The resources Churchill sent to Malaya were too little and too late, and, arguably, in part the wrong kind. Surely, it could have been argued even then, a flotilla of "T" class subs would have been more effective than HMS "PoW" and "Repulse"? Leaving aside the "small" matter of air power, the IJN had ten battleships in service with "Yamato" nearing completion (unknown to the Allies). If necessary, the IJN would have sent the four "Kongos" to deal with "PoW" and "Repulse", together with a large screen of cruisers and destroyers- which the British ships did not have.
Certainly British leaders (Shenton Thomas, Brooke-Popham, Percival, Phillips) in Malaya were hardly the right men in the right place at the right time, but the same can be said of many other Allied leaders in the Malay Barrier area- MacArthur, Hart and, to a lesser extent, Helfrich.
A flotilla of "T"s would have been most welcome at that time, given the relative ineffectiveness of the US submarines, handicapped as they were by their less than adequate torpedoes and, for a time, strict orders not to attack in waters where the depth was less than 60 metres. Submarines- and lots of them- were the only way in which the Japanese advance could have been seriously blunted.
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