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N0KFQ > TODAY 16.02.08 02:01l 62 Lines 2926 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Today in History - Feb 15
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From: N0KFQ@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
To : TODAY@ALLUS
February 15, 1942
Japan celebrates major victory in the Pacific
In one of the greatest defeats in British military history,
Britain's supposedly impregnable Singapore fortress surrenders to
Japanese forces after a weeklong siege. More than 60,000 British,
Australian, and Indian soldiers were taken prisoner, joining
70,000 other Allied soldiers captured during Britain's disastrous
defense of the Malay Peninsula.
On December 8, 1941--the day after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor--the
Japanese moved against British-controlled Malay, steamrollering
across Thailand and landing in northern Malay. The Japanese made
rapid advances against British positions, capturing British
airfields and gaining air superiority. British General A.E.
Percival was reluctant to leave Malay's roads and thus was
outflanked again and again by the Japanese, who demonstrated an
innovative grasp of the logistics of jungle warfare. The Allies
could do little more than delay the Japanese and continued to
retreat south.
By January, the Allied force was outnumbered and held just the
lower half of the peninsula. General Tomoyuki Yamashita's 25th
Army continued to push forward, and on January 31 the Allies were
forced to retreat across the causeway over the Johor Strait to
the great British naval base on the island of Singapore, located
on the southern tip of the peninsula. The British dynamited the
causeway behind them but failed to entirely destroy the bridge.
Singapore, with its big defensive guns, was considered
invulnerable to attack. However, the guns, which used
armor-piercing shells and the flat trajectories necessary to
decimate an enemy fleet, were not designed to defend against a
land attack on the unfortified northern end of the island.
On February 5, Yamashita brought up heavy siege guns to the tip
of the peninsula and began bombarding Singapore. On February 8,
thousands of Japanese troops began streaming across the narrow
waterway and established several bridgeheads. Japanese engineers
quickly repaired the causeway, and troops, tanks, and artillery
began pouring on to Singapore. The Japanese pushed forward to
Singapore City, capturing key British positions and splitting the
Allied defenders into isolated groups.
On February 15, Percival--lacking a water supply and nearly out
of food and ammunition--agreed to surrender. With the loss of
Singapore, the British lost control of a highly strategic
waterway and opened the Indian Ocean to Japanese invasion.
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill called it the "worst
disaster and largest capitulation in British history." Many
thousands of the 130,000 Allied troops captured died in Japanese
captivity.
Later in the war, Lord Louis Mountbatten, the supreme Allied
commander in Southeast Asia, made plans for the liberation of the
Malay Peninsula, but Japan surrendered before they could be
carried out.
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