Yes, Yamashita may have conducted his Singapore operation with only 30,000, but these are 30,000 combat troops from the Guards, 5th and 18th divisions (all of which did an outstanding job throughout the campaign) It would presumably not include the 'tail' of the divisions, of which the later two were square divisions and would have had full divisional strengths in excess of 21,000 men, with a frontline rifleman strength of roughly 9,500. However comparing this figure to the total number of Allied casualties by making a straight numerical comparison is opening one up to the same tactic that Churchill used in a cable to Wavell in February just prior to SIngapore falling. A majority of the Allied personnel were not front line combat personnel. Using the Australian 8th division by way of example: At the commencement of the Singapore operation the Australian contingent numbered over 17,000. Yet the unit was a 2 brigade division, which equates to a front line rifleman strength of roughly 3,000 only. Scratch battalions, such as the Snake Gully Rifles, were made up out of some of the corps personnel such as the Signallers. But this still left many thousands of non-combat personnel such as nurses going into the bag.
I would also like to take a look at the Casualty figures that Mars lists.
These figures for the Allies cover the entire Malaya/ Singapore losses for the Allies but cover only the Singapore campaign losses for the Japanese.About 8000 allied troops were killed in the Malasyia-Singapore campaign, the Japaness loss were minimal, they only lossed about 1700 killed and 3400 wounded.
Full Japanese Battle casualties for the Malaya/Singapore campaign were 9,824 (Killed & wounded). Of this the Japanese losses in the assault on Singapore amounted to 1,714 killed and 3,378 wounded. The Allied losses during the campaign were a little over 8,000 but this total includes killed and wounded, not just killed. For example the losses of the Australian contingent were 1,306 wounded and 1,789 killed. (Source: Wigmore, 'The Japanese Thrust')
The vast majority of the Imperial Guards division arrived by train through Thailand. This lessened the need on transports!Yamashita could not land 110,000 troops by sea due to a shortage of transports.
Having said all that, I still think it is hats off to the Japanese. They fought a brilliant campaign against the inept one fought by the Allies.
. By way of example Such a thing happened with artillery pieces. In mid December the Australian artillery was upgraded from 18 pdrs to 25 pounders. Now the Australian battalions took on a full quota of 25 pounders and failed to return all the 18 pounders, as they were sufficiently over strength in personnel to man an extra 2 batteries. The Australian OH refers to this as initiative on the part of the commander. The British OH's refer to it as looting. The Indian OH's were just glad they did it as the extra fire power was used to help their troops.
