Battle for Malaya 1941 - Full Documentary 

FYI the thumbnail image for this video did whatever the opposite of popping is. I found it in my feed almost by accident close to an Operations Room release that I also came on accidentally. Maybe a photograph more dramatic than a mainly blue square would help?

Love this format! Keep em coming :)

Hi how would I be able to make contact with you on use of your video as part of an exhibit and possibly having a Malay translation

Great effort! Would be good if you could put down the references used.

Thank you for this important work, documenting history, and presenting it on a map is very much a great tool for learning, especially for certain people like myself

They had their spies all over South East Asia

The British been there for a couple decade before the invasion.

Amoi jepon kahwin dengan lelaki melayu pon ada😂

that was their tactics used all over asia. japanese spies were also instrumental in giving information that helped the japanese attack pearl harbour.

​@@zrolyn6367it was about a century or so, actually. But it was for resources not war.

after watching the Japanese in China, nobody should have underestimated them.

@@nwofoe2866 I agree. Prejudice will cloud a person's mind, which is what happened.

That 2 ships did nothing except huge loss of lives on the Allied side and further lowered the morale of the soldiers tasked in the defence of Malaya.

i mean the chinese troops were pretty crap, a lot of them didnt have proper equipment, training and armoured vehicles, plus a lot of them werent loyal to the government, the only "proper" troops were a few german trained divisions but those were all but destroyed by 1940@@nwofoe2866

totally agree,,

Winston Churchill for you

Ask Percival... Dumb AF.

Its terribly unfortunate but the reality was that the British Army and its Imperial contingents were widely stretched by this phase of the war. The best commanders and troops had been called to Europe and pretty much everything in the Malay campaign was second or third rate. The exception being the Australian, Indian and British troops who fought hard and distingushed themselves on a number of occasions. Tragically they were badly equipped and led by Generals who were no more capable than a mere Brigade commander. Percival got a lot of hate after the war and probably rightly so but in the end, he just wasn't up to the task. He'd been given an impossible command for his abilities. A more capable defensive commander might have made better use of the situation but Percival's experience was only leading smaller commands and he'd never had to fight an engagement against a superior regular force before. Add to this he was was potentially a bit of a sadist, self-involved and arrogant. The troops in Malay had no real prospect of success when led by such a man.

You need to thank the indian

Yes, we study about him in our history books.

​@@user-xj6ng4th7fIndian run with british

as was my granduncle

Hahaha.. lie

the european colonialist who destroyed looted and enslaved the world , I suppose?

@@joshualai2827 my grandfather active in Johor.

Then My Ancestor Is Dato Bahaman,That Killed Many Colonial Ambassador, And Melayu Barua When He Alive

I mean, breakthroughs and double envelopments and such have been a thing for a long time, this isn’t specific to any country or military

Same like at the pearl harbour. The spy came as tourist.

Why Rommels name, it was General Heinz Guderian who came up with the idea of 'Blitzkrieg' and led the armoured attack on France.

We have Experience age is Peace today Because of this great brave people who sacrifice their lives to Protect people lives ...get youngsters today Doesn't even care about our history...they busy Enjoy lives...

@@ayahpinkofficial2769 yeah. Things have changed rapidly

KSSM syllabus in BM do include about Left Adnan as one of the literature book today.

Fortunately, we study about him in our history books. I remember.

Yes Adnan Saidi fought till last breath! And the coward General Percival surrendered! My father was a soldier till fall of Singapore in 1941 became a Japanese POW,escaped and killed some Jap soldiers stealing their rifles with his colleagues after American Mustang bombers attacked the barracks.

and then you british only save the european and abandoned the local people in Penang. They got bombed everyday straight. The locals(malay) get tortured and raped by japanese soldiers after that. What a shame

You don’t need to think about this. Hopefully, British naval force never have to sail so far away from their home ports again.

hindsight 20/20

Thank the Lord that there were no Pommy officers at Milne Bay or the Track.

My father fought in Singapore. He told me that once the reservoir and power stations were was taken there was no prospect of holding ta large city completely without power, water or sewerage; the civilian deaths would have been massive and the city would have fallen by siege anyway. Yamashita in fact stopped his advance once the Changi reservoir fell.

@@kenoliver8913 it was a strategic mistake by Percival to fall back on a little island , denying himself room for maneuver and to had the chance to counter attack. his forces could have been much more effectively employed in johor. the long frequent retreats and not being able acclimatize to jungle environment then had helped bred a 'fortress Singapore mentality '. the British land forces were well stocked in most provisions of war in Malaya but being led by men not ready for hard battle. it was a fact that japanese troops would have been out of artillery ammunition among others, if they held out for another week or so. there's a great book on the campaign by the Australian call 'A Bitter Fate'

@@shumyinghon Oh, all true. But you have to realise that Britain had more vital commitments much closer to home. So they sent only second rate equipment and second rate commanders, both known to be not good enough to face Germany. If you think Percival had a hard time dealing with Yamashita imagine what Rommel would have done to him.

