Although he is better known for having died during the events that followed the sinking of the Dutch ship Rooseboom off Sumatra in 1942, he was also one of the few British commanders that put up a good fight against the Japanese during the Battle of Malaya and the subsequent fall of Singapore.
Archibald Paris was born in 1890 in Southsea on Portsea Island, Portsmouth,[1] the son of Major General Sir Archibald Paris, a Royal Marines officer who commanded the Royal Naval Division during the First World War, and of Lillian Jane (née Melvill), daughter of Gen. Henry Melvill CB and granddaughter of Rev.
[3] Paris passed out of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst and was commissioned into the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry in September 1909.
Promoted to lieutenant in August 1913[5] and captain in March 1916,[6] he served in the First World War, being made a GSO3 in February 1915,[7] and was awarded the Military Cross (MC) in June 1917.
When the battle started in northern Malaya, Paris's 12th Brigade was sent to protect the retreat of the Indian 11th Infantry Division, which it did successfully, to the extent that it surprised the Japanese, inflicting high casualties on some of their more overconfident units.
With Singapore about to surrender in February 1942, Percival attempted to save personnel who were successful at fighting the Japanese and Paris was one of the chosen.
By the time the lifeboat fetched up on Sipora, a coral island off Sumatra (a mere 100 miles from their starting point of Padang), only Gibson, a Chinese girl, Doris Lin, with whom he had developed a bond during those terrible weeks, and three Javans remained.