"On the waves of gold and silver..."

Fortunately for him, he maintained cordial relations with two of his three division commanders:General Matsui, commanding the 5th Division, and General Renya Mutaguchi, commanding the 18th Division. The 5th Division was a highly trained formation, which had acquired extensive knowledge of in-force landing operations during the Sino-Japanese War; it was also highly mechanized and generally considered one of the best units in the Japanese army. The 18th Division, while less experienced and lacking in motorized
vehicles, also had an excellent reputation.
Its leader, the hot-tempered and irascible Mutaguchi, was known for his insatiable ambition:
he had decided that, although leaving Samah after the 5th Division, he would reach Singapore before it.
The third formation, the division of the Imperial Guard, comprised the tallest
men in the army and of superb
presence during military ceremonies, but it did not 'had not fought since the Russo-
Japanese War of 1904-1905, and when Yamashita
saw her maneuvering for the first time, he frankly told his leader , General Nishimura,
that she needed intensive training.
Now Nishimura was an old enemy of Yamashita; he had fought it in
court-martial, over which he presided at the Koda-ha trial, in 1932. The result of this old hatred was that Nishimura did nothing to carry out orders. of Yamashita and when the Imperial Guard embarked, they were still, by all accounts, just as unfit for combat.
It should be mentioned here that the staff was made up of officers hastily withdrawn from various units. The officers did not know each other, did not know Yamashita and, despite their individual qualities, formed a heterogeneous team. Fortunately, Yamashita's personality instantly made a deep impression on them, and throughout the campaign he could rely on the loyalty and cooperation of his staff.
To support the three divisions of infantry, there were, in addition to the divisional artillery, two regiments of heavy field artillery and the 3rd tank brigade. The XXVth Army had a total of 60,000 men; the 3rd air group comprised 459 aircraft to which were added 159 from the navy; the southern squadron, under the command of Vice-Admiral Ozawa, consisted of one cruiser, ten destroyers and five submarines.
The respective roles of the divisions were as follows:the 5th Division, with the general staff and the bulk of the 18th Division, would land at Songkhla (Singora), north of the Thai-Doman border; another group, the "Takumi Detachment" (named after its leader, General Takumi), would land at Kota Bharu on the Malay coast. The Imperial Guards Division would land at Songkhla, or another port to be chosen, and follow the 5th Division to Malaya. Once the southward advance was triggered, the 5th Division and the Imperial Guards would follow the highway that runs along the west coast of Malaya, while the 18th Division would operate on the east coast.
On December 4 in the morning, the armada left. According to the poetic report of Colonel Tsuji, “the disk of the moon sank into the sea in the west and the red sun showed its face in the east. The port of Samah, where the waves of gold and silver shimmered, was as beautiful as a painting. Of the twenty boats in the convoy, the men looked forward... while the navy, the warships ranged right and left; it was the beginning of an adventure that would set the destiny of the nation for the century to come. The dice were cast”.