# data[].attributes.body
1 - Sa pangkalahatan, ano ang naging epekto ng pagsuko ng Britanya ng Singapore sa mga Hapones sa Imperyalismong Briton?

2 - Magbigay ng mga patunay mula sa palabas na magpapatunay nito.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Fall of Singapore - Part 2 - Britain's Greatest Defeat

# data[].attributes.body
1 - Anu-ano ang mga ginawa ng mga Hapones sa Indonesia na nakatulong sa paglakas at pagkalat ng nasyonalismong Indones?

2 - Sa pangkalahatan, paano nakatulong ang mga ito sa paglakas at pagkalat ng nasyonalismong Indones?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Country Listing Indonesia Table of Contents
Indonesia

WORLD WAR II AND THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE, 1942-50

The Japanese Occupation, 1942-45

A Japanese soldier watching oil tanks near Jakarta set afire by the retreating Dutch, March 1942
Courtesy Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

The Japanese occupied the archipelago in order, like their Portuguese and Dutch predecessors, to secure its rich natural resources. Japan's invasion of North China, which had begun in July 1937, by the end of the decade had become bogged down in the face of stubborn Chinese resistance. To feed Japan's war machine, large amounts of petroleum, scrap iron, and other raw materials had to be imported from foreign sources. Most oil--about 55 percent--came from the United States, but Indonesia supplied a critical 25 percent.

From Tokyo's perspective, the increasingly critical attitude of the "ABCD powers" (America, Britain, China, and the Dutch) toward Japan's invasion of China reflected their desire to throttle its legitimate aspirations in Asia. German occupation of the Netherlands in May 1940 led to Japan's demand that the Netherlands Indies government supply it with fixed quantities of vital natural resources, especially oil. Further demands were made for some form of economic and financial integration of the Indies with Japan. Negotiations continued through mid-1941. The Indies government, realizing its extremely weak position, played for time. But in summer 1941, it followed the United States in freezing Japanese assets and imposing an embargo on oil and other exports. Because Japan could not continue its China war without these resources, the military-dominated government in Tokyo gave assent to an "advance south" policy. French Indochina was already effectively under Japanese control. A nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union in April 1941 freed Japan to wage war against the United States and the European colonial powers.

The Japanese experienced spectacular early victories in the Southeast Asian war. Singapore, Britain's fortress in the east, fell on February 15, 1941, despite British numerical superiority and the strength of its seaward defenses. The Battle of the Java Sea resulted in the Japanese defeat of a combined British, Dutch, Australian, and United States fleet. On March 9, 1942, the Netherlands Indies government surrendered without offering resistance on land.

Although their motives were largely acquisitive, the Japanese justified their occupation in terms of Japan's role as, in the words of a 1942 slogan, "The leader of Asia, the protector of Asia, the light of Asia." Tokyo's Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, encompassing both Northeast and Southeast Asia, with Japan as the focal point, was to be a nonexploitative economic and cultural community of Asians. Given Indonesian resentment of Dutch rule, this approach was appealing and harmonized remarkably well with local legends that a two-century-long non-Javanese rule would be followed by era of peace and prosperity.

The Japanese divided the Indies into three jurisdictions: Java and Madura were placed under the control of the Sixteenth Army; Sumatra, for a time, joined with Malaya under the Twenty-fifth Army; and the eastern archipelago was placed under naval command. In Sumatra and the east, the overriding concern of the occupiers was maintenance of law and order and extraction of needed resources. Java's economic value with respect to the war effort lay in its huge labor force and relatively developed infrastructure. The Sixteenth Army was tolerant, within limits, of political activities carried out by nationalists and Muslims. This tolerance grew as the momentum of Japanese expansion was halted in mid-1942 and the Allies began counteroffensives. In the closing months of the war, Japanese commanders promoted the independence movement as a means of frustrating an Allied reoccupation.

The occupation was not gentle. Japanese troops often acted harshly against local populations. The Japanese military police were especially feared. Food and other vital necessities were confiscated by the occupiers, causing widespread misery and starvation by the end of the war. The worst abuse, however, was the forced mobilization of some 4 million--although some estimates are as high as 10 million-- romusha (manual laborers), most of whom were put to work on economic development and defense construction projects in Java. About 270,000 romusha were sent to the Outer Islands and Japanese-held territories in Southeast Asia, where they joined other Asians in performing wartime construction projects. At the end of the war, only 52,000 were repatriated to Java.

The Japanese occupation was a watershed in Indonesian history. It shattered the myth of Dutch superiority, as Batavia gave up its empire without a fight. There was little resistance as Japanese forces fanned out through the islands to occupy former centers of Dutch power. The relatively tolerant policies of the Sixteenth Army on Java also confirmed the island's leading role in Indonesian national life after 1945: Java was far more developed politically and militarily than the other islands. In addition, there were profound cultural implications from the Japanese invasion of Java. In administration, business, and cultural life, the Dutch language was discarded in favor of Malay and Japanese. Committees were organized to standardize Bahasa Indonesia and make it a truly national language. Modern Indonesian literature, which got its start with language unification efforts in 1928 and underwent considerable development before the war, received further impetus under Japanese auspices. Revolutionary (or traditional) Indonesian themes were employed in drama, films, and art, and hated symbols of Dutch imperial control were swept away. For example, the Japanese allowed a huge rally in Batavia (renamed Jakarta) to celebrate by tearing down a statue of Jan Pieterszoon Coen, the seventeenthcentury governor general. Although the occupiers propagated the message of Japanese leadership of Asia, they did not attempt, as they did in their Korean colony, to coercively promote Japanese culture on a large scale. According to historian Anthony Reid, the occupiers believed that Indonesians, as fellow Asians, were essentially like themselves but had been corrupted by three centuries of Western colonialism. What was needed was a dose of Japanese-style seishin (spirit; semangat in Indonesian). Many members of the elite responded positively to an inculcation of samurai values.

The most significant legacy of the occupation, however, was the opportunities it gave for Javanese and other Indonesians to participate in politics, administration, and the military. Soon after the Dutch surrender, European officials, businessmen, military personnel, and others, totaling around 170,000, were interned (the harsh conditions of their confinement caused a high death rate, at least in camps for male military prisoners, which embittered Dutch-Japanese relations even in the early 1990s). While Japanese military officers occupied the highest posts, the personnel vacuum on the lower levels was filled with Indonesians. Like the Dutch, however, the Japanese relied on local indigenous elites, such as the priyayi on Java and the Acehnese uleebalang, to administer the countryside. Because of the harshly exploitative Japanese policies in the closing years of the war, after the Japanese surrender collaborators in some areas were killed in a wave of local resentment.

