No one seriously considered the invasion of Malaysia to be postponed and some officers criticized the insertion of an “if” at this stage of the preparations as it might, they thought, have a bad effect on the morale of the troops. The next morning, when Yamashita summoned the junior officers and gave his first order as army commander, confidence returned; the emotion was at its height, some officers were crying. It was for them what Der Tag had been for the Prussian officers in 1914, the day they had been dreaming of and preparing for so long; in short, the opportunity granted by the gods to crush the English. They had complete confidence in their leader, in the plan, and in a quick victory. Their morale was excellent.
For Japan, since the American blockade had intensified, Malaysia had a great price. It not only produced 38% of the world's rubber, but also 58% of the tin; at the southern end of the long peninsula was the island of Singapore, England's great naval base and the key to her power in the Far East.
It is curious to note that the Imperial High Command had only been preparing plans for the capture of Singapore for three months; the army had only begun in January 1941 to study the problems posed by warfare in the tropics and combat in the jungle. On that date, a small study committee was set up in Formosa, called the "Taiwan army research section", under the orders of Colonel Masanobu Tsuji, a small, authoritarian and picky man, hated by almost all the officers for his "arrivisme".
However, he possessed extraordinary intuition and a remarkable power of assimilation. With the help of ten assistants, he quickly studied in depth the problems he had to solve. How to revise army tactics and strategy for tropical warfare? What clothing and equipment was needed? How to organize communications? How to solve questions of hygiene, health, care for the sick and injured in hot countries? What relationship to establish with the local population?
Tsuji says:“We harassed the specialists in all fields. We even devoted our siesta time to lectures, which were always enthusiastically attended. This discreet group was certainly, at that time, the supreme authority on tropical warfare.
From interviews he had with various officers, Tsuji drew three conclusions about the objectives. Here they are, in his own words:
• Fortress Singapore is solid and strong on its waterfront, but the rear, facing the province of Johore, is practically not defended;
• Newspaper reports of the fighting power of the R.A.F. are exaggeration and pure propaganda;
• The British army in Malaya consists of five or six divisions representing about 80,000 men, of which probably less than 50% are Europeans.
Amazing as it may seem, the Japanese army did not have any topographical documents on Malaysia. This gap was partially filled by a certain Major Terundo Kunitake, who had been seconded for a few months to the Japanese diplomatic authorities in the region. After a brief examination of roads, rivers and bridges, he reported the existence of at least two hundred and fifty bridges on the main route between Singapore and the Thai border, many more than Tsuji had supposed from the incomplete maps he had.
It was immediately apparent that the longer it took to rebuild the bridges, the more the English would have to fortify their defenses in Johore and Singapore.