Pacific · British Commonwealth vs Japan

Malayan Campaign

Name: Malayan Campaign
Start: 1941-12-08
End: 1942-01-31
Location: Malayan Campaign

8 December 1941 – 31 January 1942

Yamashita's 25th Army landed in southern Thailand and at Kota Bharu and drove the length of the Malayan peninsula in eight weeks, outflanking each defensive line through the jungle and along the coast. The loss of Prince of Wales and Repulse on the third day left the defenders without naval support. The last Commonwealth troops crossed to Singapore island on 31 January.

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Day by day

8 December 1941 — The landings

Takumi's detachment lands at Kota Bharu shortly after midnight, more than an hour before the bombs fall on Pearl Harbor, and the 5th Division comes ashore at Singora and Patani in Thailand against no opposition. Matador, the plan to cross into Thailand first, is never ordered. By dark the airfields of northern Malaya are being abandoned.

11 December 1941 — Jitra

The 11th Indian Division, tired and wet from two days of counter-marching, is broken at Jitra in a night by a Japanese force a third its size and loses its guns and transport. Two days earlier Prince of Wales and Repulse were caught without air cover off Kuantan and sunk by torpedo aircraft from Indochina. Penang is abandoned on the 17th with its boats intact.

7 January 1942 — Slim River

A column of about twenty tanks runs straight down the trunk road before dawn and destroys two brigades of the 11th Indian Division in a few hours, taking the Slim River bridge intact. There is nothing between the Japanese and Kuala Lumpur, occupied on the 11th. Wavell orders the west coast given up and a stand made in Johore.

15 January 1942 — Gemas and Muar

The Australian 2/30th Battalion ambushes the Japanese column at the Gemencheh bridge near Gemas on the 14th and holds for two days. On the coast road the Imperial Guards cross the Muar river and cut off the 45th Indian Brigade and two Australian battalions at Bakri; almost none get out. The Johore line goes with them.

31 January 1942 — The causeway

The last of the Argylls come across the Johore causeway behind the pipes at 08:00 and the causeway is blown. In eight weeks the 25th Army has covered 1,100 kilometres and taken the whole peninsula with about 4,600 casualties. Some 50,000 Commonwealth troops have been lost, and Singapore's guns face the wrong way.