Sukarno and Hatta agreed in 1942 to cooperate with the Japanese, as this seemed to be the best opportunity to secure independence. The occupiers were particularly impressed by Sukarno's mass following, and he became increasingly valuable to them as the need to mobilize the population for the war effort grew between 1943 and 1945. His reputation, however, was tarnished by his role in recruiting romusha.

Japanese attempts to coopt Muslims met with limited success. Muslim leaders opposed the practice of bowing toward the emperor (a divine ruler in Japanese official mythology) in Tokyo as a form of idolatry and refused to declare Japan's war against the Allies a "holy war" because both sides were nonbelievers. In October 1943, however, the Japanese organized the Consultative Council of Indonesian Muslims (Masyumi), designed to create a united front of orthodox and modernist believers. Nahdatul Ulama was given a prominent role in Masyumi, as were a large number of kyai (religious leaders), whom the Dutch had largely ignored, who were brought to Jakarta for training and indoctrination.

As the fortunes of war turned, the occupiers began organizing Indonesians into military and paramilitary units whose numbers were added by the Japanese to romusha statistics. These included the heiho (auxiliaries), paramilitary units recruited by the Japanese in mid-1943, and the Defenders of the Fatherland (Peta) in 1943. Peta was a military force designed to assist the Japanese forces by forestalling the initial Allied invasion. By the end of the war, it had 37,000 men in Java and 20,000 in Sumatra (where it was commonly known by the Japanese name Giyugun). In December 1944, a Muslim armed force, the Army of God, or Barisan Hizbullah, was attached to Masyumi.
Data as of November 1992 Country Listing Indonesia Table of Contents

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Indonesia - WORLD WAR II AND THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE, 1942-50

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Country Listing Indonesia Table of Contents A Japanese soldier watching oil tanks near Jakarta set afire by the retreating Dutch, March 1942 Courtesy Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress The Japanese occupied the archipelago in order, like their Portuguese and Dutch predecessors, to secure its rich natural resources.

# data[].attributes.body
1 - Batay sa palabas na pinanood, siping binasa at iba pang gawain sa araling ito, anong paglalahat ang maaari nating mabuo sa kaugnayan ng Ikalawang Digmaang Pandaigdig sa paglakas at pagkalat ng nasyonalismo sa Asya (at sa mundo)?

# data[].attributes.body
1) Sa pangkalahatan, ano ang naging epekto ng pagsuko ng Britanya ng Singapore sa mga Hapones sa Imperyalismong Briton?
Dahil sa pagsuko ng Britanya sa Singapore sa mga Hapones, napasailamlim naman ang Singapore sa Imperyalismong Hapon. Naging lalong mapait ang kalagayan ng mga taga Singapore.

2) Magbigay ng mga patunay mula sa palabas na magpapatunay nito.  Maraming batang babae ang dinukot at ginawang "Comfort Women". Naging brutal at ordinariyong kondisyon ang pambubugbog ng mga sundalong Hapon. Naniniwala ang mga Hapon na sila pinakamataas kumpara sa ibang rehiyon sa Asya.

# data[].attributes.body
1) Anu-ano ang mga ginawa ng mga Hapones sa Indonesia na nakatulong sa paglakas at pagkalat ng nasyonalismong Indones?
Naging marahas ang mga Hapon sa mga lokal ng Indonesia. Kinatatakutan ang mga pulis-militar na Hapon. Ang pagkain at iba pang pangunahing pangangailangan ay kinumpiska ng mga ito. Ang pinakamalala ay ang sapilitang paggawa ng apat na milyon hanggang sampung milyong romusha (manual labors) para sa proyektong pang-ekonomiya sa Java.

2) Sa pangkalahatan, paano nakatulong ang mga ito sa paglakas at pagkalat ng nasyonalismong Indones?
Ang kalupitan na naranasan ng mga tao sa Indonesia ang nagmulat sa kaisipang nasyonalismo. kasama na rin dito ang pagnakaw sa likas yaman ng Indonesia. Mayroong ding sumasalungat  sa mga kulturang Hapon na ipinagagawa sa mga Indones gaya ng pagyuko sa Emperor ng Hapon. Ang mga sama ng loob, pang-aabuso, pagnanakaw sa likas yaman at pagkakaiba-iba ng paniniwala sa relihiyon ang nagmulat sa kaisipang nasyonalismo. Ito ay sapagkat ang nasyonalismo ay ang pakikipaglaban para sa kalayaan at sariling pagkakakilanlan na nagbubuklod sa mga myembro ng rehiyon upang magkaisa at ipaglaban ito.

# data[].attributes.body
1) Batay sa palabas na pinanood, siping binasa at iba pang gawain sa araling ito, anong paglalahat ang maaari nating mabuo sa kaugnayan ng Ikalawang Digmaang Pandaigdig sa paglakas at pagkalat ng nasyonalismo sa Asya (at sa mundo)?
Ang Pangalawang Digmaang Pandaigdig ang nagpahina sa dating "super powers" na nagpakalat ng Kolonyalismo at Imperyalismong Kanluran sa Asya. Ito ay nagbigay ng pagkakataon sa bansang Hapon na masakop ang karatig-bansa sa Asya.  Ang kasaysayan ng pananakop sa teritoyo, pagnakaw sa likas-yaman, sapilitang paggawa, pang-aabuso sa mga mamamayan at karahasan na nararanasan sa bawa't mananakop ang nagbigay-daan upang mapalawak ang nasyonalismong kaisipan sa Asya at kahit saan mang bahagi ng mundo.  Ito ay nagreresulta sa pagbubuklod ng mga mamamayan na ipaglaban ang kanilang karapatan, pagkakakilanlan at teritoryo.

# data[].attributes.headline
Giorgio Othello 'G.O.' Gumban C7-Alfonso

# data[].attributes.subject
Giorgio Othello 'G.O.' Gumban C7-Alfonso

# data[].attributes.body
1 - Sa pangkalahatan, ano ang naging epekto ng pagsuko ng Britanya ng Singapore sa mga Hapones sa Imperyalismong Briton?
-Dahil sa pagkatalo ng Britanya sa mga Hapon ay nawala ang 'image of invicibility' ng Britanya at nawala ang paggalang at respeto na iginawad sa kanila ng kanilang mga nasasakupan tulad ng Australya at Tsina. Naging marahas din ang mga Hapon sa mga Briton, Australyano, Tsino at lokal na mga  mamamayan sa Singapore, matapos nilang masakop ito.

