The Fall of Singapore remains a crushing defeat that sent shockwaves around the British Empire during the Second World War. The British Army were aware of the threat to Singapore - the legacy of empire - from the first days after Pearl Harbor, but they viewed the Japanese Army as an inferior fighting force. Yet, in December 1941 the Japanese launched a swift attack on the Singapore airfields, nearly wiping out the entire fleet of RAF frontline aeroplanes. On 10 December the Japanese also destroyed two of the Royal Navy's premier battleships off the Malay coast. Suddenly, the fate of Singapore rested solely in the hands of the Army. Despite having superior numbers, the British were quickly overwhelmed by the speed and ferocity of the invading Japanese forces and were soon forced to retreat. Over 100,000 men were taken prisoner and many thousands of residents of the city were massacred. To understand what happened and why read Battle Story. AUTHOR: Chris Brown is a defence analyst and military historian. He has written extensively on Scottish history and the history of the Second World War. He is a regular talking head on military TV documentaries and has prepared war studies programmes for Edinburgh University. 50 b/w illustrations