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’.
Film Review – Apocalypse Now Redux