2 - Magbigay ng mga patunay mula sa palabas na magpapatunay nito.
-Ang mga sumusundo ay mga patunay nito;
1.'Ethnic cleansing' ay nangyari matapos masakop ng mga Hapon ang Singapore.
2. 'Comfort women' o 'sexual slavery' ay naging laganap sa panahong ito.
3. Nawala ang respeto at paggalang ng mga Australyano, Tsino at lokal na mamamayan sa Singapore sa lakas ng Britanya.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Battle of Singapore

Part of the Malayan Campaign of World War II

Lieutenant-General Arthur Ernest Percival (right), led by a Japanese officer, walks under a flag of truce to negotiate the capitulation of Allied forces in Singapore, on 15 February 1942. It was the largest surrender of British-led forces in history.

Belligerents

United Kingdom

Empire of Japan

Commanders and leaders

Arthur Percival (POW)
Gordon Bennett
Lewis Heath (POW)
M. Beckwith-Smith (POW)
Frank Keith Simmons

Tomoyuki Yamashita
Takuma Nishimura
Takuro Matsui
Renya Mutaguchi

Units involved

Malaya Command

25th Army
Japanese Navy

Strength

85,000
300 artillery pieces
1,800+ trucks
200 AFVs
208 anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns
54 fortress guns[Note 1][Note 2]

36,000
440 artillery pieces
3,000 trucks[5]

Casualties and losses

~5,000 killed or wounded
80,000 captured

1,714 killed
3,378 wounded

The Battle of Singapore, also known as the Fall of Singapore, was fought in the South-East Asian theatre of World War II when the Empire of Japan captured the British stronghold of Singapore-nicknamed the " Gibraltar of the East". Singapore was the major British military base in South-East Asia and was the key to British imperial interwar defence planning for South-East Asia and the South-West Pacific. The fighting in Singapore lasted from 8 to 15 February 1942. The Japanese victory was decisive, resulting in the Japanese capture of Singapore and the largest British surrender in history.

General Tomoyuki Yamashita had led a force of about 30,000 down the Malayan Peninsula in the two months leading up to the battle. The British had considered the jungle terrain impassable and had prepared few defences. The Japanese however easily navigated the dense jungles, and pushed through the peninsula quickly. The 85,000 British were led by Arthur Percival, although many units were understrength, and most units were inexperienced. Despite this, they enjoyed a significant numerical and positional advantage on the island of Singapore. In the lead up to the battle the British destroyed the causeway into the city, forcing the Japanese to embark on a naval crossing. The island was so important that Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered Percival to fight bitterly to the last man.

Despite being outnumbered three to one, superior Japanese leadership, and numerous failings on the part of the British allowed the Japanese to establish and hold a beachhead starting on 8 February. Percival had grossly misallocated troops on the island, and the Japanese attacked the weakest part of the lines. Percival also failed to reinforce the attack in a timely fashion, allowing the Japanese to establish a beachhead. Numerous communication and leadership failures beset the British, and the poor pre-battle planning left few entrenchments or reserves near the beachhead. As the week pushed on, the Japanese took more and more of the island, and the British supply became critical. By the 15th, nearly one million civilians in the city had fled into the remaining Allied held area, a mere 1% of the island. The civilian water supply had been bombed relentlessly by Japanese air attacks, and was expected to fail within days if the attack did not stop.

Unbeknownst to the British, by the 15th the Japanese were also nearly at the end of their supplies, with only hours of shells left. General Yamashita feared that Percival would discover the Japanese numerical inferiority, and engage in costly house-to-house fighting. In a desperate bluff, Yamashita demanded unconditional surrender. In the afternoon of the 15th, Percival ignored orders and capitulated. 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 labour. Famously, about 40,000 mostly Indian soldiers would join the Indian National Army and fight alongside the Japanese. Churchill was shocked, and called it the "worst disaster" in British military 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.

During 1940 and 1941, the Allies imposed a trade embargo on Japan in response to its continued campaigns in China and its occupation of French Indochina. The basic plan for taking Singapore was worked out in July 1940. Intelligence gained in late 1940 - early 1941 did not alter that plan, but confirmed it in the minds of Japanese decision makers. On 11 November 1940, the German raider captured the British steamer Automedon in the Indian Ocean, carrying papers meant for Air Marshal Sir Robert Brooke-Popham, the British commander in the Far East. The papers included much information about the weakness of the Singapore base. In December 1940, the Germans handed over copies of the papers to the Japanese. The Japanese had broken the British Army's codes and in January 1941, the Second Department (the intelligence-gathering arm) of the Imperial Army interpreted and read a message from Singapore to London complaining in much detail about the weak state of "Fortress Singapore", a message so frank in its admission of weakness that the Japanese at first suspected it was a British plant, believing that no officer would be so open in admitting weaknesses to his superiors. Only after cross-checking the message with the Automedon papers did the Japanese accept it to be genuine.

Japan's oil reserves were rapidly depleted by the ongoing military operations in China and by industrial consumption. In the latter half of 1941 the Japanese began preparing a military strike to seize vital resources if peaceful efforts to buy them failed. As a part of this process, planners determined a broad scheme of manoeuvre that incorporated simultaneous attacks on the territories of Britain, The Netherlands and the United States. This would see landings in Malaya and Hong Kong as part of a general move south to secure Singapore, connected to Malaya by the Johor-Singapore Causeway, and then an invasion of the oil-rich area of Borneo and Java in the Dutch East Indies. In addition, strikes would be made against the United States naval fleet at Pearl Harbor, as well as landings in the Philippines, and attacks on Guam, Wake Island and the Gilbert Islands. Following these attacks, a period of consolidation was planned, after which the Japanese planners intended to build up the defences of the territory that had been captured by establishing a strong perimeter around it stretching from the India-Burma frontier through to Wake Island, and traversing Malaya, the Dutch East Indies, New Guinea and New Britain, the Bismarck Archipelago, and the Marshall and Gilbert Islands. This perimeter would be used to block Allied attempts to regain the lost territory and defeat their will to fight.

