Singapore 1942: Britain's Greatest Defeat (2002) By Alan Warren
 
The vast crescent of British-ruled territories from India down to Singapore appeared in the early stages of the Second World War a massive asset in the war with Germany, providing huge quantities of soldiers and raw materials and key part of an impregnable global network denied to the Nazis. Within a few weeks in 1941-2 a Japanese invasion had destroyed all this, almost effortlessly taking the impregnable fortress of Singapore with its 80,000 strong garrison, and sweeping through South and Southeast Asia to the frontier of India itself. This revolutionary, absolutely gripping book brings to life the entire experience of South and Southeast Asia in this extraordinary period, telling the story from an Indian, Burmese, Chinese or Malay perspective as much as from that of the British or Japanese.
 
The surrender of Singapore on February 15, 1942, was the greatest and most humiliating defeat in British history and the high-point of Japanese expansion in Southeast Asia. It graphically exposed the military weakness of the British Empire and its inability to defend its Far Eastern colonies. Based on original records, Singapore, 1942 shows what went wrong and how an outnumbered and poorly equipped Japanese invasion force swept to victory against a mixed army of British, Australian, and Indian soldiers, changing Britain's imperial destiny and the course of World War II.
 
Hard Cover with Dust Jacket
370 Pages
In Good Condition