Winston Churchill described the loss of Singapore as the greatest disaster ever to befall British arms; yet, unlike Pearl Harbor it never became the subject of an official government inquiry. In what The Sunday Times described as 'The best book on the subject for many years' Louis Allen attempts to put this situation to rights. This book is the second edition, re-issued in 1993 to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the fall of Singapore. It is prefaced by a new introduction which sums up subsequent work on the surrender, and original documentation on the much maligned role of the civilians in Malaya and Singapore is introduced for the first time. Using British and Japanese documentary sources, Allen analyses the political causes of the Japanese campaign, apportions responsibility for the defeat and deals with the tragic destruction of HM Ships Repulse and Prince of Wales.