The Japanese 25th Army invaded from Indochina, moving into northern Malaya and Thailand by amphibious assault on 8 December 1941. This was virtually simultaneous with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor which precipitated the United States entry into the war. Thailand resisted landings on its territory for between 5 and 8 hours; it then signed a ceasefire and Treaty of Friendship with Japan, later declaring war on the UK and the US. The Japanese then proceeded overland across the Thai-Malayan border to attack Malaya. At this time, the Japanese began bombing strategic sites in Singapore.

The Japanese 25th Army was resisted in northern Malaya by III Corps of the British Indian Army. Although the 25th Army was outnumbered by Allied forces in Malaya and Singapore, the Allies did not take the initiative with their forces, while Japanese commanders concentrated their forces. The Japanese were superior in close air support, armour, co-ordination, tactics and experience. While conventional British military thinking was that the Japanese forces were inferior, and characterised the Malayan jungles as "impassable", the Japanese were repeatedly able to use it to their advantage to outflank hastily established defensive lines. Prior to the Battle of Singapore the most resistance was met at the Battle of Muar, which involved the Australian 8th Division and the Indian 45th Brigade, as the British troops left in the city of Singapore were basically garrison troops.

At the start of the campaign, the Allied forces had only 164 first-line aircraft on hand in Malaya and Singapore, and the only fighter type was the obsolete Brewster 339E Buffalo. These aircraft were operated by five squadrons: one Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF), two Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), and two Royal Air Force (RAF). Major shortcomings included a slow rate of climb and the aircraft's fuel system which required the pilot to hand pump fuel if flying above 6,000 feet (1,800 m). In contrast, the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force was more numerous and better trained than the second-hand assortment of untrained pilots and inferior allied equipment remaining in Malaya, Borneo and Singapore. Their fighter aircraft were superior to the Allied fighters, which helped the Japanese to gain air supremacy. Although outnumbered and outclassed, the Buffalos were able to provide some resistance, with RAAF pilots alone managing to shoot down at least 20 Japanese aircraft before the few that survived were withdrawn.

Force Z, consisting of the battleship HMS Prince of Wales, the battlecruiser HMS Repulse and four destroyers, sailed north out of Singapore on 8 December to oppose expected Japanese landings along the coast of Malaya. Japanese land-based aircraft found and sank the two capital ships on 10 December, leaving the east coast of the Malayan Peninsula exposed and allowing the Japanese to continue their amphibious landings. Japanese forces quickly isolated, surrounded, and forced the surrender of Indian units defending the coast. Despite their numerical inferiority, they advanced down the Malayan Peninsula, overwhelming the defences. The Japanese forces also used bicycle infantry and light tanks, allowing swift movement through the jungle. The Allies, however, having thought the terrain made them impractical, had no tanks and only a few armoured vehicles, which put them at a severe disadvantage.

Although more Allied units-including some from the Australian 8th Division-joined the campaign, the Japanese prevented the Allied forces from regrouping. They also overran cities and advanced toward Singapore. That city was an anchor for the operations of the American-British-Dutch-Australian Command (ABDACOM), the first Allied joint command of the Second World War. Singapore controlled the main shipping channel between the Indian and the Pacific Oceans. An effective ambush was carried out by the Australian 2/30th Battalion on the main road at the Gemenceh River near Gemas on 14 January, causing heavy Japanese casualties.

At Bakri, from 18 to 22 January, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Anderson's Australian 2/19th Battalion and the Australian 2/29th Battalion repeatedly fought through Japanese positions before running out of ammunition near Parit Sulong. Anderson's composite force of 2/19th Battalion, 2/29th Battalion and 45th Indian Brigade survivors were forced to leave behind about 110 Australian and 40 Indian wounded, who were later beaten, tortured and then murdered by the Japanese during the Parit Sulong Massacre; Of over 3,000 men from these units only around 500 made it back to friendly lines. For his leadership in the fighting withdrawal, Anderson was awarded the Victoria Cross. A determined counterattack from Lieutenant-Colonel John Parkin's 5/11th Sikh Regiment in the area of Niyor, near Kluang, on 25 January, and a successful ambush around the Nithsdale Estate by the Australian 2/18th Battalion on 26/27 January, bought valuable time and permitted Brigadier Harold Taylor's Eastforce-based on the Australian 22nd Brigade -to withdraw from eastern Johor (called Johore then).

On 31 January, the last Allied forces left Malaya and Allied engineers blew a hole in the causeway linking Johor and Singapore.

During the weeks preceding the invasion, the Allied force suffered a number of both subdued and openly disruptive disagreements amongst its senior commanders, as well as pressure from Australian Prime Minister John Curtin. Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival, commander of the garrison, had 85,000 soldiers, the equivalent, on paper at least, of just over four divisions. Of this figure, 15,000 men were employed in logistical, administrative, or other non-combatant roles. The remaining force was a mix of front-line and second-line troops. There were 49 infantry battalions-21 Indian, 13 British, six Australian, four Indian States Forces assigned to airfield defence, 3 Straits Settlements Volunteer Force, and 2 Malayan. In addition, there were two British machine-gun battalions, one Australian, and a British reconnaissance battalion. The newly arrived British 18th Infantry Division-under Major-General Merton Beckwith-Smith-was at full strength, but lacked experience and appropriate training. The rest of the force was of mixed quality, condition, training, equipment, and morale. Lionel Wigmore, the Australian official historian of the Malayan Campaign, wrote

Only one of the Indian battalions was up to numerical strength, three (in the 44th Brigade) had recently arrived in a semi-trained condition, nine had been hastily reorganised with a large intake of raw recruits, and four were being re-formed but were far from being fit for action. Six of the United Kingdom battalions (in the 54th and 55th Brigades of the 18th Division) had only just landed in Malaya, and the other seven battalions were under-manned. Of the Australian battalions, three had drawn heavily upon recently-arrived, practically-untrained recruits. The Malay battalions had not been in action, and the Straits Settlements Volunteers were only sketchily trained. Further, losses on the mainland had resulted in a general shortage of equipment.

Percival gave Major-General Gordon Bennett's two brigades from the Australian 8th Division responsibility for the western side of Singapore, including the prime invasion points in the northwest of the island. This was mostly mangrove swamp and jungle, broken by rivers and creeks. In the heart of the "Western Area" was RAF Tengah, Singapore's largest airfield at the time. The Australian 22nd Brigade, under Brigadier Harold Taylor, was assigned a 10 mi (16 km) wide sector in the west, and the 27th Brigade, under Brigadier Duncan Maxwell, had responsibility for a 4,000 yd (3,700 m) zone just west of the Causeway. The infantry positions were reinforced by the recently arrived Australian 2/4th Machine-Gun Battalion. Also under Bennett's command was the 44th Indian Infantry Brigade.

