By the start of the Second World War, Malaya’s economy was
flourishing with the output of tin and rubber, giving it great strategic
importance. Malaya fell under the threat of a Japanese invasion when the US and
British governments froze essential raw materials and oil supplies to Japan.
Japan was then forced to look to South East Asia for shipments.
While Britain was preoccupied with defending itself against the threat of
German invasion at home, the Japanese wasted no time in pursuing their
occupation of Malaya, commencing with the bombing of the beaches of Kota Bharu
in Kelantan and Singapore on 8 December 1941.
The takeover continued almost without opposition as
Commonwealth troops defending Malaya were expecting an invasion by sea and not
by land. They were inadequately trained in jungle warfare and lacked
ammunition, and fell easily to the Japanese invaders. Malaya was occupied for
the next three and-a-half-years by the Japanese. The occupation ended only with
the United States’ bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 and the
end of the war. British forces then landed in Malaya and re-established their
authority.
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