When I read through the lists of merchant ships sunk in WWI I was surprised that often there were no or almost no casualties. Probably because at least for the early part of the war the U-Boats surfaced and forced the ships to pull the plug rather than using torpedos. That way the crew were given time to abandon ship before she went down.
My grandfather served on armed minesweepers in WWI, acting as Q-Boats to try and lure U-Boats into a trap.
By contrast when you read of 2,000 men and more losing their lives on a single ship it's horrific.
I wonder if those great ships had not been lost would Singapore still have been lost. My guess is probably, especially since the big guns on the shore were fixed for an assault from the sea and not from the mainland. No doubt we would have cost the Japanese more dearly, and probably sunk more shipping of theirs too, but I think at that point in the war the loss was inevitable.
I read a good account of the loss of Singapore in No Time For Geishas by Geoffrey Pharoah Adams. He was in the army in Singapore at the time of the loss, was a prisoner of the Japanese, worked on the railway to Burma and the Bridge On The Kwai, escaping and finally making it back to England. My son has a signed copy of the book in London. Geoffrey and his wife were good friends of my Grandmother down in Poole. Sadly Geoffrey passed away I think about 15 years ago. Incidentally, I was out in Thailand in 1988 and visited the cemetary and museum by the "real" bridge on the Kwai (still standing) - not the bridge in the movie - a lot of the story was fake. There was a section in the museum dedicated to Geoffrey and it had photos of when he went back for a reunion. What a surprise to go from England to Thailand and see photos of someone I knew growing up...
