The Fall of the Southern Empires

At about 01:45 on 8 December, Japanese assault troops came ashore at Kota Bharu while other forces were entering Thailand and opening the wider southern offensive. The Malayan landing was the first step in a plan whose timetable depended on taking airfields and road junctions quickly enough to keep the next convoys and aircraft moving south.

Japanese aircraft from Formosa struck Clark and Iba after weather had delayed their morning schedule. B-17s and pursuit aircraft were destroyed or damaged on the ground in large numbers, sharply reducing the Far East Air Force before Homma’s main invasion force had landed on Luzon.

Prince of Wales and Repulse sailed from Singapore to find the Japanese invasion convoys and were themselves found off Malaya on 10 December. Land-based naval aircraft attacked with bombs and torpedoes through the late morning and early afternoon. Both capital ships sank.

Japanese troops crossed Victoria Harbour on the evening of 18 December after the mainland positions had already been lost. They established lodgements on Hong Kong Island and forced the defenders into a battle across steep ground, reservoirs, roads and built-up districts with no depth left behind them.

Homma’s 14th Army put its main force ashore around Lingayen Gulf on 22 December. The beachhead gave the Japanese room to deploy north of Manila and opened the central plain toward the capital, forcing the Philippine command to decide whether to continue defending Luzon broadly or return to the pre-war refuge in Bataan and the fortified islands of Manila Bay.

Governor Sir Mark Young surrendered Hong Kong on 25 December after Japanese forces had crossed to the island, split the remaining defence and reduced the garrison’s ability to maintain a connected position. British, Canadian, Indian and locally raised forces had continued fighting after the mainland was lost, but the colony could no longer be reinforced or relieved.

On 26 December MacArthur ordered Plan ORANGE back into effect. The broad defence of Luzon was abandoned and the principal American-Filipino forces began concentrating on Bataan and the fortified islands guarding Manila Bay.

Japanese troops entered Manila on 2 January after the city had been declared open. The main American-Filipino formations were already withdrawing into Bataan, with Corregidor and the other harbour forts still covering the entrance to Manila Bay.

Japanese artillery and infantry opened the main attack against the first Bataan defensive line on 9 January. American and Philippine units held the difficult ground and denied Homma the quick collapse his original timetable had expected.

Japanese troops entered Kuala Lumpur on 11 January, barely a month after the landings in northern Malaya. The Commonwealth retreat had passed through successive river lines, towns and roadblocks without producing a position that could stop the 25th Army for more than a limited period.

Japanese forces landed on Tarakan in Dutch Borneo on 11 January as the offensive moved directly into the oil-producing Netherlands East Indies. Dutch troops attempted to deny the installations by demolition before the island was lost.

Near Gemencheh Bridge on 14 January, troops of the 2/30th Australian Battalion ambushed a Japanese column moving along the road toward Gemas. The attack inflicted heavy losses before the Australians withdrew toward the main defensive position.

ABDACOM became operational under General Archibald Wavell on 15 January. The new command was expected to coordinate American, British, Dutch and Australian forces from Burma through the East Indies while Malaya, Borneo and the Philippines were already under sustained attack.

Japanese forces crossed the Muar River and pressed into western Johor while Commonwealth units fought around Bakri and the roads leading south. Australian 2-pounder crews destroyed Type 95 tanks at close range, and infantry repeatedly fought to keep the withdrawal route open.

In the early hours of 24 January, American destroyers entered the Japanese anchorage off Balikpapan and attacked invasion shipping with torpedoes and gunfire. Several transports were sunk or damaged in one of the few successful Allied surface strikes against an invasion force during the opening months.

The last Commonwealth troops crossed from Johor onto Singapore Island on 31 January and engineers demolished the causeway behind them. The campaign on the peninsula had ended with the 25th Army standing across the strait from the naval base it had been advancing toward since 8 December.

On the night of 8 February, Japanese assault troops crossed the Johor Strait against the north-western shore of Singapore, where Australian units held the principal landing sector. The first waves established bridgeheads and began moving inland before the defenders could restore a continuous line along the coast.

Japanese airborne and ground forces took Palembang and the surrounding airfields in mid-February, opening direct access to the oil installations of southern Sumatra and placing additional Japanese air power on Java’s western approach.

Percival surrendered Singapore on 15 February after Japanese forces had penetrated the island and the defensive system around the city was contracting. Water distribution, ammunition, unit cohesion and the condition of a large civilian population all entered the final calculation, while no outside force could reopen the battle.

Japanese forces landed on Bali on 18 February and moved to secure the airfield at Denpasar. The island lay immediately east of Java and gave Japanese aircraft another forward base from which to cover the final approach to the Dutch centre of resistance.

