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Churchill called it "the worst disaster and the largest capitulation in British history" and the Fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942 has certainly gathered its own mythology in the past 70 years. Was it all the fault of General Percival; were the guns pointing the wrong way; did the Australians refuse to fight; did General Yamashita bluff Percival into surrendering; why did the Allies underestimate the Japanese? Should Churchill have exercised tighter control, as he did in North Africa? In this article I'll try to answer these questions and to consider if Singapore could have been saved.
Britain and Japan first became allies in 1902. During the Great War the Japanese navy acted as a surrogate British fleet in the Far East, sent ships to the Mediterranean on anti-submarine duties and helped to suppress a mutiny in Singapore. At the same time Japan occupied all German colonies in the area and parts of China. Japan was excluded from the top table at the Paris Peace Conference and had to make do with meetings at foreign ministry level, failing to achieve many of its territorial demands because of US opposition. Japans other main aim was to insert a 'racial equality' clause into the League of Nations treaty, which also failed.
The Washington Naval Conference of 1920-21 resulted in the end of the Anglo-Japanese agreement and the limitation of the Japanese fleet to one third the size of the combined US/UK fleets. Relations were further soured by the US 'Japanese Exclusion Act' of 1924 and were brought to a head by the London Naval Conference of 1930, when the US again thwarted Japanese efforts to expand its fleet. This change in relationship with Japan was not ignored in London, but the early 1920s was a period of financial retrenchment by the British Government and the rule was formulated by Churchill that a military response to threats assessed as being longer than 10 years away should not be funded. However, under pressure from Australia in particular, the Singapore Strategy evolved. A major naval base would be built at Sembawang on the north-east coast of Singapore. It would be the duty of the garrison to hold Singapore until the fleet arrived in 6-10 weeks, from where it would...