The worst military defeat in British history. That's what Winston Churchill called the Fall of Singapore. It was the cornerstone of the British Empire in South-East Asia but it fell in a week in February 1942. The British expected a naval attack but the Japanese assault came by land through the Malay Peninsula. They took 80000 Allied prisoners and treated them brutally. Many perished in forced labor building the notorious Burma-Thailand Railway. It was catastrophic for Britain because it exposed its colonial possessions in Malaya, India, and Burma. Meanwhile, it stained the myth of European Superiority because an Asian power won a total victory.

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