@@kenoliver8913 is this what you think that's going through Percival's mind when he was fought the battle from Sg Petani to Singapore? that he is better off facing battle hardened japanese troops vs Rommel's? the British outnumbered the Japanese 3:1 and well provisioned in many ways, at least the land forecs were. had they stood their ground like they did in imphal and Kohima they would have foiled the Japanese advance. but because there's a good homely fortress waiting for them, they hastened to it. Gen Percival was not new to Malaya. he studied the possibilities of an invasion years ago. he knew the terrain and did not prepare extensively enough. at the end Malaya and Singapore might still have fallen, but what if he had held on by fighting harder?

Yamashita troops didn't hv much food + ammunition if British manage to defend longer. Another one he not expecting happened, British retreat earlier before they cross to Singapore and left Malayan army over there to defend. Well he offer those soldier to surrender but we know Malaya soldier like India, faithful and loyalty.

Because Japanese didn't have four wheel Jeeps, like US Army !bonded Army trucks cant cross swampy terrain back in 40s pathways were more than roads,cycling is better and faster then walking and less tiring

>"One wonders what difference a single regiment of cruiser tanks would have made though?" It would have been destroyed. Both sides had tanks; the japanese had superiority.

Just shows how the disbandment of the Empire had fragmented a lot of Aspects for Britain. Still picking up the pieces from WW1 back then and threw ourselves to Africa, Asia, and Europe all over again!

This is why Malaya love British in anyway

Arthur Percival did ask for Tanks , anti-tanks , planes and various gear, BUT someone in Central command think Soviet was more important, Japan won't attack USA and sent these gears there. The soldiers he asked for arrived late and worst without standard personal weaponry and ammo. Even local militia were better armed.

Blaze it

ah balls

Yes, but the combat readiness of each Japanese soldier was at least three to four times higher than that of each British soldier, his need for food and supplies much lower. It is certain that European soldiers, from their colonial comfort, were no match for them!

it was common knowledge by people who informed me

Japanese were outnumbered 4-1

Indian or Australian to be exact

It was actually four.

According to Elphick's Book 'Singapore The pregnable fortress', a Military Police Sgt shot Heenan in the back of the head and dumped his body in the sea!

@@derekambler Good! He deserved it!

There was an unknown British officer who accompanied and was assisting the Japanese at Parit Sulong where the surrendered wounded of the 2/19th and 2/29th Battalions AIF and 45th Indian Brigade were massacre This British officer is mentioned in "The Knights Of Bushido" a short history of Japanese war crimes, and in "Massacre At Parit Sulong" the accounts of the of the two witnesses of the massacre

The identity of the person who ordered the 'scorched earth' remains unknown... it could be the work of spies or traitors.

There was an audio issue that I had to fix, and then I basically decided I think it fits better on this channel as its essentially repeat content. I don't want it to mess with the main channel's algorithm

Unfortunately, I have lent a certain highly relevant book to a Malaysian friend. The author was briefly mentioned by the narrator here. I have forgotten his name right now, but he was the notorious IJA intelligence officer in partial charge of the Singora landings. He was very much a hands-on officer, so his book almost certainly names the officer in charge of the tank column. It is even possible that the author was part of that command chain, as he took a very active role in the Jitra Line action. It might take a few weeks for the book to be returned here in Southern Thailand. That intelligence officer would definitely be well described as a firebrand. I know a few facts about this demise, however. He was also involved in Indonesia for a while, and was there suspected of cannibalism. It involved a group of half-starved Japanese officers eating the cooked liver of a dead allied airman. In the eventual Burmese route, he was briefly detained in Yangon, escaped to Thailand and was rearrested there. He was helped to escape by a Thai cop and was last seen crossing the border with that cop to Vientiane in Laos. He eventually returned to Japan, but as an IJA officer, he was hardly welcome there any longer. He left and made his way to North Vietnam, and was probably a military advisor to Ho Chi Minh. He eventually made it to Laos again. It was rumored that he was killed there by a tiger, but perhaps he just engineered his own disappearance into SEA oblivion. There were no further reports.

Really???!?😮😮

They're a long way from Pulau Tioman, are too deep for most too dive and the Chinese have stolen much of them, no doubt while Pahang officials were paid to look the other way.

The people criticising them were British officers who had saved their own skins and escaped to India.The Australians suffered 76% of the Battle casualties despite being only about 8% of the allied forces .

So they weren't built by Brewster Aeronautical Corporation? Who built them?

