Although the 25th Army was outnumbered by Allied forces in Malaya and Singapore, Japanese commanders concentrated their forces. The Japanese 25th Army was resisted in northern Malaya by III Corps of the British Indian Army. At this time, the Japanese began bombing strategic sites in Singapore. The Japanese then proceeded overland across the Thai–Malayan border to attack Malaya. Thailand initially resisted, but soon had to yield. This was virtually simultaneous with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor which precipitated the United States entry in to the war. The Japanese 25th Army invaded from Indochina, moving into northern Malaya and Thailand by amphibious assault on 8 December 1941. With this perimeter, it was intended to block Allied attempts to regain the lost territory and defeat their will to fight. Following these attacks, a period of consolidation was planned, after which the Japanese planners intended to build up the defences of the territory that had been captured by establishing a strong perimeter around it stretching from the India–Burma frontier through to Wake Island, and traversing Malaya, the Dutch East Indies, New Guinea and New Britain, the Bismarck Archipelago, and the Marshall and Gilbert Islands. In addition, strikes would be made against the United States naval fleet at Pearl Harbor, as well as landings in the Philippines, and attacks on Guam, Wake Island and the Gilbert Islands. This would see landings in Malaya and Hong Kong as part of a general move south to secure Singapore, which was connected to Malaya by the Johor–Singapore Causeway, and then an invasion of the oil-rich area of Borneo and Java in the Dutch East Indies. As a part of this process, the Japanese planners determined a broad scheme of manoeuvre that incorporated simultaneous attacks on the British and the United States. As Japan's oil reserves were rapidly depleted by the ongoing military operations in China as well as industrial consumption, in the latter half of 1941, the Japanese began preparing a military response to secure vital resources if diplomatic efforts to resolve the situation failed. Backgroundĭuring 19, the Allies had imposed a trade embargo on Japan in response to its continued campaigns in China and its occupation of French Indochina. The British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, called the ignominious fall of Singapore to the Japanese the "worst disaster" and "largest capitulation" in British military history. About 80,000 British, Indian and Australian troops became prisoners of war, joining 50,000 taken by the Japanese in the earlier Malayan Campaign. It resulted in the capture of Singapore by the Japanese and the largest surrender of British-led military personnel in history. The fighting in Singapore lasted from 8 to 15 February 1942 although this was preceded by two months of British resistance as Japanese forces advanced down the Malaya peninsula. Singapore was the major British military base in South-East Asia and was the keystone of British imperial interwar defence planning for South-East Asia as well as the South-West Pacific. The Battle of Singapore, also known as the Fall of Singapore, was fought in the South-East Asian theatre of World War II when the Empire of Japan invaded the British stronghold of Singapore-nicknamed the "Gibraltar of the East". ![]() Lieutenant-General Arthur Ernest Percival, led by a Japanese officer, walks under a flag of truce to negotiate the capitulation of Allied forces in Singapore, on 15 February 1942. Part of the Pacific Theatre of World War II
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