Lieutenant-General Arthur Ernest Percival, (26 December 1887 – 31 January 1966) was a British Army officer. He saw service in the First World War and built a successful military career during the interwar period, but is best known for his defeat in the Second World War, when Percival commanded British Commonwealth forces during the Malayan campaign, which culminated in a catastrophic defeat at the Battle of Singapore.
Percival's surrender to the invading Imperial Japanese Army, which was the largest of its kind in British military history, significantly undermined Britain's prestige and military position in East Asia. Some historians, such as Sir John Smyth, have argued that under-funding of British Malaya's defences and the inexperienced, under-equipped nature of the Commonwealth forces in Malaya, not Percival's leadership, were ultimately to blame for the defeat.
Early days
Childhood and employment
Arthur Ernest Percival was born on 26 December 1887 in Aspenden Lodge, Aspenden near Buntingford in Hertfordshire, England, the second son of Alfred Reginald and Edith Percival (née Miller). His father was the land agent of the Hamel's Park estate and his mother came from a Lancashire cotton family. By 1891 the family was living in nearby Thundridge at "Sprangewell" on Poles Lane, his father being listed as "Land Agent" in the 1891 census, although it is unclear if this is still for Hamel's Park, or for E.S. Hanbury's Poles estate (now "Hanbury Manor"), which is adjacent to Sprangewell.
Percival was initially schooled locally in Bengeo. Then in 1901, he was sent to Rugby with his more academically successful brother, where he was a boarder in School House. A moderate pupil, he studied Greek and Latin but was described by a teacher as "not a good classic". Percival's only qualification on leaving in 1906 was a higher school certificate. He was a more successful sportsman, playing cricket and tennis and running cross country. He also rose to colour sergeant in the school's Volunteer Rifle Corps. However, his military career began at a comparatively late age: although a member of Youngsbury Rifle Club, he was working as a clerk for the iron ore merchants Naylor, Benzon & Company Limited in London, which he had joined in 1914, when the First World War broke out.
Enlistment and First World War
Percival enlisted on the first day of the war as a private in the Officer Training Corps of the Inns of Court, at the age of 26, and was promoted after five weeks' basic training to temporary second lieutenant. Nearly one third of his fellow recruits would be dead by the end of the war. By November Percival had been promoted to captain. The following year he was dispatched to France with the newly formed 7th (Service) Battalion of the Bedfordshire Regiment (later the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment),
thumb|left|Near [[Thiepval, 7 August. Photo by Ernest Brooks.]]
Percival took a regular commission as a captain with the Essex Regiment in October 1916, whilst recovering from his injuries in hospital. He was appointed a temporary major in his original regiment. In 1917, he became a battalion commander with the temporary rank of lieutenant-colonel. During Germany's Spring Offensive, Percival led a counter-attack that saved a unit of French artillery from capture, winning a Croix de Guerre. For a short period in May 1918, he acted as commander of the 54th Brigade. He was given brevet promotion to major, and awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO), with his citation stating the following:
He ended the war, which came to an end on 11 November 1918 due to the Armistice with Germany, as a respected soldier, described as "very efficient" and was recommended for the Staff College.
Interwar period
Russia
Percival's studies were delayed in 1919 when he decided to volunteer for service with the Archangel Command of the British Military Mission during the North Russia intervention of the Russian Civil War. Acting as second-in-command of the 45th Royal Fusiliers, he earned a bar to his DSO in August, when his attack in the Gorodok operation along the Northern Dvina resulted in the British capture of 400 Red Army troops. The citation reads:
<blockquote>He commanded the Gorodok column on 9–10 August 1919, with great gallantry and skill, and owing to the success of this column the forces on the right bank of the Dvina were able to capture all its objectives. During the enemy counter-attack from Selmenga on Gorodok he handled his men excellently. The enemy were repulsed with great loss, leaving 400 prisoners in our hands.</blockquote>
Irish War of Independence
thumb|Percival in Ireland
In 1920, Percival was deployed to Ireland and fought against the Irish Republican Army (IRA) during the Irish War of Independence, first as a company commander and later as the intelligence officer of the 1st Essex Regiment. He was stationed in Bandon and Kinsale in County Cork. In December 1920 the Commander in Chief of British forces in Ireland (Nevil Macready) informed the British Cabinet that "official reprisals" had been authorized in areas under martial law. Percival proved to be an energetic counterinsurgency commander who was noted for his aptitude for intelligence-gathering and establishment of bicycle infantry formations which acted as flying columns. He was also accused by several IRA prisoners of using torture during interrogations. As a result, Percival became one of the most hated British commanders in Ireland at the time and survived three assassination attempts by the IRA. The IRA had promised a £1,000 reward to whoever captured or killed Percival.