The Indian III Corps under Lieutenant-General Sir Lewis Heath-including the Indian 11th Infantry Division under Major-General B. W. Key with reinforcements from the 8th Indian Brigade, and the British 18th Division-was assigned the north-eastern sector, known as the "Northern Area". This included the naval base at Sembawang. The "Southern Area"-including the main urban areas in the south-east-was commanded by Major-General Frank Keith Simmons. His forces consisted of elements of the 1st Malaya Infantry Brigade and the Straits Settlements Volunteer Force Brigade with the Indian 12th Infantry Brigade in reserve.

From 3 February, the Allies were shelled by Japanese artillery, and air attacks on Singapore intensified over the next five days. The artillery and air bombardment strengthened, severely disrupting communications between Allied units and their commanders and affecting preparations for the defence of the island. From aerial reconnaissance, scouts, infiltrators and observation from high ground across the straits (such as at Istana Bukit Serene and the Sultan of Johor's palace), Japanese commander General Tomoyuki Yamashita and his staff gained excellent knowledge of the Allied positions. Yamashita and his officers stationed themselves at Istana Bukit Serene and the Johor state secretariat building-the Sultan Ibrahim Building -to plan for the invasion of Singapore. Although advised by his top military personnel that Istana Bukit Serene was an easy target, Yamashita was confident that the British Army would not attack the palace because it belonged to the Sultan of Johor. Yamashita's prediction was correct; despite being observed by Australian artillery, permission to engage the palace was denied by their commanding general, Bennett.

It is a commonly repeated misconception that Singapore's famous large-calibre coastal guns were ineffective against the Japanese because they were designed to face south to defend the harbour against naval attack and could not be turned round to face north. In fact, most of the guns could be turned, and were indeed fired at the invaders. However, the guns-which included one battery of three 15 in (380 mm) weapons and one with two 15 in (380 mm) guns-were supplied mostly with armor-piercing shells (AP) and few high explosive (HE) shells. AP shells were designed to penetrate the hulls of heavily armoured warships and were mostly ineffective against infantry targets. Military analysts later estimated that if the guns had been well supplied with HE shells the Japanese attackers would have suffered heavy casualties, but the invasion would not have been prevented by this means alone.

Percival incorrectly guessed that the Japanese would land forces on the north-east side of Singapore, ignoring advice that the north-west was a more likely direction of attack (where the Straits of Johor were the narrowest and a series of river mouths provided cover for the launching of water craft). This was encouraged by the deliberate movement of enemy troops in this sector to deceive the British. As such, a large portion of defence equipment and resources had been incorrectly allocated to the north east sector, where the most complete and freshest formation-the British 18th Division-was deployed, while the incomplete Australian 8th Division sector with just two brigades had no serious fixed defensive works or obstacles. To compound matters, Percival had ordered the Australians to defend forward so as to cover the waterway, yet this meant they were immediately fully committed to any fighting, limiting their flexibility, whilst also reducing their defensive depth. The two Australian brigades were subsequently allocated a very wide frontage of over 18 kilometres (11 mi) and were separated by the Kranji River.

Yamashita had just over 30,000 men from three divisions: the Imperial Guards Division under Lieutenant-General Takuma Nishimura, the 5th Division under Lieutenant-General Takuro Matsui and the 18th Division under Lieutenant-General Renya Mutaguchi. Also in support was a light tank brigade. In comparison, following the withdrawal, Percival had about 85,000 men at his disposal, although 15,000 were administrative personnel, while large numbers were semi-trained British, Indian and Australian reinforcements that had only recently arrived. Meanwhile, of those forces that had seen action during the previous fighting, the majority were under-strength and under-equipped.

In the days leading up to the Japanese attack, patrols from the Australian 22nd Brigade were sent across the strait to Johor at night to gather intelligence. Three small patrols were sent on the evening of 6 February; one was spotted and withdrew after its leader was killed and their boat sunk, while two others managed to get ashore. Over the course of a day, they found large concentrations of troops, although they were unable to locate any landing craft. The Australians requested the shelling of these positions to disrupt the Japanese preparations, but the patrol reports were later ignored by Malaya Command as being insignificant, based upon the belief that the real assault would come in the north-eastern sector, not the north-west.

Blowing up the causeway had delayed the Japanese attack for over a week. Prior to the main assault, the Australians were subjected to an intense artillery bombardment. Over a period of 15 hours, starting at 23:00 on 8 February 1942, Yamashita's heavy guns laid down a barrage of 88,000 shells (200 rounds per tube) along the entire length of the straits, cutting telephone lines and effectively isolating forward units from rear areas. Even at this stage, a counter artillery barrage as a response could have been mounted by the British on the coastline opposite the Australians that would have caused casualties and disruption among the Japanese assault troops. But the bombardment of the Australians was not seen as a prelude to imminent attack-Malaya Command believed that it would last several days and would later switch its focus to the north-east, despite its ferocity exceeding anything the Allies had experienced thus far in the campaign; consequently, no order was passed to the Allied artillery units to begin targeting possible Japanese assembly areas.

Shortly before 20:30 on 8 February, the first wave of Japanese troops from the 5th and 18th Divisions began crossing the Johor Strait. The main weight of the Japanese force, representing a total of about 13,000 men across 16 assault battalions, with five in reserve, was focused on assaulting Taylor's Australian 22nd Brigade, which totalled just three battalions. The assault would be concentrated on the 2/18th and 2/20th Battalions; with each division allocated 150 barges and collapsible boats, the Japanese could move approximately 4,000 men across the strait at any one time. In total, 13,000 Japanese troops landed throughout the first night; they were followed by another 10,000 after first light. Against this the defenders numbered just 3,000 men and lacked any significant reserve.

As the landing craft closed on the Australian positions, machine gunners from the 2/4th Machine Gun Battalion, interspersed amongst the deployed rifle companies, opened fire. Spotlights had been sited by a British unit on the beaches to enable the Australians to clearly see any attacking forces on the water in front of them, but many had been damaged by the earlier bombardment and no order was made to turn the others on. The initial wave was concentrated against the positions occupied by the 2/18th and 2/20th Battalions, around the Buloh River, as well as one company from the 2/19th Battalion. Over the course of an hour, heavy fighting took place on the 2/19th Battalion's right flank, until these positions were overrun and the Japanese were able to push their way inland using cover and concealment provided by the darkness and the surrounding vegetation. The resistance put up by the company from the 2/19th pushed the follow-on waves of Japanese craft to land around the mouth of Murai River, which resulted in them creating a gap between the 2/19th and 2/18th. From there the Japanese launched two concerted attacks against the 2/18th, which were met with heavy fire before they eventually overwhelmed the defending Australians with weight of numbers. Urgent requests for fire support were sent out, and throughout the night the 2/15th Field Regiment fired over 4,800 rounds.

