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Historical Article: From Tragedy to Triumph
Posted on: 2014-05-13 17:39:18 The British Pacific Fleet in WWII By John Dudek @ The Wargamer The first six months of WWII's War in the Pacific were a nightmarish time of endless, ever mounting losses and horrendous military defeats suffered by the ABDA (American, British, Dutch and Australian) Allies to the ever advancing, victorious Japanese Empire. To the victor went the spoils. The Dutch lost their priceless oil and gas rich colonies in the Dutch East Indies. The Americans lost an entire army of over 60,000 men, most of their Asiatic Fleet and all of the Philippine Islands, plus a number of their other island or colonial holdings as well. The British lost Hong Kong, all of Malaya and an army of over 130,000 men at Singapore. British Commonwealth Forces were also in the process of being forcibly ejected from their colony of Burma by the Japanese. The supreme insult however, was in the loss of the fortress of Singapore, the "Jewel in the British Far Eastern Colonial Crown." |