China in WW2

Eighty Years Ago: Asia Pacific, Feb 12 – 18, 1942

• By Peter Harmsen
• 18 February, 2022
• No Comments

Feb 12, 1942: US-led troops, many of them local Filipino draftees, offer resistance as Japanese forces apply pressure along entire front on Bataan peninsula

Feb 13, 1942: Japanese paratroopers land near strategic oil refineries at Palembang in Dutch East Indies

Feb 14, 1942: Dutch-led Indonesian troops pose with captured Japanese flag as battle of Palembang on Sumatra rages on

Feb 15, 1942: Britain’s ‘Gibraltar of the East’ Singapore falls to the Japanese Army, and more than 80,000 Commonwealth troops enter into captivity

Feb 16, 1942: Japanese Army jubilant after capture of Singapore, previously known as Britain’s impregnable fortress in the East

Feb 17, 1942: Allied prisoners in occupied China receive news about the fall of Singapore, extinguishing hopes of a speedy rollback of Japanese advances in Asia (see photo above)

Feb 18, 1942: In Burma, battle of Bilin River ends in Japanese victory as British-Indian defenders withdraw