Following the IRA killing of a Royal Irish Constabulary sergeant outside a Bandon church in July 1920, Percival captured Tom Hales, the commander of the IRA's 3rd Cork Brigade, and Patrick Harte, the brigade's quartermaster, for which he was given an OBE. Both Hales and Harte subsequently claimed they had been tortured while in custody, and according to IRA commander Tom Barry, Harte received a severe blow with a rifle butt to his temple causing a brain injury and died in a mental hospital in 1925 as a result. British intelligence officer and later British fascist Ormonde Winter subsequently alleged that Hales had informed on the IRA while in British custody and had invented his allegations to deflect attention away from his decision to provide the names of fellow IRA members in return for a lesser sentence.
On 4 February 1921, while participating a raid carried out by British forces between Bandon and Kilbrittain, Percival shot and killed IRA volunteer Patrick Crowley Jr. When Crowley, who was being treated for appendicitis, tried to flee from a house in Maryboro, Percival chased him on foot and shot him in the back. Barry later wrote that Percival was "easily the most vicious anti-Irish of all serving British officers". David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill met Percival in 1921, when he was called as an expert witness during an inquiry into the Irish War of Independence.
Percival would later deliver a series of lectures on his experiences in Ireland in which he stressed the importance of surprise and offensive action, intelligence-gathering, maintaining security and co-operation between different security forces. Historian J. B. E. Hittle wrote that of all the British officers in Ireland "Percival stood out for his violent, sadistic behaviour towards IRA prisoners, suspects and innocent civilians... He also participated in reprisals, burning farms and businesses in response to IRA attacks. Percival was said to regularly drive in the countryside in an open touring car so he could "have cockshots at farmers working in the fields". It is possible that Percival was influenced by the then British Army Captain Bernard Montgomery who wrote to Percival regarding tactics he used to combat the Irish rebels: "My own view is that to win a war of this sort, you must be ruthless. Oliver Cromwell, or the Germans, would have settled it in a very short time. Clifford Kinvig, Percival's biographer considers him to have been unfairly vilified by Irish republican propaganda due to being "tireless in his attempt to destroy the spirit of the people and the organisation of the IRA".
Staff officer
Percival attended the Staff College, Camberley, from 1923 to 1924, which had Major-General Edmund Ironside as its Commandant, where he was taught by J. F. C. Fuller, who was one of the few sympathetic reviewers of his book, The War in Malaya, twenty-five years later. He impressed his instructors, who picked him out as one of eight students for accelerated promotion, and his fellow students who admired his cricketing skills. Following an appointment as major with the Cheshire Regiment, he spent four years with the Nigeria Regiment of the Royal West African Frontier Force in West Africa as a staff officer. He was given brevet promotion to lieutenant-colonel in 1929.
