Video: '130 - Britain's Worst Defeat - Singapore Falls - WW2 - February 20, 1942' (Feb. 15, 1942, at 0:52)

(Sunday, February 15, 1942, just after 6:00 p.m. MALT, during the Fall of Singapore, part of the Malayan campaign of the Second World War) — Singapore — an island city-state in maritime Southeast Asia nicknamed Britain’s “Gibraltar of the East,” a mighty marine fortress that ties India with Australia — fell to the Japanese today when Lieutenant-General Arthur Ernest Percival formally surrendered, resulting in the largest British surrender in history.

Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita received Percival at a Ford Motors factory in the west of the city at 5:15 p.m. Yamashita demanded surrender; Percival asked to keep 1,000 armed men to maintain order, but Yamashita demanded a flat out answer in English, are they surrendering, yes or no?

The surrender of Singapore was signed just after 6:00 p.m.

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About 80,000 British, Indian and Australian troops in Singapore became prisoners of war, joining 50,000 taken by the Japanese in the earlier Malayan campaign. Many would die performing forced labor.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was shocked and called it “the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history.” It greatly decreased confidence in the British army and provided the Japanese with much-needed resources as well as an important strategic position.

The city would stay in Japanese hands until the end of the war.