On the 15th of February 1942, Lt General Arthur Percival signed the largest surrender in British history at Singapore. The city was supposed to be a fortress, but his force of 85,000 men had been defeated by just 35,000 Japanese troops.

Little over 2 months earlier Japanese forces had invaded northern Malaya. Thanks to their advanced tactics and training, the Japanese advanced with incredible speed pushing the unprepared British back to Singapore in a socalled 'bicycle blitzkrieg'. When they crossed the Johore straights and captured the Bukit Timah heights above Singapore itself, Percival was forced to surrender.

So how did the Japanese defeat a numerically superior force? Why wasn’t Singapore an impregnable fortress? And could the British have held out?

Find out more about the fall of Singapore: https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/britai...

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00:00 Introduction
00:55 Fortress Singapore?
01:23 Japanese plan
02:31 British plan
04:45 The Malayan campaign
07:00 Defending Singapore
08:47 The Battle of Singapore
11:24 Impact on the war