Against All Odds: The Brewster Buffalo in the Malayan Campaign (Part 1)

Brewster Buffalo is often considered one of the worst fighters of WW2. It saw little combat in American service but some other operators employed it heavily. In this new series of videos, we will analyze the story of the Buffalo in British and Commonwealth Service in the Malayan campaign.
As Britain couldn't spare Spitfires or Hurricanes for their Asian colonial possessions, they deployed about 170 Brewster Buffaloes, a type first ordered in 1939 but deemed unsuitable for the European theater. But is this fighter really the main culprit for the British loss of Malaya and Singapore?

Main sources:
- Malaya & Dutch East Indies 1941–42: Japan's air power shocks the world

- Brewster F2A Buffalo Aces of World War 2

- Buffaloes over Singapore: RAF, RAAF, RNZAF and Dutch Brester Fighters in Action Over Malaya and the East Indies 1941–1942

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Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

#militaryaviationhistory

[showtime]

The Buffalo model used in this reenactment is the F2A-3 and not the export version named Buffalo Mk I by the British, as it was the closest available one. Some other Allied airplanes you might see are not Buffaloes but rather, the 'Martlets' which is the British name for the Wildcat. The reasons for this are technical and they are not mistakes however, there are a few mistakes in the video. The New Zealand pilot is called Geoff Fisken (not Frisken). Also, the Japanese flying boat is H6K and not HK6. Thank you for your understanding!

[dbccbd]

This had me looking thru my Dad's logbooks. He was with 488Sqdn (RNZAF) and survived having to bail out, going for a swim in the Straits of Malacca, finally being picked up from an island by a Dutch patrol boat, eventually returning to base at Kallang. He didn't have pleasant memories of the Buffalo. From there they went (via ship - no serviceable aircraft) to Indonesia, then down to Freemantle, eventually back to NZ and the soon to be formed 14 Sqdn - sent to Espirutu Santo followed by Guadalcanal for his second tour. On return to NZ he volunteered to go to England, started flying there in May 1944 on Spitfires, then Mustangs which he flew till the war ended. An interesting journey.

[juancarlosperezcortes]

Marvelous story. The Malayan campaign was a disaster for the allies for several reasons. Bringing up the air campaign is excellent because is often bypassed by others air battles. Thanks for you teachings

[BTillman]

Well done. In 1983 I was fortunate to interview Geoff Fisken who liked the Buffalo for its .50 caliber armament and dive performance. But then his previous ride had been the Vickers Vildbeast!

[raymondyee]

Thanks for covering this. As a Singaporean this is relevant to our country’s history. And yes we never forgot about the Buffalo in a negative way.

[ronaldbyrne]

Big interest in the Malaya campaign because I am from Penang and so places like Butterworth, Sungei Patani and Kota Bahru are all known to me. I’ll be following this series. Many thanks for your work on these excellent videos.

[Phaaschh]

This is fascinating. Anything about the Malayan campaign is like gold dust. To actually see it rendered is miraculous. I have family ties with place and time there.
Spitfires and Hurricanes, with their liquid cooled engines, and no Chain Home style radar detection, would have been very precious pearls before swine out there. It was hopeless, really.
Subscribed.

[MarkzOng]

Thanks for your efforts. In the curriculum, I was taught one sentence of the Malaya campaign that British aircraft was outdated and they name them the flying coffin. Thats sparks my interest in learning history and uncovered so many interesting stories over the years. Anyway my conclusion of the entire campaign is too little, too late.

[basilreid]

This air campaign hasn’t been given much attention till now except for in a one or two books thanks for this presentation.

[TheLincolnshireFlyer]

Never new the Buffalo had such involvement. Thank you for posting 😊

[cannonfodder]

The Malay campaign on the ground and sea gets all sorts of deep coverage, but the air front is reduced to a few sentences about the allies just getting swept from the sky.

Buffalos or Hurricanes and Spitfires, brave though they were given the disparity in forces, it would have made no difference.

A great video, I look forward to part two.

[wsmccallum]

Yay - Buffalo squadrons in Malaya! Great stuff. A good book on the RNZAF in this campaign is "Last Stand In Singapore: The Story of 488 Squadron RNZAF". It has lots of rare photos.

[anselmdanker]

Thank you for covering the Malayan campaign of 1941.😊 great job again.

[mediapartners]

Another great and informative video. Looking forward to the subsequent parts 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

[bravozeroCAN]

My grandfather was there. Leading Aircraftsman in the RAF. He’d come from the 501 fighting the Battle of Britain to this. He told me that the 4 guns firing at once shook these pieces of junk apart so they used rounds with reduced powder loads, making them even more awful. One Australian squadron started refusing to fly.

[eduardodeandres]

Muchas gracias. Lo he disfrutado mucho, cómo siempre!
Gracias de nuevo

[mohammedsaysrashid]

Wonderful historical coverage episode about Buffalo 🐃 burster aircraft's during WW2

[SGusky]

Thank you so much for doing this. I'm really really excited to watch it.

[minecraftguy]

thank you for putting out such a great work and narration. That's always a pleasure to watch your videos, especially at this pace and "lesser known" battles

[JTelli]

I’ve always had a soft spot for underdog aircraft, the Brewster Buffalo is no exception though I admit I know little to nothing about its service history so this is wonderful!