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Churchill’s darkest hour: the Fall of Singapore and the military disasters of 1942
The bleakest moment for Britain's wartime prime minister came not in 1940 – when his popularity soared and he was convinced a German invasion was impossible – but in 1942, as Taylor Downing explains.
On the morning of Friday 13 February 1942, with Japanese forces just a few miles from the city of Singapore, the commander- in-chief of imperial forces, Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival, called a conference of senior officers. He announced he had received orders to fight to the finish and the defence of the city must continue.
His principal corps commander, General Sir Lewis Heath, said his troops were exhausted, totally dispirited, and there was no point in further fighting. The commander of the Australian troops defending the island, General Gordon Bennett, argued that the only option was surrender. When Percival said he had to consider his honour, Heath replied, ‘You need not think
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