@@Ocrilat Brewster had been coach builders from the 19thCentury and later built auto bodies for luxury makes, the American Rolls-Royce among others.

@@tomfrazier1103 The Brewster Aeronautical Corporation was named after the carriage maker...but they weren't the same company. Brewster & Co., the carriage maker, went out of business in 1935.

@@tomfrazier1103 Not that it matters. Vickers originally made cast church bells.

You mean the 'British colonizer leaders'.

These Brit overmasters were too busy in their clubs or pubs nursing their pints.

any "collaborationist" is better than collaborationist of british empire most evil regime ever on earth in terms of number, extent and duration, of its atrocities and victims.

I remembered reading a biography about Malaysia's (then Malaya) first Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman saying that the Thais tolerated Malaya as a younger brother. And for a time, for decades, young Malayans saw Bangkok as the better destination to seek their fortunes. The Prime Minister of Malaya then even had a brother serving in the Thai Army. It wasn't Singapore back then which was considered to be part of Malaya proper. What I am trying to say here is that the British Colonials should have expected or had some inkling that the Japanese would probably invade Malaya via Thailand. The Thai military had already been overwhelmed by fascism to a large extent that they probably wouldn't mind any attacks on their neighbours, so long as their Japanese overmasters didn't turn their attention too hastily to Thailand itself. I blame the British Colonials for being too laid back, too busy nursing their pints of 🍺 in the bigger towns.

Thailand is was Japan allies during invation on Malay Panisular. Don't forget that fact.

@@harimaumalaya9146 Musuh ketat zaman Perang Bisik dulu. Jgn pernah dilupakan.

​@@harimaumalaya9146 Every Thai with something to defend with fought the invasion of the Imperial Japanese Army (I.J.A.) on 8 December 1941. Thailand was only on I.J.A.'s side because Thailand was under duress (held hostage) after losing that fight to the I.J.A. (for example, just like France lost to the armed forces of Germany in June 1940 causing Vichy France to be an ally of Germany).

说的英国是正义的一样，英国的邪恶不次于日本德国，英国的殖民地是世界最大的，日本只是学英国的做法。日本德国之所以被批判只是日本德国输了，美国英国苏联和他们没有任何区别！

@@user-rj9rq1nw8s Such a peculiar idea. It is a pity that the Japanese militarists and the German Nazis lost the war. Because they are anti-human and evil. I was amazed that your text was actually Chinese. Is this how CCP brainwashes you at the moment? It's fun. A Japanophile from China. But I think it's also hard for CCP to accept your values.

Should of allied with the japanese Aussies would of picked you off one by one in the jungle .You all would of put your hands up anyway

@@user-dj2yb6ne7k I just remember being in the jungles of New Guinea. The australians cut the heads of the Japanese like cutting pumpkins.

The Zero fighter was flown by the Naval Arm and flown from Aircraft Carriers - the aircraft flown in Malaya would not have met the Zero but the aircraft they met were still better than everything except the Hurricane.

@@derekambler Thanks Derek, I just read the JAF used the Nakajimi Ki-43 Hayabusa, code named "Oscar.'