Fierce fighting raged throughout the evening, but due to the terrain and the darkness, the Japanese were able to disperse into the undergrowth; in many situations, they were able to either surround and destroy pockets of Australian resistance, or bypass them entirely, exploiting gaps in the thinly spread Allied lines due to the many rivers and creeks in the area. By midnight, the two Japanese divisions fired starshells to indicate to their commander that they had secured their initial objectives, and by 01:00 they were well established. Over the course of two hours, the three Australian battalions that had been engaged sought to regroup, moving back east from the coast towards the centre of the island. Despite being in contact with the enemy, this was completed mainly in good order. The 2/20th managed to concentrate three of its four companies around the Namazie Estate, although one was left behind; the 2/18th was only able to concentrate half its strength at Ama Keng, while the 2/19th also moved back three companies, leaving a fourth to defend Tengah airfield. Further fighting followed throughout the early morning of 9 February, and the Australians were pushed back further, with the 2/18th being pushed out of Ama Keng and the 2/20th being forced to pull back to Bulim, west of Bukit Panjong. Meanwhile, bypassed elements attempted to break out and fall back to the Tengah airfield to rejoin their units and in doing so received heavy casualties. Bennett attempted to reinforce the 22nd Brigade by moving the 2/29th Battalion from the 27th Brigade's area to Tengah, but before it could be used to recapture Ama Keng, the Japanese launched another attack around the airfield, and the 2/29th was forced to assume a defensive posture. The initial fighting cost the Australians heavily, with one battalion alone, the 2/20th, losing 334 men killed and 214 wounded.

The aerial campaign for Singapore began at the outset of the invasion of Malaya. Early on 8 December 1941, Singapore was bombed for the first time by long-range Japanese aircraft, such as the Mitsubishi G3M2 "Nell" and the Mitsubishi G4M1 "Betty", based in Japanese-occupied Indochina. The bombers struck the city centre as well as the Sembawang Naval Base and the island's northern airfields. After this first raid, throughout the rest of December, there were a number of false alerts and several infrequent and sporadic hit-and-run attacks on outlying military installations such as the Naval Base, but no actual raids on Singapore City. The situation had become so desperate that one British soldier took to the middle of a road to fire his Vickers machine gun at any aircraft that passed. He could only say: "The bloody bastards will never think of looking for me in the open, and I want to see a bloody plane brought down."

The next recorded raid on the city occurred on the night of 29 December, and nightly raids ensued for over a week, only to be accompanied by daylight raids from 12 January 1942 onward. In the days that followed, as the Japanese army drew ever nearer to Singapore Island, the day and night raids increased in frequency and intensity, resulting in thousands of civilian casualties, up to the time of the British surrender.

During the month of December, a total of 51 Hawker Hurricane Mk II fighters were sent to Singapore, with 24 pilots, the nuclei of five squadrons. They arrived on 3 January 1942, by which stage the Brewster Buffalo squadrons had been overwhelmed. No. 232 Squadron RAF was formed and No. 488 Squadron RNZAF, a Buffalo squadron, had converted to Hurricanes. 232 Squadron became operational on 20 January and destroyed three Nakajima Ki-43 "Oscars" that day, for the loss of three Hurricanes. However, like the Buffalos before them, the Hurricanes began to suffer severe losses in intense dogfights.

During the period 27-30 January, another 48 Hurricanes arrived on the aircraft carrier HMS Indomitable. Operated by No. 226 Group RAF (four squadrons), they flew from an airfield code-named P1, near Palembang, Sumatra, in the Dutch East Indies, while a flight was maintained in Singapore. However, many of the Hurricanes were subsequently destroyed on the ground by air raids. Indeed, the lack of an effective air early warning system throughout the campaign meant that many Allied aircraft were lost in this manner during a series of Japanese attacks against airfields.

By the time of the invasion, only ten Hawker Hurricane fighters of No. 232 Squadron RAF, based at RAF Kallang, remained to provide air cover to the Allied forces on Singapore. This was because the airfields at Tengah, Seletar and Sembawang were in range of Japanese artillery at Johor Bahru. RAF Kallang was the only operational airstrip left; the surviving squadrons and aircraft had withdrawn by January to reinforce the Dutch East Indies.

On the morning of 9 February, a series of aerial dogfights took place over Sarimbun Beach and other western areas. In the first encounter, the last ten Hurricanes were scrambled from Kallang Airfield to intercept a Japanese formation of about 84 planes, flying from Johor to provide air cover for their invasion force. The Hurricanes shot down six Japanese planes, and damaged 14 others, for the loss of only one of their own.

Air battles went on for the rest of the day, and by nightfall it was clear that with the few aircraft Percival had left, Kallang could no longer be used as a base. With his assent, the remaining flyable Hurricanes were withdrawn to Sumatra. A squadron of Hurricane fighters took to the skies on 9 February, but was then withdrawn to the Netherlands East Indies and after that no Allied aircraft were seen again over Singapore; the Japanese had achieved complete air supremacy. That evening, three Fairmile B motor launches attacked and sank several Japanese landing craft in the Johor Strait around its western channel on the evening of 9 February. Later, on the evening of 10 February, General Archibald Wavell, commander of American-British-Dutch-Australian Command, ordered the transfer of all remaining Allied air force personnel to the Dutch East Indies. By this time, Kallang Airfield was so pitted with bomb craters that it was no longer usable.

Believing that further landings would occur in the northeast, Percival did not reinforce the 22nd Brigade until the morning of 9 February; when he did, the forces dispatched consisted of two half-strength battalions from the 12th Indian Infantry Brigade. These units reached Bennett around midday, and, shortly afterwards Percival allocated the composite 6th/15th Indian Infantry Brigade to reinforce Bennett's force to move from their position around the Singapore racecourse. Throughout the day, the 44th Indian Infantry Brigade, still holding its position on the coast, began to feel pressure on its exposed flank, and after discussions between Percival and Bennett, it was decided that they would have to be pulled back east to maintain the southern part of the Allied line. Bennett decided to form a secondary defensive line, known as the "Kranji-Jurong Switch Line", oriented to the west, and positioned between the two rivers, with its centre around Bulim, east of Tengah Airfield-which subsequently came under Japanese control-and just north of Jurong.

