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The Japanese attack on Malaya was only one in a series of massive and co-ordinated surprise attacks around the Pacific Rim. Simultaneously, Japanese forces assaulted the Philippines, Guam, Hong Kong, Wake Island, and, most infamously, Pearl Harbor – objectives spanning over 3,000 miles.
The date was 8 December 1941 (or 7 December at Pearl Harbor, for Hawaii lies east of the International Date Line): a day which President Roosevelt said ‘would live in infamy’.
Just 70 days after the first Japanese landings in north Malaya, on 15 February 1942, Singapore surrendered. Churchill declared the fall of Singapore to be ‘the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history’.
It was to have a profound and permanent effect on British prestige and authority, not only in the Far East but throughout the world. Never again would Britain be able to command the respect and display the confidence of a benevolent power. More immediately, at such a critical time in the war, the disaster meant loss of valuable territories rich in minerals and natural resources, essential for the conduct of war.
Mismanagement and procrastination
It is commonly assumed that Singapore was lost because the Japanese assault on the island occurred suddenly and from an unexpected direction. When it came to defence, the fortifications of the ‘impregnable fortress’ – as Singapore was described – were so constructed that they faced the wrong way.
The bald facts, however, are as follows: the general direction of the Japanese attack was correctly anticipated; the very beaches on the north-east coast of the Malay Peninsula on which they landed had been identified; and even the date of the invasion was predicted.
The failure of the defence of Singapore was not a matter of surprise and unpreparedness, but instead a catalogue of civil and military mismanagement and procrastination. Critical military equipment for all three services was lacking. Untrained raw recruits were euphemistically described and deployed as ‘infantry divisions’. Top military and civil leaders were incompetent. Defensive tactics were bereft of both determination and originality.
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