Introduction
The Battle of Singapore took place during World War II from January 31 to February 15, 1942. The two opposing forces were the British and Japanese. Lieutenant General Author Percival led 85, 000 men to defend the war while Lieutenant General Tomoyuki Yamashita commanded the invasion with 36, 000 men. The onslaught to invade British Malaya commenced in December 8, 1941. During this period, General Yamashita started invading this British colony from Indochina and subsequently from Thailand. The Japanese forces that invaded Malaya were obviously outnumbered by the British forces, but they intelligently concentrated their forces and applied combined army skills learned and acquired in earlier campaigns to drive back and flank their enemies frequently. The Japanese forces rapidly acquired air superiority over the Britons, and they exacted a demoralizing blow on the British forces, when a Japanese aircraft sank two integral British battleships. The Japanese also used bicycles and light tanks to swiftly maneuver through the peninsula’s jungles, in order to attack the British armies. Although General Percival was reinforced, his forces were unable to halt the Japanese invasion and in the end, they withdrew from the peninsula and took refuge in the island of Singapore to prepare for the final fight with the anticipated Japanese forces. In the end, the British army lost the war because the Japanese forces expertly combined speed, savagery, and surprise without permitting the British forces to re-group and strategize. The Japanese were able to invade Singapore because of their dominance on the unprepared British forces. They efficiently applied the principles of mass, surprise, objective and unity of command by focusing on ...
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... them. Furthermore, although the allied British troops were superior in number, they were highly untrained with minimal and inferior training as compared to the seasoned Japanese soldiers. The allied forces lacked tanks and enough aircraft to match the Japanese, and the few they had, were destroyed prior to the battle, leaving the soldiers massively vulnerable and badly equipped for the battle.
Works Cited
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The book “Hiroshima,” written by John Hersey is an alluring piece coupled with an underlining, mind grabbing message. The book is a biographical text about the lives of six people: Miss Sasaki, Dr. Fujii, Mrs. Nakamura, Father Kleinsorge, Dr. Sasaki, and Rev. Tanimoto, in Hiroshima, Japan. It speaks of these aforementioned individuals’ lives, following the dropping of the world’s first atomic bomb on 06 Aug 1945, and how it radically changed them, forever. John Hersey, the author of “Hiroshima,” attempts to expose the monstrosity of the atomic bomb, through his use of outstanding rhetoric, descriptive language, and accounts of survivors. He also attempts to correlate the Japanese civilians of Hiroshima to the American public, in hope that Americans
The Battle of Long Tan took place on the 18th of August 1966 in a rubber plantation in Phuoc Tuy Province, South Vietnam. The soldiers fought in very tough conditions; “the battle was like no other in that it occurred admits the trees and bushes of a rubber plantation,” (Parks, 2005). The plantation already gloomy was made darker by tropical downpour. Men were being killed by rifle and machine gun bullets, mortars and shrapnel from grenades fired into trees to blast splinters into the sheltering soldiers. The Australians were nearly surrounded, isolated and running out o...
Gailey, Harry. The War in the Pacific: From Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay. Novato: Presidio, 1995.
The non-fiction book Hiroshima by John Hersey is an engaging text with a powerful message in it. The book is a biographical text about lives of six people Miss Sasaki, Dr. Fujii, Mrs. Nakamura, Father Kleinsorge, Dr. Sasaki and Rev. Tanimoto in Hiroshima, Japan and how their lives completely changed at 8:15 on the 6th of August 1945 by the dropping of the first atomic bomb. The author, John Hersey, through his use of descriptive language the in book Hiroshima exposes the many horrors of a nuclear attack.
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Because of the desperation felt by the Japanese forces leading up to the battle and American forces making steady advances toward Japan, the Japanese forces felt the battle could not be won. They were ordered to by time for Japan to build its defenses around the homeland. Japanese were not only dying for their county but taking their own lives as ... ... middle of paper ... ... 6 wounded.
Kuznick, Peter J. "The Decision to Risk the Future: Harry Truman, the Atomic Bomb and the Apocalyptic Narrative.” JapanFocus. The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, 9 Dec. 2013. Web. 09 Jan. 2014.
On December 7,1941 Japan raided the airbases across the islands of Pearl Harbour. The “sneak attack” targeted the United States Navy. It left 2400 army personnel dead and over a thousand Americans wounded. U.S. Navy termed it as “one of the great defining moments in history”1 President Roosevelt called it as “A Day of Infamy”. 2 As this attack shook the nation and the Japanese Americans became the immediate ‘focal point’. At that moment approximately 112,000 Persons of Japanese descent resided in coastal areas of Oregon, Washington and also in California and Arizona.3
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