The anchor of British power in the Western Pacific was Singapore, a mighty naval base that controlled the passage from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific and trade routes between Britain and Australia, New Zealand, and Oceania.

But a mighty naval base, with with no navy isn't so mighty.

Welcome to the history of the 20th century.

Music The

The Episode 354, The Fall of Singapore.

We concluded last week's episode with the fall of Kuala Lumpur to the Japanese on January 11, 1942.

Recall that U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill,

and their respective military commanders had recently met in Washington and agreed to create a command

dubbed ABDA, A-B-D-A, that's American, British, Dutch, Australian, headquartered on the

island of Java and tasked with organizing allied defenses in the Southwest Pacific.

The British had been leery of this idea.

They expected the Americans would want to appoint an American commander to this new position.

Instead, the Americans suggested General Archibald Wavell, the British commander of the Indian

Army.

We've met Wavell before when he was head of the British Middle East Command,

which put him in charge of the war in North Africa. Well, Churchill became impatient with his

performance in that conflict and reassigned him to his current post, commander of the Indian

Army. The previous commander of the Indian Army, Claude Alkenleck, got Weevil's old job at

Middle East Command. In other words, they swapped jobs. We need to get caught up on events in North

Africa, don't we? Not to mention events in Europe. We will circle back to that theater of operations beginning next week,

but for today, I want to continue with the Japanese offensive in the Pacific.

Wavel's new assignment was not an easy one. If Churchill had intended to move Wavel to

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