IntroductionThe Battle of Singapore took place during World War II, from January 31 to February 15, 1942. The two opposing forces were the British and the Japanese. Lieutenant General Author Percival led 85,000 men to defend the war while Lieutenant General Tomoyuki Yamashita commanded the invasion with 36,000 men. The assault to invade British Malaya began on December 8, 1941. During this period, General Yamashita began to invade this British colony from Indochina and then from Thailand. The Japanese forces that invaded Malaya were obviously outnumbered by the British forces, but they intelligently concentrated their forces and applied the combined military skills learned and acquired in previous campaigns to frequently repel and flank their enemies. Japanese forces quickly gained air superiority over the British and inflicted a demoralizing blow on British forces when Japanese aircraft sank two integral British battleships. The Japanese also used bicycles and light tanks to quickly maneuver through the jungles of the peninsula to attack the British armies. Although General Percival was reinforced, his forces were unable to stop the Japanese invasion and eventually withdrew from the peninsula and took refuge on the island of Singapore to prepare for the final fight with the expected Japanese forces . Ultimately, the British Army lost the war because Japanese forces skillfully combined speed, savagery, and surprise without allowing British forces to regroup and strategize. The Japanese were able to invade Singapore due to their dominance over the unprepared British forces. They effectively applied the principles of mass, surprise, objective and unity of command by focusing on ...... middle of paper ...... them. Additionally, although the British Allied troops were superior in numbers, they were very poorly trained and had minimal and inferior training compared to seasoned Japanese soldiers. The Allied forces lacked tanks and enough aircraft to compete with the Japanese, and what few they had were destroyed before the battle, leaving the soldiers extremely vulnerable and ill-equipped for battle. Works Cited Farrell, Brian P. The Defense and Fall of Singapore 1940-1942. Trafalgar Square, 2006. Leasor, James. Singapore: the battle that changed the world. London: House of Stratus, 2001. Marston, Daniel. The Pacific War Companion From Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima. Oxford: Osprey, 2007. Neal, Mary. Battle of Singapore. The Globe and Mail [Toronto, Ont] November 13, 1990: A.16.