Also, was was stupid was the British had the numbers on their side all along and yet they simply threw it away and basic supplies yet threw it away. The Malayan Command in general had an estimated count of 250,000 men whereas the Japanese only had 52,000. Despite the lack of armoured units in Malaya, the amount of artillery and AT guns that the Brits could muster was more than what the Japanese could bring to shore. What went down was disastrous planning for a protracted warfare and how the British counterattacked. Jitra was a failure and so as the British kept retreating, they didn't put up great rearguard defense but instead focused all of their men to the defense of the southlands of Malaya. The retreat was soo chaotic and fast that the major midpoint of the country, Kuala Lumpur, was left undefended on 11 Jan 1942 but what was damning to that was that instead of employing a scorched earth policy by destroying whatever supplies that the Brits can't carry or transport when they flee the area, they left it intact. When the Japanese entered the city on 11 Jan, they found all government buildings and military facilities intact. Not only were they intact, they were filled with supplies, supplies that the Japanese desperately need and on top of that, they got guns and ammunition that they got from military and police installations that the Brits did not destroy and worse of all, the following defensive plans that were sent to the commanders in Kuala Lumpur was not destroyed and thus left intact for the Japanese to see which damned the entire defensive positions that the British were gonna pull with all of it, including battle maps of Singapore, all out for the Japanese to see. The another stupid point in the battle was when Muar was lost. So with Muar being another heavy defeat, Percival decided to destroy the causeway between Malaya and Singapore and pulled all available troops back into Singapore. Now prior to the invasion, the Brits did accurately predict that the Japanese would invade but not sure if it's Singapore directly or Malaya but they asserted that it's going to be coming from the sea thus they built the Sembawang Naval Yard and on top of that, 3 big naval batteries, 15in each, was installed in Changi safeguarding the naval yard and any sea encroachment with it's artillery mode range being able to lob shells 40 over kilometers away, all the way to Johore thus it was also called the "Johore Battery" for that. Back to line.. So when Yamashita reached the border of Malaya and Singapore in Johore, he took over the Johor Sultanate's palace and there lies a clocktower, overlooking Singapore which was about 6 stories high. It became a highpoint where he can overlook the entire of Singapore thus that became his observation post whilst the whole of the palace was the new forward headquarters for the Japanese. Due to Singapore having most buildings only as tall as 4 stories at max and being sparsely built at the coast, one look from the clocktower and you could see the insides of Singapore's then-city center thus Yamashita could draw plans on how to attack Singapore from the strategic location. Percival was told to shell and bomb the whole palace to delay and even prevent the Japanese from using that as a staging point but Percival, even at the brink of defeat, denied that and said that the connection between the British and the Johore sultanate were strong that if they were to shell the palace, even if it's under enemy's hands now, would be a major form of disrespect and the Brits would have to pay a huge reparation cost if they managed to beat the Japanese out of the peninsula. BIIIG mistake. Also, despite the Brits saying that their off worse once Yamashita reached Singapore, the Japanese had it worse. The British at that point still had tons of supplies at the start of the Battle of Singapore whereas the Japanese was at the brink of total annihilation. Estimate was that the Brits at the start of the Battle of Singapore still had about 100,000 men and about 8000 more on their way from Australia whereas the Japanese were just left with about 15,000 men. The Brits had supplies that can last them for upwards of 3 months whereas the Japanese only had a week of supply left, in total, for the whole invasion and time was running out for them. Yamashita then made the huge gamble and slammed into Singapore and fought a pitched battle which, he won. It's not known that whether Yamashita said this but it was indeed spread around that he said this right after the Brits signed the unconditional surrender at the Ford Motor Factory: "It was a gamble, a gamble that worked and if the British had realized that if that they would even hold their ground just for 3 more days, we (the invasion force) would have been toast as we're out of supplies, out of men and this was a stroke of luck that the British did not caught on to our lie".

And now you know why Malaysians till now are wary of Peace Thai-style!

@@Balangair1 With Thai and Myanmar still a military run government , and a very ambitious china, this history lesson need to be learned.

All volunteers and unlike you none of them were fascist loving cowards.

Tell us please: Do you have difficulty walking upright because of the weight of the chips on your shoulder?... and perhaps you shouldn't try to rewrite history. It is unarguable that the defence of Malaya was a display of military unpreparedness, incompetence, poor training and worse leadership on the part of the British. On the other hand, by the end of the war, the British Indian Army was, and remains, the largest volunteer army there has ever been in the history of the world. These people were your grandparents and great grandparents. They joined up and fought, and fought bravely, to ensure that the Japs did not overrun the whole of the Indian sub continent. They knew perfectly well that in doing so, they were prolonging British rule in India. They gave their lives to defend the status quo. Do you think they did this because they were stupid? Or do you think they did it because they actually thought that what they had was worth fighting for?

Malays Army At That Time Only Have One Platoon Because British Did Not Fully Trust Local Army

Anti air guns are ridiculous inaccurate. The radars on the colonial Navy ships were not functioning due to well weather conditions of the far east , humidity etc . So when radar was not guiding the guns , then the colonial sailors couldn't create a anti air screen until the bombers came within visual range , by that time it was too late lol.

Good thing they had enterprising police...

Japan liberated asia from the evil force, war is always horrible, but what Japan did during that time was pale in comparison to what the european colnialist had done previously, the r@ped muder looting enslaving native american, asia africa middle east by european colonialist whom I suppose you all belong to, can no longer be measured by numbers, comparing japan atrocities to euro colonialist crime is like comparing a petty theft with serial killers, and now you can sit down relaz rewrite history and pretend to be a good guy, disgusting.

@@frank6401 The British were the first people to end slavery. Colonising and slavery was done by every single group for all of history.

@@CountBMonty so it is ok to destroy everything then rebuild then pretend to be the good guy who save world?? British done it in systematic and structured way more than anybody else, using your twisted ligic , rwst of world ahould enslave r@pe murder loot britain, then say …oops everybody’s done this and now after all destroyed, i ambgoona end this!! What a twiated sick logic!

@@CountBMonty this is like serial cannibalistic murderrer jeffrey dahmer saying, look jack the ripper had commited crime too, i am the good guy now and in jail thus ending my crime spree,

General Percival was a stupid, bigoted man. He was the commander of the British Army in Ireland during their war for independence and was soundly defeated by a small group of irregulars. Yet Britain still had enough confidence in him to give him a huge army to command in East Asia