Why did the Japanese attack Singapore?

There are a few reasons why the Japanese wanted to attack and capture Singapore. Here are some of the reasons.

1.The Malacca Strait is a confined and crucial commercial sea lanes of vital importance to all.

2. Capturing Singapore was a crushing blow to British prestige in Asia and showed that Asian could defeat their European "masters". Thus it had the potential to spark revolutionary movements across Asia which the Japanese could harness, as they did with the "Indian National Army".

3. The port facilities at Singapore would, and did, enable the Japanese to launch attacks against Ceylon. This threatened supplies to India and also threatened a Japanese naval flanking move against the Arakan and Burma.

4. Singapore was a key part of the Japanese "outer defence chain" for the Asian Greater Co-prosperity Sphere.

5. Capturing Singapore denied the Allies its port facilities, its repair capacity and using it as a base to attack the Japanese in the western Pacific. It effectively pushed the Brtish entirely out of the Pacific, to Trincomalee in Ceylon. Port facilities and capacity in Darwin was limited and nothing near Singapore -- the next naval base in Australia was virtually Brisbane.

6. By clearing Commonwealth forces out of Malaya, Singapore and the Dutch East Indies, to Japanese could focus on reinforcing its two critical battle zones in the SW Pacific -- Kokoda and Guadalcanal.

7. Capturing Singapore would be a huge morale boost to the Japanese people and its armed forces.
-http://sg.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?gid=20122125122856AAHtdkE

War hero of the WW2

Many of us know about Lim Bo Seng. He is the local war hero of our Singapore during WW2. During WW2, there was a group named Force 136. It is a British secret organiztaion to organize sabotage activities. Locals were recruited, as well as Lim Bo Seng. He was one of the leaders in the organization and unfortunately, he was captured and tortured to death during the interrogation of the Japanese when he refused to reveal informations of the secret organization.
-http://www.slideshare.net/DebbieCheah/local-war-hero-limboseng
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2bgYHrwrU8

How did the Japanese torture the civillains

The Japanese used very harsh methods to torture the civillains. They seemed to be happy seeing people in pain. They would use any methods to torture them, to fulfill their satisfaction. They certainly won't be merciful to anyone. These methods are rather disgusting. The most common way of torturing is physical beating. Followed by filling hot water or water into a person's mouth till the person pass out, and many other ways. In the past, these Japanese lust after womens. They would either rape or make those women their wife. So people in the past would avoid them whenever they are out, or stay at home most of the times.
-http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_torture_methods_did_the_Japanese_use_on_prisoners_of_war

In remembrance of WW2

It’s worth visiting the World War II attractions in Singapore, whether you're a visitor or a war veteran. The Changi Museum portrays the lives of Allied troops and prisoners during their imprisonment by the Japanese, while Kranji War Memorial is the final resting place of the Allied troops who lost their lives defending Singapore against the Japanese. As the touching inscription says: “They died for all free men”, make a trip down and pay tribute to the lives lost.
-http://www.yoursingapore.com/content/traveller/en/browse/see-and-do/culture-and-heritage/a-touch-of-history/world-war-heritage-sites.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSzHCpRUep4

Surviving WW2

Alistair Urquhart, a 91-year-old veteran of the British Army's Gordon Highlanders, spent three and a half years as a prisoner of the Japanese—one of 80,000 British who surrendered after the fall of Singapore. "Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse," he recalls, "it did." Urquhart's gripping book, The Forgotten Highlander, recently released in the United States, recounts how he survived slave labor on the notorious Death Railway in Thailand; blindness and paralysis; and the sinking of his "hell ship" prisoner transport, followed by five days alone at sea. His skills, grit, and self-discipline, with bits of luck, ultimately brought him a full and satisfying life.

-http://www.historynet.com/a-survivors-horrific-story-of-life-as-a-pow-in-the-pacific.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=SG&v=ZK--vJFZy70&hl=en-GB

Key battles in Singapore and malaya

Malaya was known for its rich natural resources, and that very aspect was eyed by the Japanese militarists and industrialists. In 1939, Malaya was the resource of 40% of the world's rubber and 60% of the world's tin; that fact alone interested Japanese expansionists, but two additional reasons sealed the approval on the invasion planning that started in early 1941. The first was that most of this rubber and tin supply went to Japan's potential cross-ocean rival, the United States. Secondly, Japan needed oil. Every drop of oil consumed by Japan's military and industrial capacities had to be imported. The Japanese Navy alone needed 400 tons of oil an hour to maintain its war readiness. While Malaya only had a limited amount of oil production, the peninsula was a perfect staging point to launch and support further invasion for the oil rich islands of Borneo, Java, and Sumatra.