To the north, Maxwell's Australian 27th Brigade had not been engaged during the initial Japanese assaults on the first day. Possessing only two battalions, the 2/26th and 2/30th, following the loss of the 2/29th Battalion to the 22nd Brigade, Maxwell sought to reorganise his force to deal with the threat posed to their western flank. Late on 9 February, the Imperial Guards began assaulting the positions held by the 27th Brigade, concentrating on those held by the 2/26th Battalion. During the initial assault, the Japanese suffered severe casualties from Australian mortars and machine guns, and from burning oil which had been sluiced into the water following the demolition of several oil tanks by the defending Australians. Some of the Guards reached the shore and maintained a tenuous beachhead; nevertheless, at the height of the assault, it is reported that the Guards commander, Nishimura, requested permission to cancel the attack due to the heavy casualties his troops had suffered from the fire. This request was denied by the Japanese commander, Yamashita, who ordered them to press on.

Command and control problems caused further cracks in the Allied defence. Maxwell was aware that the 22nd Brigade was under increasing pressure, but was unable to contact Taylor and was wary of encirclement. As parties of Japanese troops began to infiltrate the brigade's position from the west, exploiting the gap formed by the Kranji River, the 2/26th Battalion was forced to withdraw to a position east of the Bukit Timah Road; this move subsequently precipitated a sympathetic move by the 2/30th away from the causeway. The authority for this withdrawal would later be the subject of debate, with Bennett later stating that he had not given Maxwell authorisation to do so. Regardless, the end result was that the Allies lost control of the beaches adjoining the west side of the causeway. In doing so, the high ground overlooking the causeway was given up, and the left flank of the 11th Indian Division exposed. In addition, it provided the Japanese with a firm foothold, giving them the opportunity to "build up their force unopposed".

The opening at Kranji made it possible for Imperial Guards armoured units to land there unopposed, after which they were able to begin ferrying across their artillery and armour. After finding his left flank exposed by the 27th Brigade's withdrawal, the commander of the 11th Indian Infantry Division, Key, dispatched his reserve brigade, the 8th, to retake the high ground to the south of the Causeway. Throughout the 10th, further fighting took place around along the Jurong Line, as orders were formulated to establish a secondary defensive line to the west of the Reformatory Road with troops not then employed in the Jurong Line; misinterpretation of these orders resulted in Taylor, the commander of the 22nd Brigade, prematurely withdrawing his troops to the east, where they were joined by a 200-strong ad hoc battalion of Australian reinforcements, known as 'X' Battalion. The Jurong Line eventually collapsed, though, after the 12th Indian Brigade was withdrawn by its commander, Brigadier Archie Paris, to the road junction near Bukit Panjang, after he lost contact with the 27th Brigade on his right; the commander of the 44th Indian Brigade, Ballantine, commanding the extreme left of the line, also misinterpreted the orders in the same manner that Taylor had and withdrew.

On the evening of 10 February, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, cabled Wavell, saying:

I think you ought to realise the way we view the situation in Singapore. It was reported to Cabinet by the CIGS [Chief of the Imperial General Staff, General Alan Brooke] that Percival has over 100,000 [sic] men, of whom 33,000 are British and 17,000 Australian. It is doubtful whether the Japanese have as many in the whole Malay Peninsula ... In these circumstances the defenders must greatly outnumber Japanese forces who have crossed the straits, and in a well-contested battle they should destroy them. There must at this stage be no thought of saving the troops or sparing the population. The battle must be fought to the bitter end at all costs. The 18th Division has a chance to make its name in history. Commanders and senior officers should die with their troops. The honour of the British Empire and of the British Army is at stake. I rely on you to show no mercy to weakness in any form. With the Russians fighting as they are and the Americans so stubborn at Luzon, the whole reputation of our country and our race is involved. It is expected that every unit will be brought into close contact with the enemy and fight it out .

Upon learning of the Jurong Line's collapse, Wavell, in the early afternoon of 10 February, ordered Percival to launch a counterattack to retake it. This order was subsequently passed on to Bennett, who allocated the ad hoc Australian 'X' Battalion to the task. Percival made plans of his own for the counterattack, detailing a three-phased operation that involved the majority of the 22nd Brigade, and he subsequently passed this on to Bennett, who began implementing the plan, but forgot to call 'X' Battalion back. 'X' Battalion, consisting of poorly trained and equipped replacements, subsequently advanced to an assembly area near Bukit Timah. In the early hours of 11 February, the Japanese, who had concentrated significant forces around the Tengah airfield and on the Jurong Road, began further offensive operations: the 5th Division aimed its advance towards Bukit Panjang, while the 18th struck out towards Bukit Timah. There, they fell upon 'X' Battalion, which had camped in its assembly area while waiting to launch its own attack, and in the ensuing fight two-thirds of the battalion was killed or wounded. After brushing aside elements of the 6th/15th Indian Brigade, the Japanese again began attacking the Australian 22nd Brigade around the Reformatory Road.

Later on 11 February, with Japanese supplies running low, Yamashita attempted to bluff Percival, calling on him to "give up this meaningless and desperate resistance". By this stage, the fighting strength of the 22nd Brigade-which had borne the brunt of the Japanese attacks-had been reduced to a few hundred men, and the Japanese had captured the Bukit Timah area, including the Allies' main food and fuel depots. Nevertheless, Wavell subsequently told Percival that the ground forces were to fight on to the end, and that there should not be a general surrender in Singapore. With the vital water supply of the reservoirs in the centre of the island threatened, the Australian 27th Brigade was later ordered to recapture Bukit Panjang as a preliminary move in retaking Bukit Timah. The effort was beaten back by fierce resistance from Imperial Guards troops and the 27th was subsequently split in half either side of the Bukit Timah Road with elements spread as far as the Pierce Reservoir.

The next day, as the situation worsened for the Allies, they sought to consolidate their defences; during the night of 12/13 February, the order was given for a 28-mile (45 km) perimeter to be established around Singapore City at the eastern end of the island. This was achieved by moving the defending forces from the beaches along the northern shore and from around Changi, with the British 18th Division being tasked to maintain control of the vital reservoirs and effecting a link up with Simmons' Southern Area forces. The withdrawing troops received harassing attacks all the way back. Elsewhere, the 22nd Brigade continued to hold a position west of the Holland Road until late in the evening when it was pulled back to Holland Village.

