The Fall of Singapore (Penguin Classic Military History)

Sunday 15 February 1942 was, according to Sir Winston Churchill, the blackest day in the history of the British Empire. Only ten weeks earlier Japanese assault troops had waded ashore on the North-East coast of Malaya. Now the besieged British, Australian and Asian forces in Britain's so-called "impregnable citadel" were compelled to lay down their arms and some 90,000 allied service-men became prisoners of war. It was a crushing humiliation and defeat that marked the disintegration of the British Empire. Even today the angry question is being asked: why?