With the rise of the Japanese Empire in the aftermath of World War One, the British Empire had to seek a defence strategy to counter the threat of Japan’s growing ambitions in the Far East. By 1919, Singapore was identified as the key to the defence of the Far East, in what became known as the Singapore Strategy. This led to the opening of a first-class British naval base in Singapore in 1938, which would also serve as a bulwark for the defence of Australia and New Zealand. Singapore quickly became known as the “Gibraltar of the East”, a seemingly impregnable fortress that was later to fall to the Japanese Army.

In the words of wartime British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the British surrender to the Japanese Army in Singapore on 15 February 1942 was the “worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history”.

The fall of Singapore was an event of great significance on the international stage, its reverberations felt across the region. It drove home the threat of a Japanese invasion for the Australians and New Zealanders, who were made to rethink their security alliances with the British. It also marked the demise of the old colonial empires in the region as the Western forces were defeated by an Asian power on the battlefield. This resulted in large numbers of civilians being uprooted, forced to flee the war-stricken colonial territories.