The fall of Singapore to the Japanese in February 1942 was a terrible defeat for the British. It took a Japanese army, outnumbered by 20,000 men, just ten weeks from their entry into the war, and one week after the actual assault started, to take Singapore from a complacent and ill-prepared defender. Noel Barber's classic account of the disaster shows how fortress Singapore was nothing of the sort, and all too likely to offer the Japanese their second victory of the war after Hong Kong.