The Fall of Singapore was described by Winston Churchill as perhaps the greatest defeat British forces had ever suffered, but it was also a significant disaster for Australia. Australia would then change their strategic approach, both in World War II and in the future. Australia, as a relatively late-settled British colony with a very high expatriate British (white) population, had been very closely tied to Britain for 150 years and relied upon Britain for its military support and foreign policy. Thus, when the so-called Eastern Gibraltar, Singapore, came under threat from the Japanese, Australians joined the British in great numbers to defend it. The British-Australian naval base in Singapore had been very important to both Britain and Australia for over two decades and was a means of protecting their mutual interests in the area, so it was important to both nations to protect it.
When the Japanese landed in Singapore in 1941, they were heavily outnumbered, but, despite this, they made swift inroads into the Allies' rather poorly handled and mismanaged defense. The Allied air strategy was also very poor, with the result that Singapore's cities were being bombed without the Allied troops having any capacity to stop them. Eventually 130,000 Allied troops were taken prisoner, of whom 15,000 were Australian. Some of these Australian troops were murdered before they ever reached the prison camps. Meanwhile, the Australian commander, Major General Bennett, received strong criticism for escaping from Singapore unharmed, increasing the sense that Australia was not managing its troops according to its best interests.
The main result of the defeat in Singapore for Australia was that they were forced to revisit their century-old ideas about what was best for the country in terms of foreign policy. Set in the Pacific region, Australia had been concerned for several decades that Japan was a stronger power in the area than far-away Britain—which had, indeed, caused the Singapore Strategy to be put in place in the 1920s, strengthening defenses in that area. Now, however, Australians began to debate the importance of having an ally who was geographically closer to their most serious threat. In 1942, the Australian Prime Minister announced that they would now be shaping a plan in conjunction with the United States, who had a more similar attitude toward the threat from Japan, having been subject to Japanese attacks on their mainland. Australia from this point on felt that their interests would be best aligned with those of the United States.
https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/fall-of-singapore
During World War II, Singapore served as a major British naval base. Because they were British colonies, both Australia and India supplied troops to the British army, and many of them served in the Pacific and were stationed in Singapore. At this stage of the war, Japan had recently attacked Pearl Harbor (December 1941) and was steadily fighting its way through the Pacific toward Singapore. A combined fighting force of British, Australian, and Indian troops guarded the island and prepared for an attack from the south. Instead, Japanese forces attacked from the north, surprising the British defenses and taking the island in a matter of days while proving that European and Western armies were not invincible. 700 Australians were killed, and another 15,000 were taken prisoner. Stories of the atrocities and brutalities suffered by Australian prisoners of war became a legacy of Australia's role in World War II. The loss remains one of the worst British battle losses in history. Additionally, the United States, under General Douglas MacArthur, largely took over the Allied fighting in the Pacific. As a result, Australia developed closer political and diplomatic ties with the US, signaling an important foreign policy shift for Australia. For the remainder of the war and in the years following, Australia would continue to develop close ties with the US while moving away from its ties with Britain.
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