stackpole Books, 2009.

Tom from Cornwall
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Re: The surprising fall of Singapore

#117

Post by Tom from Cornwall » 16 Sep 2010, 16:51

I thought this thread was about Singapore? :lol:

And then I started to read, and oh dear, we seem to be launched into another trans-Atlantic "willy-waving" competition. :roll: :roll:

BTW could anyone recommend a good book about Singapore that explains what went so horribly, horribly wrong? Whatever anyone says, it is hard, from this distance in time and from the comfort of my 'armchair', not to feel that Wavell was probably right when he said that British troops were not fighting as hard in the Second as they had in the First World War.That shouldn't be taken as giving the troops themselves any disrespect, as later they certainly did fight a lot better - it's trying to understand why, not criticising them, that is of historical interest. I feel especially sorry for the boys of 18th Division - months onboard ship and then thrown into a losing battle. Poor buggers!

BTW if it was so hard for the Americans and Fillipino's to talk to each other, why didn't they ask some barmaids to help, they can always speak English!!

Regards

Tom

RichTO90
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Re: The surprising fall of Singapore

#118

Post by RichTO90 » 16 Sep 2010, 17:15

Tom from Cornwall wrote:I thought this thread was about Singapore? :lol:
It seems that someone got their hands on a Threadjacker 2000™ and isn't afraid to use it... :roll: 8-) :lol:
And then I started to read, and oh dear, we seem to be launched into another trans-Atlantic "willy-waving" competition. :roll: :roll:
It's what happens when thoughtless jingoism is used as a substitute for logic, good sense, and honesty... :x
BTW could anyone recommend a good book about Singapore that explains what went so horribly, horribly wrong?
Perhaps surprisingly, the Australian history, available online - as are all the Aussie Great War and WWII histories, along with a steadily increasing number of war diaries :D - at the Australian War Memorial site http://www.awm.gov.au, is very even-handed. Otherwise, from what I have read, Alan Warren's Britain's Greatest Defeat is quite good, Karl Hack and Kevin Blackburn's Did Singapore have to Fall? is short and interesting, but somewhat polemical, James Leasor's Singapore: the Battle That Changed the World mainly suffers from an over-the-top title that says something of the slightly skewed worldview that goes with it, Ian Hamill's Strategic Illusion is a detailed accounting of the lead-up from the Washington Naval Treaty to the battle, and there are many others.

I also have jpegs of the relevent casualty accounting for the Commonwealth forces from Kew if you are interested?

Cheers!
Richard Anderson
Cracking Hitler's Atlantic Wall: the 1st Assault Brigade Royal Engineers on D-Day
Stackpole Books, 2009.

Hoist40
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Posts: 215
Joined: 30 Oct 2009, 17:59

Re: The surprising fall of Singapore

#119

Post by Hoist40 » 16 Sep 2010, 19:11

A book about Singapore that I found interesting was

“The Rise and Fall of the Singapore Naval Base” by W David McIntyre

It does cover the battle but it is mostly about the plans, financing, politics and defense of Singapore prior to the war.

Tom from Cornwall
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Joined: 01 May 2006, 20:52
Location: UK

Re: The surprising fall of Singapore

#120

Post by Tom from Cornwall » 16 Sep 2010, 21:28

Rich,

"And then I started to read, and oh dear, we seem to be launched into another trans-Atlantic "willy-waving" competition. "

It's what happens when thoughtless jingoism is used as a substitute for logic, good sense, and honesty...
I think you'll find that we British do 'thoughtless jingoism' to a much higher standard than you chaps across the Atlantic, although, with practice, and if you follow our advice and let us command you, your young nation may also one day achieve what it has taken us centuries to perfect. :D :D :lol: :lol:

BTW I agree about the Australian OH - have read quite a chunk of it on line, and was impressed. I thought the volumes about the desert war were also good stuff.

"Singapore: the Battle That Changed the World" - will have to put that on the shelf next to all the other "Battles that changed the World" books, right next to "String Vests: The Underwear that won the British Empire!"

"jpegs of the relevent casualty accounting for the Commonwealth forces from Kew" does sound interesting. How reliable do you think they are given the chaos into which the garrison fell?

Hoist40,

“The Rise and Fall of the Singapore Naval Base” by W David McIntyre.

Sounds interesting and good for the historical context, rather than those books which start on 7 Dec 1941. Cheers for the recommend.

Tom

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