The largest surrender in British history | Singapore, 1942

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 so-called '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/britains-war-in-the-far-east-during-the-second-world-war Plan your visit to IWM: https://www.iwm.org.uk/ Explore the film footage used in this video, and licence it for use: https://film.iwmcollections.org.uk/c/1859 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 #history #ww2 #singapore