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Singapore Diary: The Hidden Journal Of Captain R. M. Horner. Edited by Sally Moore McQuaid. Brimscombe, Port Stroud, U.K.: SpeUmount, 2006. ISBN 1-86227-339-1. IUustrations. £20.
Singapore Burning: Heroism and Surrender in World War II. By Colin Smith. London: Penguin Viking, 2005. ISBN 978-0-1410-1036-6. Maps. IUustrations. Bibliography. Index. Pp. 628. £25.00.
The Battle for Singapore: the True Story of the Greatest Catastrophe of World War II. By Peter Thompson. London: Portrait, 2005. ISBN 978-0-7499-5099-6. Maps. Illustrations. Pp. 470. £9.99 (pb).
Britain's Greatest Defeat: Singapore, 1942. By Alan Warren. New York: Hambledon Continuum, 2006. ISBN 1-852-8532-8X. Maps. IUustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. 370. £16.99 (pb)
The "Worst Disaster"
Contrary to popular perception, the Pacific War (1941-45) actuaUy opened with Japanese air operations against Hong Kong, Malaya and Singapore. Ninetyfive minutes before Japanese warplanes appeared over Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, Britain had already been attacked in the Far East. Two days later the warships HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse, pride of the Royal Navy, had been sunk. In the land campaign that followed on the Malayan peninsula the Japanese inflicted such a reverse upon British imperial forces that their former prestige and self confidence never truly recovered. Thus, the psychological shock felt by the British after the fall of Singapore in 1942 paralleled that experienced by their American allies after their crushing defeats at Pearl Harbor and in the Philippines.
Every conceivable reason has been advanced to explain the cause of the disaster. There is neither the space nor the necessity here to enumerate the full litany of factors that contributed to the Singapore debacle. It was, at the time, both the sheer unexpectedness and the magnitude of the defeat that stunned the British. The Japanese strike south (Nanshin) caught the complacent colonial overlords of Asia desperately unprepared. Many in the upper echelons misperceived Singapore island as an 'impregnable fortress' bristling with defenses. The Imperial Chiefs of Staff (COS), in a wildly optimistic assessment, expected this 'fortress' to withstand a siege of six months before expecting naval 'relief. Moreover, weaned on a diet of Rudyard Kipling's 'white man's burden,' the British grievously underestimated their oriental foe, scorning Japans martial prowess on the basis of ill-founded racist stereotypes. Some 80-120,000 troops surrendered to the Japanese...