Surrender of British in Singapore to the Japanese
The Ford Motor Factory was the site of the British surrender to the Japanese. On 15 February 1942, General Officer Commanding (Malaya), Lieutenant General Percival, met Lieutenant General Yamashita, commander of the Japanese 25th Army that had invaded Malaya and was then attacking Singapore, to discuss the terms of surrender. The British Defenders were in dire straits as they were running low on food, water and ammunition. They would not last more than a few more days on their meagre supplies. Percival had proposed two solutions: to launch a counterattack to wrest back MacRitchie Reservoir to restore the water supply and retake the food depots or to surrender. All his commanders opted for surrender. Percival attempted to stall for time during the meeting at the factory, but Yamashita demanded an immediate unconditional surrender of the British forces in Singapore or the Japanese would begin a massive assault on the city. Faced with no other choice and in hopes of minimising civilian casualities, Percival formally surrendered the British forces in Singapore to Yamashita shortly after 5.15pm. Thus began the darkest period of Singapore history: the Japanese Occupation from 1942 to 1945. What the defenders did not know at that time was that the Japanese were also facing similar problems. They were short on ammunition and supplies, and the British defenders outnumbered the Japanese invaders greatly. Yamashita knew the Japanese army would not be able to hold out for long, and he feared the consequences should the British discover that they outnumbered the invading Japanese greatly, so he decided to call a bluff: to send a message to Percival asking him to surrender. The bluff worked, and under pressure from Yamashita, Percival surrendered the British forces defending Singapore, thus resulting in the largest surrender of British-led forces in history. The boardroom where the British surrender took place is still part of the factory. The table around which the British and Japanese surrender parties sat is in the Australian War Museum. The remaining seven teak chairs are in the Surrender Chambers on Sentosa Island. |