 While Singapore was boasted to be a fortress that could resist an amphibious invasion, defense against a convention invasion down the Malayan peninsula was inadequate. Finally, another hint of Singapore's unpreparedness was the lack of food rationing despite its mother country had been in war since 1939 and the Japanese invasion seemed inescapable by late 1941.

How and When did the Japanese surrendered?

In August 1945, the Japanese situation was desperate. The major cities were devastated by atomic or conventional attack, and the casualties numbered in the millions. Millions more were refugees, and the average consumption was below 1200 calories a day. The fleet was lost, and the merchant shipping could not leave home waters or sail from the few possessions still held without braving submarine or mine attack. Oil stocks were gone, rubber and steel were in short supply, and the Soviets were moving against the only sizable forces the Japanese had left, the Kwantung Army in Manchuria. They were a starving and undersupplied force. Many divisions had transferred to the Pacific, where they died in the island battles. On September 2nd, 1945, a huge force of Allied ships gathered in Tokyo Bay. Aboard the battleship USS Missouri, the Japanese signed the formal surrender document, watched by thousands of Allied representatives and the crew. MacArthur presided over the signing, accompanied by his former subordinate General Wainwright, who had been a POW(prisoner of war)since 1942. General Percival, commander at Singapore in 1942, was also present. The Japanese Imperial Forces began surrendering in massed formations over the next six weeks. By October 7, 1945, when 1,000,000 Japanese Army soldiers were surrendered in Peking, many Japanese soldiers were being sent home. The Soviet POWs would wait years to return to Japan. The last one was announced as wanting to go home in 2006.

- http://www.worldwar2database.com/html/japansurrender.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8u2ojljm5BM

How did the Japanese treated me?

At the slightest offence,punishment was swift and severe.Many anti-Japanese suspects were subjected to terrible torture or put in prison camps. The Eurasians were treated harshly because the Japanese felt they were a threat to them.They were either interned or executed.The Japanese tried to win the Indians and Malays by convincing them that Japan would free them from the British rule as they felt that they are not a threat to them.They were not spared either.Some Malays were drafted for forced labour at the 'Death Raliway' camp. The Chinese received the harshes treatment.The Japanese perceived the Chinese as a threat to their rule because they sent money to help China's resistance and they also called for a boycott of japanese goods.Some even returned to China to join in the fight against the Japanese.They were also forced to contribute 50 million dollars to Japan's war effort.

- http://historians-at-work.blogspot.sg/2007/09/how-were-people-of-singapore-treated.html

How and when did the British surrendered?

British forces in Singapore have surrendered unconditionally to the Japanese seven days after enemy troops first stormed the island, which is on the 15 February 1942

A war correspondent of the Japanese News Agency in Singapore reported that fighting ceased along the entire Malayan front at 2200 local time.

The British and Japanese commanders-in-chief, Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival and Lieutenant-General Yamashita Tomoyuki met in the Ford motor plant at the foot of Bukit Timah Hill to sign the surrender documents.

The British capitulation comes one week after Japanese forces invaded Singapore and only two weeks since their onslaught on the Malay Peninsula forced the British troops' withdrawal to the island.

- http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/15/newsid_3529000/3529447.stm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwvprOXGS4c

Operation Clean Up (Sook Ching Operation)

A decree was issued on Wednesday 18 February 1942: All Chinese males between the ages of 18 and 50 in Syonan-To (as Singapore was called during the Japanese Occupation) were to report to the various registration centres around the island.  The decree embodied Japanese hatred for the Chinese, cultivated through years of Sino-Japanese war since 1937.  Also, overseas Chinese had been quickly labelled anti-Japanese due to their contributions to war efforts in China.  Thus began the Sook Ching operation, or the elimination of anti-Japanese elements.

-According to the heritagetrails.sg website