One of the most controversial episodes in Australia’s war annals, the fall of Singapore and the escape by Australian military leaders while troops were left behind, has long hung a black cloud over the name of Australia’s youngest general.

Despite all the errors of judgment that led to the fall of Singapore in February 1942, there were only ever two Commonwealth inquiries. Both were in Australia in 1945, and both scrutinised the actions of one Australian officer, Major-General Gordon Bennett.

Bennett was a decorated World War I Gallipoli veteran, promoted as the youngest general in the Australian Army. But in 1945 the Australian military decided its most vital question was to determine if Bennett was a hero, or a coward who deserted his 8th Division men to become Japanese prisoners after Britain surrendered on February 15, 1942.

Possibly it was because “straggling” inexperienced Australian troops, accused of looting and rape in the chaotic days before and after Singapore fell, made 8th Division an easy target to blame for Commonwealth humiliation.

Or perhaps a rivalry with Brigadier General Thomas Blamey made Bennett the official scapegoat. Author and former broadcaster Roger Maynard revisits Bennett’s career in his book Hero Or Deserter? Gordon Bennett And The Tragic Defeat Of The 8th Division.

Both Australian inquiries ignored poor military tactics, including acknowledged British arrogance that dismissed warnings the island city was vulnerable.

They also ignored Bennett’s competent leadership of the unfortunate troops who enlisted in the 8th Division. Expecting to be posted to the Middle East, they learned once at sea they were to be the first Australians to confront Japanese forces.

When the 6000 Australians arrived in Malaya in mid-1941, Bennett recognised they were ill-equipped for fighting in jungles. Inspired by the native Sakai people’s ability to move quickly and silently through forests, Bennett arranged for troops to spend time with them to learn jungle skills.

Blamey was agitating Army headquarters in Australia to have Bennett’s division shipped to join troops in the Middle East. The 8th had left Australia with rifles and transport better suited to desert warfare. But Britain’s General Officer Commanding, Malaya, General Arthur Percival, shared Bennett’s view that stronger forces were urgently needed in Malaya.

When Bennett placed some troops at Mersing, the site of a costly battle, to block the road to Singapore if Japan attacked the east coast, he had 15,000 men. Malaya had 143 aircraft and little naval support.

Around this time Blamey arrived in Singapore and told Bennett he would urge the Australian Cabinet to dispatch the 8th to the Middle East.

The War Cabinet rejected Blamey’s request.

Maynard writes that in December 1941 there were 86,000 soldiers in Malaya, including 54,000 Indians and locally enlisted troops, 19,000 British and 15,200 Australians, with two anti-tank regiments and two anti-tank batteries. Despite intelligence of a Japanese build-up in Thailand, in his diary Bennett noted Blamey “pooh-poohed the idea and was definite nothing would happen in Malaya”.

Australian aircraft spotted a Japanese invasion fleet heading to Malaya on December 6, 1941. Singapore had no warning before the first Japanese bombs hit at 4.30am on December 8. Small numbers of Japanese troops broke through much larger defence units, impressing Bennett, who studied and noted their surprise tactics and combat abilities, refined during fighting in China.

In the Malaya campaign, which included a traditional but potentially suicidal “parade-ground” bayonet assault over 1000m of open country by Australians at the Battle of Gemas in January 1942, 73 per cent of those killed were from Australia’s 8th Division.

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Australians were pounded with rifle fire, “machine guns, mortars and shellfire from an unknown number of tanks”, survivor Arthur “Bluey” Kennedy said. “Ricocheting pieces of shell whirred past with their chilling sound.” Japanese soldiers would torture and burn wounded Allied soldiers.

As Japan invaded Singapore over the Straits of Johor, Allied defences quickly crumbled.

By February 14 it was accepted that one million inhabitants were running out of food and water. Bennett and other officers were discussing an escape in the case of surrender.

Commanders meeting on February 15 accepted the situation in Singapore was verging on apocalyptic. Percival decided to ask for a cessation of hostilities at 3.30pm on February 15, 1942, when Britain raised a white flag.

Unbeknown to Bennett and his troops, British General Sir Archibald Wavell approved opportunities for escape.

Convinced his expertise on enemy fighting tactics could benefit Australian defence, Bennett planned to escape. He handed control of 8th Division to Brigadier Cecil Callaghan. Callaghan later said he was “too ashamed” to inform Percival of Bennett’s departure on February 15.

It took two weeks for Bennett to reach Sydney, where the public congratulated him on his escape, despite hints Australian military command were concerned that he had left his men to the mercy of the Japanese.

While Bennett would likely have been separated from his men, incarcerated at Changi and dispatched to the Myanmar railway, Maynard says military thinking was that he could have negotiated with Japanese military to get them better conditions.

The War Cabinet in Melbourne congratulated Bennett, and Prime Minister John Curtin wrote: “His conduct was in complete conformity with his duty to his men and to his country.”

While Bennett, who was appointed acting inspector general of training, completed two manuals on Japanese tactics, he was shamed by the delivery of white feathers in the post. His portrait at the Australian War Memorial was slashed. He quit the military in April 1944.

Callaghan returned in March 1943, delivering Blamey a letter from Percival that condemned Bennett for leaving Singapore.

Despite 8th Division men returning on the hospital ship Manunda draping a “We Want Bennett” banner over the side, and although Army Minister Frank Forde was surprised by Percival’s letter, a military court was convened at Victoria Barracks in October, 1945.

After debating the time of surrender and whether Bennett was a Japanese POW when he fled, the inquiry found he was not justified in leaving Singapore. Survivors from 8th Division sent a telegram in support of Bennett to the Prime Minister and demanded an inquiry.

Maynard says the Royal Commission in Melbourne in 1945 became bogged down in minutiae surrounding the time of surrender and Bennett’s military obligations and status after 8.30pm on February 15. After 18 days the Commission agreed with the military inquiry.

A letter to the editor from an Adelaide reader in January 1946 summed up public opinion: “From a practical point of view, the general’s action by escaping from Singapore was correct. As a prisoner of war he would have been written off for the duration, but as a general here, he was an asset.”

Sadly, Bennett did not see the extent of his public support, when more than 15,000 people lined city streets for his funeral procession in August 1962.

Gordon Bennett: Hero Or Deserter by Roger Maynard, Penguin Random House, $34.99