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The Battle of Singapore
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Jay. View Drop Down
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Posts: 1207 		  Quote Jay. Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: The Battle of Singapore
    Posted: 24-Aug-2006 at 09:40
Inspired by cahaya, I decided to start a thread on some Southeast Asian history, rather than only discussing South asian history, because I don't know if you've checked; the board is called South and SE Asia. Wink

BATTLE OF SINGAPORE

The battle of Singapore was fought South-East Asian theatre (the  name given to the campaigns of the Pacific War) in World War II. It all started when Imperial Japan invaded the allied stronghold of Singapore. The fighting was of course, brutal, and it lasted from February 5-17 1942. The main reason Japan wanted to invade Malaya was because like other nations in the South-East Asian continent, it had valueble natrual resoruces.



At 8:30pm, on February 8, Australian machine gunners opened fire on vessels carrying a first wave of 4,000 troops from the 5th and 18th Divisions towards Singapore island. Vicious fighting raged all day but eventually the increasing Japanese numbers as well as their superiority in artillery, planes and military intelligence began to take their toll. In the northwest of the island, they exploited gaps in the thinly spread Allied lines such as rivers and creeks. By midnight, the two Australian brigades had lost communications with each other and the 22nd Brigade was forced to retreat. At 1am, further Japanese troops were landed in the northwest of the island and the last Australian reserves went in. Towards dawn on Febraury 9 elements of the 22nd Brigade were overrun or surrounded, and the Australian 2/18th Battalion had lost more than 50% of its personnel.

On the morning of the Chinese New Year, February 15, the Japanese army had finally broken through the last line of defence, and the allies were running out of food, and ammunition which led to the fall of Singapore. In a meeting later, they had contacted the Japanese and formally surrendered the Allied forces to Yamashiita. This led to the largest surrender of British-led military personnel in history.


P.S. - I had to spell Yamashiita with two i's because it would'nt let me spell it with one i. LOL

Sources: images from Wikipedia, paragraph #2 copy-pasted from www.answers.com


Edited by Jay. - 24-Aug-2006 at 09:48
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Aug-2006 at 10:34

Excellent!!.. jay has start a good topic here..

The invasion by the Japanese start from 1941...when they started to conquer Malaya and Singapore.. as wht Jay have told.. the reason because of the resources.

On 8 Dec, after some fighting at Kota Bharu, the Japanese troops took coast cities of Singora (Thailand), Patani (Thailand), and Kota Bharu (Malaya).

The first battle in Malaya started in Kuantan (10 Dec 1941), then continue in Fall of Penang (17 Dec 1941) .. just 7 days from the first attack.. then fall of Kuala Lumpur on 11 Jan 1942 and the last battle where British had surrendered in Singapore.

soure:http://ww2db.com/battle_spec.php?battle_id=47

At 1400 hours on Sunday, 15 Feb, Percival decided that he only had enough supplies for two more days of fighting, and surrendered. Yamash*ta asked Percival, who wore the baggy British tropical uniform shorts that date, "do you wish to surrender unconditionally?", and Percival answered "Yes we do", and that marked the fall of the "Impregnable Fortress" of Singapore to Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamash*ta. Yamash*ta's troops had only enough ammunitions to fight a few more days, but Percival did not have that intelligence. Singapore, the Gibraltar of the East, would remain under Japanese control until the end of the war. Until the last moment of battle, the British shore batteries of 15" and 19" guns pointed southward, waiting for the naval assault expected but never came.

At the conclusion of the Japanese campaign at Malaya, all Allied troops at the peninsula, numbered at over 138,000, were killed or captured. Many of the captured would endure a four-year long brutal captivity as forced labor in Indo-China. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill considered the British defeat at Singapore one of the most humiliating British defeats of all time. Many historians suggest similarly.
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Anujkhamar View Drop Down
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Posts: 1027 		  Quote Anujkhamar Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Aug-2006 at 10:45
Thread temporarilly moved. It will be included in the new SE Asian subforum.

edit: Thread moved back...finally


Edited by Anujkhamar - 06-Oct-2006 at 17:54
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tommy View Drop Down
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Posts: 545 		  Quote tommy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15-Mar-2007 at 09:26
"and the allies were running out of food, and ammunition which led to the fall of Singapore"
 
But from my understanding, British had plenty of foof and ammunition , buit Japanese were running out of food and ammunition
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Posts: 5711 		  Quote Constantine XI Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15-Mar-2007 at 18:32
My understanding of the Fall is that it occurred because the Allies had not expected an overland attacks and their preparations there was inadequate. Also that the British navy with its battleships was ill-equipped to fight the Japanese navy with its aircraft carriers.

Whatever the cause, the result was a close alliance between Australia and the USA to contest the Japanese spread over Southeast Asia. The British, of course, were forced west to fighting in Burma and eastern India.
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Mar-2007 at 00:09
Singapore was doomed from the time when France fell. Why? Because the idea was incase of a japanese threat to SE Asia the french would take over the med and the RN Med Flt would be dispatched to the Far East. Uf that had occured then I think Singapores fall would have been avoided.
 
 
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Posts: 26 		  Quote XueKaiYuan Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30-Apr-2007 at 04:10
Nope. The Japanese were severely out of food and ammunition, and with the surrender, he forced himself to look all high and more powerful than the British, so as to make it seem as if the japs had the better hand. The British, even though had much artillery and weapons captured still had more food supply and ammunition. However, percival was taken in by his scandal and did not engage the rest of the commonwealth troops in the next few months in street fighting. However, if he had done so, the commonwealth troops could have won.
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30-Apr-2007 at 06:30
Nope. There was no hope of resupply at all. They were doomed.
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snowybeagle View Drop Down
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Posts: 474 		  Quote snowybeagle Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02-May-2007 at 23:41
Water ... the Japanese bombardments totally disrupted the water supply in Singapore.
 
Chances were the Allies and the civvies in Singapore would run out of water before the Japanese run out of supplies.
 
The Allies also had little clue to Japanese actual strength and supply situation.
 
Even if the Allies knew the Japanese were running low on supples, and they were willing to lose men and civvies to lack of water to play for time, it become a question of whether the Allies would receive the necessary reinforcements (modern warplanes) first or the Japanese would receive reinforcements first.
 
The IJN was running free in the Pacific at that time, while the Allies had despatched just about all the modern warplanes and warships they could spare to the Far East.


Edited by snowybeagle - 02-May-2007 at 23:47
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