British units were reported to have been similarly affected. In analysing the campaign, Clifford Kinvig, a senior lecturer at Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, blamed the commander of the 27th Infantry Brigade, Brigadier Duncan Maxwell, for his defeatist attitude and not properly defending the sector between the Causeway and the Kranji River. Elphick also claims that Australians made up the majority of stragglers. According to another source, Taylor cracked under the pressure. Thompson wrote that the 22nd Australian Brigade was "so heavily outnumbered that defeat was inevitable" and Costello states that Percival's insistence on concentrating the 22nd Australian Brigade at the water's edge had been a serious mistake. Yamashita, the Japanese commander, laid the blame on the British "underestimating Japanese military capabilities" and Percival's hesitancy in reinforcing the Australians on the western side of the island. A classified wartime report by Wavell released in 1992 blamed the Australians for the loss of Singapore. According to John Coates, the report "lacked substance", for though there had undoubtedly been a lack of discipline in the final stages of the campaign—particularly among the poorly trained British, Indian and Australian reinforcements that were hurriedly dispatched as the crisis worsened—the 8th Australian Division had fought well and had gained the respect of the Japanese. At Gemas, Bakri and Jemaluang, "they achieved the few outstanding tactical successes" of the campaign in Malaya and although the Australians made up 13 per cent of the British Empire's ground forces, they suffered 73 per cent of its battle deaths. Coates argues that the real reason for the fall of Singapore was the failure of the Singapore strategy, to which Australian policy-makers had contributed in their acquiescence and the lack of military resources allocated to the fighting in Malaya. Aftermath Analysis The Japanese had advanced from Singora, Thailand, to the southern coast of Singapore at an average rate of a day. While impressed with Japan's quick succession of victories, Adolf Hitler reportedly had mixed views regarding Singapore's fall, seeing it as a setback for the "white race" but ultimately something that was in Germany's military interests. Hitler reportedly forbade Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop from issuing a congratulatory communique. Churchill called the fall of Singapore to the Japanese "the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history". Churchill's physician Lord Moran wrote The loss of Singapore, along with other defeats in Southeast Asia in 1942, reduced British prestige in the region.