Japanese carrier and land-based aircraft struck Darwin on 19 February, attacking the harbour, shipping and airfields supporting the reinforcement route between Australia and the East Indies. The Australian War Memorial campaign entry records 252 Allied service personnel and civilians killed, while other counts differ slightly according to category.

Doorman’s force attacked Japanese shipping in Badoeng Strait on the night of 19–20 February in an attempt to disrupt the Bali operation. The fighting was confused and divided into separate encounters, and Allied ships failed to undo the Japanese lodgement on the island.

Japanese forces landed on Timor on 20 February, attacking both the Dutch and Portuguese parts of the island and the Allied forces that had moved there to protect the air route north of Australia.

During the retreat toward the Sittang, the bridge was demolished on 23 February while a large part of the 17th Indian Division was still on the eastern bank. The demolition denied the crossing intact to the Japanese, but thousands of Allied soldiers had to get across the river without most of their vehicles, artillery and heavy equipment.

Wavell’s authority as Supreme Commander of ABDACOM ceased at 09:00 on 25 February. The multinational command had lasted little more than six weeks, and Java was left under Dutch direction with British, American and Australian forces still present in the theatre.

Rear-Admiral Karel Doorman took the ABDA striking force into the Java Sea on 27 February to find and attack the Japanese invasion convoys. Dutch, American, British and Australian ships fought through repeated contacts without the air reconnaissance or common communications needed to give the force a clear picture of the enemy.

USS Houston and HMAS Perth entered Sunda Strait after midnight on 1 March while attempting to leave the Java area. Instead they ran into the western Japanese invasion force, with transports and escorts already operating off the landing beaches. Both Allied cruisers were sunk after a close night action.

Japanese forces landed at several points on Java in the early hours of 1 March. Imamura’s 16th Army came ashore after the ABDA surface force had been broken and moved toward airfields, road junctions, Batavia and the inland command area around Bandung.

Allied forces evacuated Rangoon and Japanese troops entered the city on 8 March. The loss removed Burma’s principal port and the maritime entry point for supplies that had moved north toward Lashio and then along the Burma Road to China.

Organized resistance on Java ended on 9 March after Japanese advances from the landing areas broke the island’s defensive system and the Dutch command accepted capitulation. Allied detachments were ordered to cease resistance as a conventional campaign.

MacArthur left Corregidor on the night of 11 March under orders to proceed to Australia. He departed with his staff by PT boat, leaving Jonathan Wainwright to command the forces remaining in the Philippines.

Japanese forces closed on Toungoo in late March, where the Chinese 200th Division defended the road and rail corridor in central Burma. The battle was fought because Toungoo lay astride communications needed by both the Japanese advance and the Allied attempt to keep a connected front between central Burma and the routes toward China.

The Chinese 200th Division withdrew from Toungoo on 30 March after days of fighting and increasing pressure on its communications. The withdrawal preserved much of the formation from being trapped, but it opened the road farther north into central Burma.

The final Japanese offensive against Bataan opened on 3 April with heavy artillery and air preparation against defenders already reduced by months of hunger, disease and shortage. The attack struck an army that had repelled earlier assaults but no longer possessed the physical strength or reserves it had in January.

The forces on Bataan surrendered on 9 April after the April offensive broke the remaining defensive system. The U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command gives approximately 78,000 American and Filipino defenders surrendered, although exact totals vary with the categories counted.

At Yenangyaung in mid-April, British and Indian forces trying to protect the oilfields and withdraw north became entangled with Japanese columns. Chinese forces under Sun Li-jen helped reopen the route, allowing trapped elements to break out on 19 April.

Japanese forces captured Lashio on 29 April. The town was the railhead and road junction through which the Burma communications system connected to the Burma Road, and its loss cut the principal overland supply route to China.

Japanese troops occupied Mandalay on 1 May as the Allied retreat through central Burma continued. The fall of the city removed the principal communications centre around which a renewed central position might have been organized.

Japanese troops landed on Corregidor during the night of 5–6 May after sustained bombardment of the fortress. Once the attackers established a foothold and further landings could not be prevented, Wainwright concluded that continued resistance would destroy the garrison and wounded without changing the campaign. He surrendered on 6 May.

Stilwell’s headquarters party began its walkout from Burma on 6 May after the loss of Lashio and the collapse of the central communications system made the planned route toward China untenable. The party turned toward India on foot through difficult country rather than attempt to remain with a front that no longer existed as one connected line.

Stilwell and his headquarters party reached India on 15 May after the overland march from Burma. Other Allied formations were still withdrawing by different routes, and the campaign had not yet formally ended.

The U.S. Army campaign history dates the withdrawal of the last organized Allied forces from Burma to 26 May. British, Indian and Chinese formations had escaped by different routes after Rangoon, central Burma and Lashio were lost in succession.