Invasion of the Malay Peninsula and Singapore

Singapore was the primary goal of the Japanese in Southeast Asia. On December 8, 1941, the day after the raid on Pearl Harbor, Japan invaded Malaya and began bombing Singapore. The Japanese overran the Malay Peninsula in about eight weeks, advancing via bicycles on excellent British-built roads, while the British forces in Southeast Asia retreated to Singapore.

On December 8, two convoys of Japanese troops, which had sailed from bases in Hainan and southern Indochina, landed at Singora (now Songkhla) and Patani in southern Thailand and Kota Baharu in northern Malaya. One of Japan's top generals (Yamashita Tomoyuki) and some of its most experienced troops were assigned to the Malaya campaign. By the evening of December 8, 27,000 Japanese troops under the command of General Tomoyuki had established a foothold on the Peninsula and taken the British air base at Kota Baharu. Meanwhile, Japanese airplanes had begun bombing Singapore. Hoping to intercept any further landings by the Japanese fleet, the battleship HMS Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser HMS Repulse headed north, unaware that all British airbases in northern Malaya were now in Japanese hands. Without air support, the British ships were easy targets for the Japanese air force, which sank them both on December 10.

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