From Sister Moira’s Blog, this commemorative piece: Veterans recall “living hell” of Singapore’s wartime fall
More than 100,000 mainly Indian, British and Australian troops were taken prisoner on the evening of February 15, 1942, when General Arthur Percival unconditionally surrendered the British island fortress that had been believed impregnable.
The fortress was believed impregnable because it was ringed with walls and armaments facing out to sea. But the Brits left open and unprotected the Causeway to the Malay Peninsula. Japan landed soldiers on the unprotected East Coast of Malaya, and they literally rode bicycles down to the Causeway and invaded with no resitance. The bicycles were Japanese-made, and sold to the Malays for ten years before the war.
Historians of colonialism often say that the Fall of Singapore, more than any other single event, erased the illusion of the White Man’s invulnerabilty and fueled Asian Independence Movements.