Capture of Singapore

On February 2, 1942, the Japanese entered Singapore, easily driving out the British and capturing the naval base there on February 15. It was Britain's largest defeat ever. The capture of Singapore exposed the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) and the Indian Ocean to a Japanese advance.

The British in Singapore surrendered on February 15, an event Winston Churchill described as "the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history." Some 130,000 British, Australian, and Indian troops were captured. Japan then sought to create a transport route through Siam (Thailand) into Burma, which it occupied between 1942 and 1944, in order to reduce its reliance on sea transport and facilitate a possible invasion of India.

Many Allied soldiers were imprisoned in the infamous Changri Gaol and then transferred from there to work on the infamous Burma-Thai Death Railway and the Bridge over the River Kwai. The infamous Death Railway, constructed by the Japanese using the forced labor of hundreds of thousands of civilians from southeast Asia and prisoners of war from the Allies' forces. These soldiers were relocated from camps in Singapore and elsewhere. They were principally from the UK and its colony in India, the Netherlands and its Dutch East Indies colony (today Indonesia), Australia, and the United States.

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