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".