thumb|right|The Royal Naval College, where Percival studied in 1930
In 1930, Percival spent a year studying at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich. From 1931 to 1932, Percival was a General Staff Officer Grade 2, an instructor at the Staff College. The college's commandant was by now Major-General Sir John Dill, who became Percival's mentor over the next decade, helping to ensure his protégé's advancement. Dill regarded Percival as a promising officer and wrote that "he has an outstanding ability, wide military knowledge, good judgment and is a very quick and accurate worker" but added "he has not altogether an impressive presence and one may therefore fail, at first meeting him, to appreciate his sterling worth". With Dill's support, Percival was appointed to command the 2nd Battalion, the Cheshire Regiment from 1932 to 1936, initially in Malta. In 1935, he attended the Imperial Defence College in London. and until 1938 he was General Staff Officer Grade 1 in Malaya, the Chief of Staff to General Dobbie, the General Officer Commanding in Malaya. During this time, he recognised that Singapore was no longer an isolated fortress. He considered the possibility of the Japanese landing in Thailand to "burgle Malaya by the backdoor and conducted an appraisal of the possibility of an attack being launched on Singapore from the North, which was supplied to the War Office, and which Percival subsequently felt was similar to the plan followed by the Japanese in 1941. He also supported Dobbie's unexecuted plan for the construction of fixed defences in Southern Johore. In March 1938, Percival returned to Britain and was (temporarily) promoted to brigadier on the General Staff, Aldershot Command.
Second World War
thumb|left|General [[John Dill|Sir John Dill, GOC I Corps, inspecting soldiers digging trenches at Flines, France. Stood three away from is his BGS, Brigadier Arthur Percival.]]
Percival was appointed brigadier, General Staff, of the I Corps, British Expeditionary Force, commanded by General Dill, from 1939 to 1940. He was then promoted to acting major-general, and in February 1940 briefly became General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division. He was made Assistant Chief of the Imperial General Staff at the War Office in 1940 but asked for a transfer to an active command after the Dunkirk evacuation. Given command of the 44th (Home Counties) Division, he spent 9 months organising the protection of of the English coast from invasion. He was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in the 1941 King's Birthday Honours.
Percival's early assessment of the vulnerability of Singapore
thumb|right|Lieutenant-General Percival arriving by aircraft in Singapore in 1941 as the new General Officer Commanding Malaya
In 1936, Major-General William Dobbie, then General Officer Commanding (Malaya), had made an inquiry into whether more forces were required on mainland Malaya to prevent the Japanese from establishing forward bases to attack Singapore. Percival, then his Chief Staff Officer, had been tasked to draw up a tactical assessment of how the Japanese were most likely to attack.
In late 1937, his analysis had duly confirmed that north Malaya might become the critical battleground. The Japanese were likely to seize the east coast landing sites on Thailand and Malaya in order to capture aerodromes and achieve air superiority. This could serve as a prelude to further Japanese landings in Johore to disrupt communications northwards and enable the construction of another main base in North Borneo. From there, the final sea and air assault could be launched against eastern Singapore – in particular the Changi area.
General Officer Commanding (Malaya)
In April 1941 Percival was promoted to acting Lieutenant-General, and was appointed General Officer Commanding (GOC) Malaya. This was a significant promotion for him as he had never commanded an army corps although he had previous experience there.
He left Britain in a Sunderland flying boat and embarked on an arduous fortnight-long, multi-stage flight via Gibraltar, Malta, Alexandria (where he was delayed by the Anglo-Iraqi War), Basra, Karachi, and Rangoon, where he was met by an RAF transport.
On arrival, Percival set about training his inexperienced army; his Indian troops were particularly raw, with most of their experienced officers having been withdrawn to support the formation of new units as the Indian army expanded. Relying upon commercial aircraft or the Volunteer air force to overcome the shortage of RAF planes, he toured the peninsula and encouraged the building of defensive works around Jitra. A training manual approved by Percival, Tactical Notes on Malaya, was distributed to all units.
