The Battle of Singapore was a battle of the South-East Asian theatre of World War II, from February 7,1942 – February 15, 1942. The fall of Singapore represented the largest surrender of British-led military personnel in history. About 80,000 Indian, Australian and British troops became prisoners of war, joining 50,000 taken in the Battle of Malaya .

When the Japanese 14th Army invaded Malaya in December 1941 it was resisted by III Corps of the Indian Army — including the Australian 27th Brigade and several British Army battalions. Japanese forces held a slight advantage in terms of numbers on the ground in northern Malaya, but were superior in air power, tanks and infantry tactics and experience. Air superiority also enabled the destruction of the supposed Allied trump card: the battleships HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse. Japanese forces advanced steadily down the Malayan peninsula toward the supposedly "impregnable fortress" of Singapore Island, a lynchpin of the American-British-Dutch-Australian Command (ABDACOM), the first Allied joint command of World War II.

On January 31, the last Allied forces had left Malaya, and Allied engineers blew a hole, 70 feet (20 metres) wide, in the causeway linking Johore and Singapore. However, Japanese raiders and infiltrators — often disguised as Singaporean civilians — began to cross the Straits of Johor in inflatable boats soon afterwards.

Preparations

The Allied commander, Lieutenant General Arthur Percival had at his disposal 85,000 soldiers, the equivalent (on paper) of just over four divisions. There were about 70,000 front-line combat troops in 38 infantry battalions — 17 Indian; 13 British; six Australian, two Malayan/Singaporean — and three machine gun battalions. The newly-arrived British 18th Division was at full-strength but lacked both combat inexperienced and suitable training; almost all of the others unit were under-strength as a result of the mainland campaign. The local battalions also had no combat experience, and in some cases no combat training.[1]

Percival gave Maj. Gen. Gordon Bennett's two brigades, from the Australian 8th Division, the task of defending the prime invasion points on the north-west side of the island, in terrain dominated by mangrove swamps and jungle and broken up by rivers and creeks — the inexperienced 22nd Brigade was assigned a daunting 10 mile (16 kilometre) wide sector in the west, and the 27th Brigade — minus almost a battalion lost in its retreat through Malaya — a 4,000 yard (3,650 metre) zone in the north. The infantry positions were reinforced by the recently-arrived Australian 2/4th Machine-Gun Regiment.

From aerial reconnisance, scouts, infiltrators and commandeered high points across the straits, such as the Sultan of Johore 's palace, the Japanese commander, General Tomoyuki Yamashita and his staff gained excellent knowledge of the Allied positions. From February 3, the Allies were shelled by Japanese artillery. In spite of a Royal Air Force contingent of 10 Hawker Hurricane fighters, Japanese air attacks also intensified over the next five days. Air and artillery attacks intensified to the point that they were compared to the notorious barrages of World War I. These preliminary attacks severely disrupted communications between Allied units and their commanders, and affected preparations for the defence of the island. The Allies had no bomber force to speak of, and limited artillery.

Singapore's famous large-calibre stationary guns — which included one battery of three 15-inch guns and one with two 15-inch guns — were supplied only with armour-piercing shells. These were designed to penetrate the hulls of warships and were relatively ineffective against infantry. It is a myth that the guns could not fire on the Japanese forces because they could only face south. The guns could turn northwards, and they did fire at the invaders.

Yamashita had just over 30,000 frontline personnel, drawn from three divisions: the Imperial Guards Division, the 5th Division and the 18th Division . The Imperial Guards units included a light tank brigade.

The battle

At 8.30pm on February 8, Australian machine gunners opened fire on vessels carrying a first wave of 4,000 Japanese troops towards Singapore Island.

Fierce fighting raged all day, but eventually the increasing Japanese numbers — as well as their artillery, planes and military intelligence — began to tell. In the north west of the island, they exploited gaps in the thinly-spread Allied lines such as such as rivers and creeks. By midnight, the two Australian brigades had lost communications with each other and the 22nd Brigade was being forced to retreat. At 1am, further Japanese troops were landed in the north west of the island and the last Australian reserves went into position.

Towards dawn on February 9, elements of the 22nd Brigade were being overrun and the Australian 2/18th Battalion had lost more than 50% of its personnnel. The focus of Japanese landings occurred further, where they encountered a composite British and Indian brigade. During the course of the day, the 22nd and other Allied units in the west were forced to retreat further south. Allied commanders decided to form a secondary defensive line.

The 27th Brigade sector, to the north did not face Japanese landings until 10pm on February 9. This operation went very badly for the Japanese, and later that night the Imperial Guards suffered severe casualties from Australian mortars and machine guns, burning oil which had been sluiced into the water and drowning.

Command and control problems caused further cracks in the Allied defence. The commander of the the 27th Brigade collapsed from exhaustion and was replaced. Then, as a result of a fateful misunderstanding, the 27th began to withdraw from Kranji in the central north, in spite of it's success. This allowed the Japanese to advance rapidly into the north-east of the island.

Further communication problems and the arrival of Japanese tanks caused the Allies to lose control of the crucial Kranji-Jurong ridge, running through the western side of the island. However, Japanese armoured units failed to seize an opportunity to advance into the heart of Singapore City itself.

On February 11, knowing that Japanese supplies were running perilously low, Yamashita called on Percival to "give up this meaningless and desperate resistance".

The next day the Allied lines stabilised around a small area in the south-east of the island and fought off determined Japanese assaults. Among other units, including the first 1st Malay Brigade had now joined the fray. However, the Allies lost more ground on February 13, and senior officers advised Percival to surrender, in the interests of minimising civilian casualties. Percival refused but unsuccessfully sought authority to surrender from his superiors.

The following day the remaining Allied units battled on; civilian casualties mounted as one million people crowded into the area now held by the Allies and bombing and artillery attacks intensified. Civilian authorities began to fear that the water supply would soon give out. Japanese troops killed 200 staff and patients after they captured Alexandra Barracks Hospital.

By the morning of February 15, the Japanese had broken through the last line of defence in the north and food and some kinds of ammunition had begun to run out. After meeting his unit commanders, Percival contacted the Japanese and formally surrendered the Allied forces to Yamashita at the Ford Motor Factory, shortly after 5.15pm.

The Japanese-occupied Singapore was subsequently renamed Syonan-to (昭南島 Shōnan-tō, or "Light of the South Island" in Japanese. The residents would suffer great hardships under Japanese rule over the following three and a half years, during which the Sook Ching Massacre occured.

The Allied soldiers taken prisoner were brutally treated: many remained at Singapore, in Changi Prison. Thousands of others were shipped all over Asia, including Japan itself, to be used as slave labour on infamous projects like the Siam-Burma Railway and Sandakan airfield in North Borneo — most of these men never saw their homelands again.

See also

• History of Singapore
• Greater East Asia War in the Pacific
• Pacific War