WW2 battle of Malay & Singapore -Largest surrender in British history
While 07 December 1941 brought war to the Americans at Pearl Harbor, that was only an attack to neutralize the U.S. fleet so they would not be able to intervene in Japan's upcoming invasions elsewhere.
08 December 1941, those invasions began in a massive scale over a large front. In the center of Japan's targeting sights was the city of Singapore.
A British possession that was dubbed 'The Gibraltar of the East', it was a very strategic point that controlled sea lanes and trade route for 500 miles in each direction.
The Brits also believed that the thick jungle made the area impossible for a modern army to maneuver, akin to the Ardennes forest in Europe protecting France.
The British believed that when fully garrisoned and with their navy present, that Singapore was unconquerable.
The Brits manned it with 85,000 men, the East Indies fleet, and a token wing of 2 dozen aircraft.
The Japanese
When planning for these invasions, group commander Count Hisaichi Terauchi was offered a 4th division for the campaign.
He declined, and said that 3 army divisions would be sufficient, giving him roughly 35,000 men.
He also had Japan's 2nd fleet at his command, with their 1st fleet being at Pearl Harbor
and Japan massively outnumbered the brits in the air with several hundred fighter bombers available at the beginning of the invasion, and several hundred more that eventually joined the campaign.
The secret weapon of the Japanese
The machine of war that allowed the Japanese to conquer southeast Asia?
The bicycle
Pre-invasion reconnaissance by the Japs had show that the peasants of the area relied on tens of thousands of bicycles for travel.
He calculated this into his strategic planning, and when they landed for the invasion he tasked entire units to searching civilian homes and confiscating all bicycles.
He soon had his improvising bonzai troops peddling like mad and outmaneuvering the British infantry.
The Brits did their best attempt at a fighting retreat, trying to travel down the Malay peninsula to get to the city of Singapore and entrench themselves into siege mode, but the Japanese movement speed and constant engagements costs the Brits tens of thousands of the casualties/pows.
After the Japs took the peninsula, they took a bit of time to regroup and prepare for the D-day type assault Singapore itself, but that came soon enough, with their air power kicking the Brits hard with repeated crotch shots to the british navy, air power, and fortified defenses.
For the attack on Singapore itself, the Japanese had used a rough version of 'shock and awe', and were actually running low on munitions. Rather than pause the attack for a week to get resupplied which would have allowed the brits a chance to recover and regroup, Japanese commander Hisaichi Terauchi used the moment to negotiate with the Brits, "giving them the chance to save themselves from annihilation by agreeing to an unconditional surrender".
It worked, and British Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival surrendered.
Trying to get this frigging site to accept these image links is painful.
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