I've always had the idea in my head of an officer and his staff marching over to the enemy with a white flag in hand, but I can imagine that that would only be effective for declaring the surrender of smaller units, and not whole army groups or countries. Was there some specific predesignated procedure for declaring things like this, respected by all sides?
I don’t know the international standard but I do have a description of the surrender of Malaya Command on 15 February 1942 that highlights not only the surrender process but some of the “behind-the-scenes” considerations.
Malaya Command had been tasked to defend the British colonies of Malaya and Singapore. At the time of surrender, it had been pushed all the way south and was trapped on the island of Singapore. It consisted of the remnants of 4 infantry divisions and about 160 aircraft (the navy had already been evacuated and as I understand had a separate chain of command). There were about 80,000 military personnel left. The Group Officer Command (GOC) was Lieutenant General Arthur Percival, the equivalent of a 3-star general.
Surrender would mean not just the surrender of Malaya Command, but of the British colonies of Malay and Singapore, a total land area of 130,000 square kilometres, so far more significant than the surrender of a unit.
The process began on the 11 of February. Japanese forces had landed on Singapore and captured the main food and fuel depots. General Yamashita Tomoyuki, commander of the Japanese forces, air dropped 29 copies of a letter calling for surrender. 4 of them reached Percival, who, still under orders to fight to the last, opted to ignore them. A surrender of this significance could not be decided by the commanding officer alone. Permission had to be sought from Commander-in-Chief ABDACOM (America-British-Dutch-Australian Command), who then had to convince the Prime Minister himself.
On the morning of the 15th of February, with the situation desperate, Percival met with his commanders to discuss surrender. During this discussion, a telegram from Commander-in-Chief ABDACOM arrived, authorising surrender. Discussion now shifted to the details.
The crux of the issue was, at what time should forward units actually stop fighting? Before a ceasefire had been agreed, technically, the fight could continue. Indeed, it would be dangerous for British forces to unilaterally stand down, because the enemy could then simply walk over prepared positions. A time of 2000hrs was suggested, but this prompted objections on the grounds that it would be dark by that time, which increased the chances of confusion and mistakes. If either side fired on the other in the dark, hostilities would resume, and it was judged that British forces could not possibly hold out for another night.
Percival agreed, and the time to ceasefire was set at 1600hrs. This meant that discussions with Yamashita had to be concluded, and a ceasefire agreed, by that time at the very latest.
In the meantime, it had to be decided what ought to be destroyed. On the one hand, weapons were needed to continue the fight until 1600hrs. On the other hand, the British wished to deny the enemy as much material as possible, and one condition of a surrender was sure to be that the British had to hand over all weapons. Percival ordered that weapons be kept intact, but technical equipment, codes and documents should be destroyed.
Percival put together a delegation to invite Yamashita to visit Percival on the British side. The delegation consisted of Malaya Command Deputy Adjutant General, Brigadier Thomas Kennedy Newbigging, Colonial Secretary Hugh Fraser (representing the civil administration) and III Indian Corps General Staff Officer 2, Major Cyril Wild, who spoke fluent Japanese.
The delegation left at 1130hrs. They drove in a staff car flying a white flag until they reached the British forward position. At this time, neither side was making any form of advance so the two sides were not actively firing on each other. After that they dismounted and walked with the white flag into enemy territory. They were taken unmolested to the nearest company headquarters, where they handed over a letter from Percival. This letter was conveyed to Yamashita. An hour later Colonel Sugita Ichiji met the party to convey Yamashita’s reply. This was conveyed in writing, with a blank space for a meeting time to be written in.
The reply had three main points:
Wild managed to persuade Sugita to agree that the flag only need be flown for ten minutes (an enemy flag flown indefinitely would cause confusion over whether the front lines had shifted, or whether the Japanese had already won). However, Sugita refused to bend on anything else. This put Newbigging in a very difficult position, because as the most senior officer in the delegation he would have to fill in the time for the meeting between Percival and Yamashita.
One of the demands was for British forces to cease fire at the start of discussions. Since orders had already gone out that morning for British units to cease fire at 1600hrs, this was possible any time after that. However, because the Japanese had not agreed for their troops to hold back, even while the meeting was proceeding, there was the danger that whatever Japanese attacks had already been planned for that afternoon would go ahead, and the British would be under orders to not fire back. Countermanding the 1600hrs ceasefire order at this late stage would lead to confusion. And, given the state the British forces were in, it was simply impossible to delay one more night and have the meeting the next morning.
Thus, Newbigging was forced to write in a time of 1600hrs for the meeting to take place, the earliest time possible for the British units to cease fire, and hope that talks could be concluded before any planned Japanese attacks went ahead.
By the time the delegation returned to British headquarters it was 1500hrs. There were now two contradictory sets of expectations and no time to sort them out. On the Japanese side, British forces were expected to cease fire while talks were ongoing. But recall that on the British side, Percival had wanted his forces to continue fighting during the talks, and to only cease fire after the talks had been concluded, which he had wrongly assumed could be done by 1600hrs.
So did the orders to ceasefire at 1600hrs still hold? Should weapons now be destroyed to prevent them from falling into enemy hands? What would happen if the Japanese launched an attack? Should units stand ready while talks went on, just in case? How would units react when they saw the Japanese flag?
There was simply no time to sort all this out. The Japanese flag was duly flown, and Wild rushed to brief Percival and warn him of the conflicting expectations. With less than an hour to go, Percival gave hurried orders that the fight must now continue until surrender was confirmed, and then rushed to the meeting.
To outline some of the confusion that unfolded:
The morning delegation with the white flag had passed through an area held by 54th Brigade. 1st and 5th Foresters saw the flag and abandoned their positions without orders. This then sparked rumours that the army had already surrendered. At 1545hrs, a Malayan Command staff officer arrived at brigade HQ to order it to fight on until surrender had been confirmed. However, the brigade refused. It officially ceased fire at 1630hrs, and even though it could hear heavy fighting less than 2km away, did nothing to help.
Lieutenant General Gordon Bennet ordered his Australian Imperial Forces (AIF) to stand fast and forbade the men to escape. If there was to be a surrender they would surrender as a unit and not as a bunch of stragglers. At 1600hrs Malaya Command ordered the Australians to destroy their artillery, but Bennet refused until surrender was confirmed. However, after 1600hrs the Australians could see some nearby British troops breaking up their defences. And, a large number of AIF personnel ignored Bennet’s orders anyway. At 1800hrs Malaya Command confirmed that Percival had surrendered, but now the official ceasefire was to take place at 2030hrs. At 1900hrs Bennet himself took the initiative to flee with a small party, disgracefully abandoning his men.
(Continued in reply)