"Once again I am presenting the work of a guest reviewer as I continue to bash away at work and deadlines. As I'm still reading when I get the chance, the pile of books to have reviews written for them continues to grow. Ooh, there's some good stuff to write about (and some indifferent stuff too!). Anyway, here is Peter Ingman's take on Graham Clayton's 'Last Stand in Singapore'. This book is the first part of Graham's 488 Squadron RNZAF history, with the most recent instalment being 2019's 'Gone the Dark Night' from Bomber Command Books. Being a lesser known squadron in the great scheme of things makes for both books being valuable additions to the bibliography, but 'Last Stand in Singapore', as you can tell from the title, ups the obscurity stakes. Despite the groundbreaking efforts of Shores and Cull et al, the aerial defence of Malaya and Singapore remains a somewhat forgotten, even incorrectly remembered, aspect of the air war with the Japanese. That's why this book needs to be on your shelves if it's not already. Andy Wright
The Malaya and Singapore campaign lasted barely ten weeks at the start of the Pacific War and has been a source of much controversy and fascination ever since. How could more than 100,000 Commonwealth personnel be defeated so comprehensively by a much smaller Japanese force?
Perhaps the most well regarded source on the air campaign, the Bloody Shambles series, provides a far from subtle hint about the myriad of problems faced by the defenders in its title. A fresh new perspective on this campaign is given by Last Stand in Singapore, which is the story of 488 Squadron RNZAF. An attractive feature of this book is that it gives almost an outsider's perspective of the campaign. This is because, unlike the RAF and RAAF units, as the sole New Zealand unit involved it was not subsumed by the greater campaign experience of the many thousands of ground, air and naval personnel…"
Full Review here
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Amicalement
Armand
