Smith and several others, as being defeatist and ill-disciplined. Although, others such as Peter Thompson and John Costello have argued that the 22nd Brigade was "so heavily outnumbered that defeat was inevitable", while both authors argue that tactical and strategic decisions made by Bennett and Percival, were more significant. According to Smith, Bennett described his own troops as "wobbly" and Brigadier Harold Taylor, commander of the 22nd Brigade, told his men they were a "disgrace to Australia and the AIF." Colonel Kappe, Bennett's Chief Signals Officer, related that "one party of 50 under an officer, after being steadied and persuaded to occupy a locality, soon afterwards vacated it without order." According to Smith, Bennett himself is reported to have told another Australian commander, shortly before leaving his command, "I don't think the men want to fight." In contrast, historian Christopher Coulthard-Clark argues that the division was one of the only British Commonwealth forces to have any tactical success in Malaya, while Thompson points out that the division bore the brunt of the fighting on Singapore, arguing that despite making up only 14 percent of the Singapore garrison, the division suffered 73 percent of its casualties. Equally, the British commander of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders singled out the Australian 2/29th as fighting with "great coolness" and worthy of entering battle with them, while Masanobu Tsuji wrote that in Malaya the Australians "fought with a bravery…not previously seen". Rabaul The 2/22nd Battalion—composed of 716 men—made up the majority of the combat personnel in the Lark Force, the name given to the 1,400-strong garrison concentrated in Rabaul, New Britain, from March 1941. Lark Force also included personnel from the New Guinea Volunteer Rifles, a coastal defence battery, an anti-aircraft battery, an anti-tank battery and a detachment of the 2/10th Field Ambulance. The island, part of the Australian territory of New Guinea was important because of its proximity to the Japanese territory of the Caroline Islands, including a major Japanese Navy base on Truk Island. The main tasks of Lark Force were protection of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) airfield and flying boat anchorage, which were important in the surveillance of Japanese movements in the region. A 130-strong detachment from the 2/1st Independent Company was detached to the nearby island of New Ireland. In January 1942, Lark Force came under heavy attack by Japanese aircraft, which neutralised coastal artillery. In the early