The fall of Singapore

After Pearl Harbor the US could do nothing to halt the string of Japanese victories. By May 1942, the Japanese had taken Burma, Malaya, Singapore and Hong Kong from the British and the Philippines, and Guam and Wake Island from the Americans.

The loss of the naval base at Singapore was a shattering blow for Britain in February 1942. This came just two months after the sinking of the finest battleship in the Royal Navy, the Prince of Wales, by the Japanese in December 1941. The Singapore base was an island fortress, just off the southern coast of Malaya. Its huge guns faced out to sea and could not be turned around to face inland.

Tanks and bicycles ...

The British did not think it was possible for an attack to be launched across land, through the Malayan jungle, and so the guns needed only to face towards the sea. Neither did the defenders have tanks. Tanks, the British military believed, could not be used in the thick jungle and so were not needed. The Japanese had other ideas and came through the jungle with tanks and on bicycles. The big guns never fired a shot. Some 85,000 British, Australian and Indian troops were taken prisoner by a much smaller Japanese force of 30,000. It was the worst defeat in British military history.

Neil Demarco: The era of the Second World War; Oxford University Press, 1993/2000, page 52