1942 Asahi Shimbun Set of Four Press Photographs of the Battle of Singapore

This is a set of four Asahi Shimbun press photographs from the Battle of Singapore. Each photograph illustrates a different aspect of the battle and the British surrender of the 'Gibraltar of the East'. Winston Churchill called the surrender of over sixty thousand British troops on February 15, 1942 'the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history'.

The Japanese did not launch an amphibious invasion of Singapore itself, instead they chose to invade the Malay peninsula to the north of Singapore. By marching overland, this allowed Imperial Japanese forces to attack Singapore from the north, an eventuality for which the British defenders were not completely prepared. The top horizontal photo depicts part of the Japanese army on its march south toward Singapore. Here, members of the army act as pylons for a make-shift bridge across a river, expediting their unit's advance. The middle horizontal photograph captures Lieutenant General Arthur Ernest Percival's ignominious walk under a flag of truce to negotiate the surrender of Singapore. Percival was the commander of British Commonwealth forces in Singapore. The bottom horizontal photograph appears to show the British delegation negotiating the surrender of their forces to the Japanese with Japanese officers. Three Japanese aircraft are featured in the fourth and only vertical photograph in this set. The wing of a fourth aircraft appears on the top right, indicating that the image was taken from said fourth aircraft.

These four photographs were published by Asahi Shimbun in 1942.