In July 1941 when the Japanese occupied southern Indochina, Britain, the United States and the Netherlands imposed economic sanctions, freezing Japanese financial assets and cutting Japan from its supplies of oil, tin and rubber. This ABCD Encirclement aimed at pressuring Japan to abandon its involvement in China; instead, the Japanese government planned to seize the resources of South-East Asia from the European nations by force. Both the Japanese navy and army were mobilised, but for the moment an uneasy state of cold war persisted. British Commonwealth reinforcements continued to trickle into Malaya. On 2 December, the battleship HMS Prince of Wales and the battle-cruiser HMS Repulse, escorted by four destroyers, arrived in Singapore, the first time a battle fleet had been based there. (They were to have been accompanied by the aircraft carrier to provide air cover but she had run aground in the Caribbean en route.) The following day Rear-Admiral Spooner hosted a dinner attended by the newly arrived Commander-in-Chief Eastern Fleet, Admiral Sir Tom Phillips, and Percival.
Japanese attack and British surrender
thumb|350px|Malaya Command and the [[Japanese invasion of Malaya]]
On 8 December 1941 the Japanese 25th Army under the command of Lieutenant-General Tomoyuki Yamashita launched an amphibious assault on the Malay Peninsula (one hour before the attack on Pearl Harbor; the difference in date was because the two places lie on opposite sides of the International Date Line). That night the first Japanese invasion force arrived at Kota Bharu on Malaya's east coast. This was just a diversionary force, and the main landings took place the next day at Singora and Pattani on the south-eastern coast of Thailand, with troops rapidly deploying over the border into northern Malaya.
On 10 December Percival issued a stirring, if ultimately ineffective, Special Order of the Day:
<blockquote>In this hour of trial the General Officer Commanding calls upon all ranks Malaya Command for a determined and sustained effort to safeguard Malaya and the adjoining British territories. The eyes of the Empire are upon us. Our whole position in the Far East is at stake. The struggle may be long and grim but let us all resolve to stand fast come what may and to prove ourselves worthy of the great trust which has been placed in us.</blockquote>
thumb|[[Royal Engineers prepare to blow up a bridge during the retreat.]]
The Japanese advanced rapidly, and on 27 January 1942 Percival ordered a general retreat across the Johore Strait to the island of Singapore and organised a defence along the length of the island's coast line. But the Japanese did not dawdle, and on 8 February Japanese troops landed on the northwest corner of Singapore island. After a week of fighting on the island, Percival held his final command conference at 9 am on 15 February in the Battle Box of Fort Canning. The Japanese had already occupied approximately half of Singapore and it was clear that the island would soon fall. Having been told that ammunition and water would both run out by the following day, Percival agreed to surrender. The Japanese at this point were running low on artillery shells, but Percival did not know this.
The Japanese insisted that Percival himself march under a white flag to the Old Ford Motor Factory in Bukit Timah to negotiate the surrender. A Japanese officer present noted that he looked "pale, thin and tired". After a brief disagreement, when Percival insisted that the British keep 1,000 men under arms in Singapore to preserve order, which Yamashita finally conceded, it was agreed at 6:10 pm that all British Commonwealth troops would lay down their arms and cease resistance at 8:30 pm. This was in spite of instructions from Prime Minister Winston Churchill for prolonged resistance. In The War in Malaya Percival himself cites this as the major factor for the defeat stating that the 'war material which might have saved Singapore was sent to Russia and the Middle East'. However he also concedes that Britain was engaged in 'a life and death struggle in the West' and that 'this decision, however painful and regrettable, was inevitable and right'.
In 1918, Percival had been described as "a slim, soft spoken man... with a proven reputation for bravery and organisational powers" but by 1945 this description had been turned on its head with even Percival's defenders describing him as "something of a damp squib". The fall of Singapore switched Percival's reputation to that of an ineffective "staff wallah", lacking ruthlessness and aggression. Over six feet in height and lanky, with a clipped moustache and two protruding teeth, and unphotogenic, Percival was an easy target for a caricaturist, being described as "tall, bucktoothed and lightly built". There was no doubt his presentation lacked impact as "his manner was low key and he was a poor public speaker with the cusp of a lisp".
[[File:Yamashita and Percival discuss surrender terms.jpg|thumb|left|250px|Lieutenant-General Yamashita (seated, centre) and Lieutenant-General Percival sitting between his officers, his clenched hand to his mouth.