This title focuses on the strategic decisions and considerations that led to Singapore’s downfall, particularly choices made by Churchill and the War Cabinet. A main thrust of argument was that Britain simply lacked the resources to both fight off a European adversary (Germany), while at the same time be able to defend its Eastern colonial possessions.

Colin Smith’s work is sweeping in scale and yet, it retells in fascinating detail, the story of Singapore from the period before its fall to the Japanese in 1942, to its liberation in 1945. There is a cast of hundreds, if not thousands, and each has a story to tell, with some more tragic and harrowing than the rest. The pre-war years of the 1930s especially captures the mood, beliefs and confidence of a colonial era that has since passed into history. This presumptive sense of colonial confidence is effectively contrasted against the period of 1942-45, one of privation and suffering.

In 1944, British and Australian commandos launch a covert operation, codenamed “Rimau” or “Tiger”, to penetrate Singapore’s habour to destroy Japanese ships. They will use top-secret one-man submarines to enter the habour. But the operation goes horribly wrong, with tragic consequences. Read about one of the Pacific War’s most ambitious, and costly, covert operations.