Today known as Malaysia, Malaya was a British colony occupied by UK forces in World War 2, and became a target for Japanese forces as they looked to dominate the East Pacific. On December 7, 1941, the same day as the Japanese forces hit Pearl Harbor, British Indian forces also came under assault as three transport ships and a number of small boats headed an invasion. The US forces at Pearl Harbor were caught off guard by the Japanese attack, but nearly 7000 miles away British troops mounted a counter-attack against the Imperial Army.
Airstrikes were dealt against the swathes of oncoming Japanese forces, but this didn’t stop a large number of Imperial Army soldiers reaching the beaches of Malaya and sparking ground combat.
The port of Kota Bharu was seized by the invading Japanese within a day, despite the Imperial Army’s death toll from the first fight standing at 320 to Britain’s 105.
The Japanese would continue their momentum for two months as British troops fell back gradually against their fearsome enemies, eventually retreating to Singapore.
By the end of January 1942, 7,500 British troops and 3,507 Japanese forces had died in what was a horrific flashpoint in the battle of the Pacific.
Even retreating to Singapore did not halt the Japanese advances. Despite blowing a hole in the route to the region the British couldn’t stop another wave of attacks.
Singapore was claimed by Japan on Februrary 15, 1942, a victory that would ultimately come in vain as the Japanese would eventually surrender from the war after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.
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During the violence 188 US aircraft were destroyed, 2,403 Americans were killed and 1,178 others were wounded.
Despite being well aware of Japan’s plans for military action in the Pacific, the US failed to respond, a mishap that sparked unfounded conspiracy theories that President Franklin Roosevelt knew the attack was coming but didn’t act to facilitate US entry into the war.
While the US knew Japan were plotting military moves, they didn’t see the preemptive strike coming as a result of what many experts have dubbed simply poor planning.