On 13 February, Japanese engineers re-established the road over the causeway, and more tanks were pushed across. With the Allies still losing ground, senior officers advised Percival to surrender in the interest of minimising civilian casualties. Percival refused, but unsuccessfully sought authority from Wavell for greater discretion as to when resistance might cease. Elsewhere, the Japanese captured the water reservoirs that supplied the town, although they did not cut off the supply. That same day, military police executed Captain Patrick Heenan for espionage. An Air Liaison Officer with the British Indian Army, Heenan had been recruited by Japanese military intelligence, and he had used a radio to assist them in targeting Allied airfields in northern Malaya. He had been arrested on 10 December and court-martialled in January. Heenan was shot at Keppel Harbour, on the southern side of Singapore, and his body was thrown into the sea.

The Australians occupied a perimeter of their own to the north-west around Tanglin Barracks, in which they maintained an all round defensive posture as a precaution to Japanese penetration of the larger perimeter elsewhere. To their right, the British 18th Division, the Indian 11th Division and the 2nd Malaya Brigade held the perimeter from the edge of the Farrar Road east to Kallang, while to their left, the 44th Indian Brigade and the 1st Malaya Brigade held the perimeter from Buona Vista to Pasir Panjang. For the most part, there was limited fighting around the perimeter, except around Pasir Panjang Ridge, just 1 mile (1.6 km) from Singapore Harbour, where the 1st Malaya Brigade-which consisted of a Malayan infantry battalion, two British infantry battalions and a force of Royal Engineers-fought a stubborn defensive action during the Battle of Pasir Panjang. The Japanese largely avoided attacking the Australian perimeter at this time, but in the northern area, the British 53rd Brigade was pushed back by a Japanese assault up the Thompson Road, and had to re-establish itself to the north of Braddell Road in the evening, joining the 18th Division's other two brigades-the 54th and 55th-in the line. They dug in and throughout the night fierce fighting raged on the northern front.

The following day, the remaining Allied units fought on. Civilian casualties mounted as one million people crowded into the 3-mile (4.8 km) area still held by the Allies, and bombing and artillery fire increased. Civilian authorities began to fear that the water supply would give out. At this time, Percival was advised that large amounts of water were being lost due to damaged pipes and that the water supply was on the verge of collapse.

On 14 February 1942, the Japanese renewed their assault on the western part of the Southern Area's defences, around the same area that the 1st Malayan Brigade had fought desperately to hold the previous day. At about 13:00, the Japanese broke through and they advanced towards the Alexandra Barracks Hospital. A British lieutenant-acting as an envoy with a white flag-approached Japanese forces but was killed with a bayonet. After Japanese troops entered the hospital they killed up to 50 soldiers, including some undergoing surgery. Doctors and nurses were also killed. The next day about 200 male staff members and patients who had been assembled and bound the previous day, many of them walking wounded, were ordered to walk about 400 m (440 yd) to an industrial area. Those who fell on the way were bayoneted. The men were forced into a series of small, badly ventilated rooms where they were held overnight without water. Some died during the night as a result of their treatment. The remainder were bayoneted the following morning. Several survivors were identified after the war, with some having survived by pretending to be dead. One survivor, Private Arthur Haines from the Wiltshire Regiment, wrote a four-page account of the massacre that was sold by his daughter by private auction in 2008.

Throughout the night of 14/15 February the Japanese continued to press against the Allied perimeter, but the line largely held. Nevertheless, the military supply situation was rapidly deteriorating. The water system was badly damaged and continued supply was uncertain, rations were running low, petrol for military vehicles was all but exhausted, and there were few rounds left for the field artillery. The anti-aircraft guns were almost out of ammunition, and were unable to disrupt Japanese air attacks, which were causing heavy casualties in the city centre. Little work had been done to build air raid shelters, and looting and desertion by Allied troops further added to the chaos in this area. At 09:30, Percival held a conference at Fort Canning with his senior commanders. He proposed two options: either launch an immediate counter-attack to regain the reservoirs and the military food depots in the Bukit Timah region, or surrender. After heated argument and recrimination, all present agreed that no counterattack was possible. Percival opted for surrender. Post war analysis has shown, though, that had Percival opted for a counterattack at that time, it might have been successful. The Japanese were at the limit of their supply line, and their artillery had just a few hours of ammunition left.

A deputation was selected to go to the Japanese headquarters. It consisted of a senior staff officer, the colonial secretary and an interpreter. They set off in a motor car bearing a Union Jack and a white flag of truce toward the enemy lines to discuss a cessation of hostilities. They returned with orders that Percival himself proceed with staff officers to the Ford Motor Factory, where Yamashita would lay down the terms of surrender. A further requirement was that the Japanese Rising Sun Flag be hoisted over the tallest building in Singapore, the Cathay Building. Percival formally surrendered shortly after 17:15. Earlier that day Percival had issued orders to destroy all secret and technical equipment, ciphers, codes, secret documents and heavy guns.

Under the terms of the surrender, hostilities were to cease at 20:30 that evening, all military forces in Singapore were to surrender unconditionally, all Allied forces would remain in position and disarm themselves within an hour, and the British were allowed to maintain a force of 1,000 armed men to prevent looting until relieved by the Japanese. In addition, Yamashita also accepted full responsibility for the lives of the civilians in the city.

In the days following the surrender, Bennett caused controversy when he decided to escape. After receiving news of the surrender, Bennett handed command of the 8th Division to the divisional artillery commander, Brigadier Cecil Callaghan, and-along with some of his staff officers-commandeered a small boat. They eventually made their way back to Australia, while between 15,000 and 20,000 Australian soldiers are reported to have been captured. Bennett blamed Percival and the Indian troops for the defeat, but Callaghan reluctantly stated that Australian units had been affected by the desertion of many men toward the end of the battle. Indeed, the Kappe Report, compiled by Colonels J.H. Thyer and C.H. Kappe, concedes that at most only two-thirds of the available Australian troops manned the final perimeter. Regardless, many British units were reported to have been similarly affected.

In analysing the campaign, Clifford Kinvig, a senior lecturer at Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, points the finger of blame at the commander of the 27th Brigade, Brigadier Duncan Maxwell, for his defeatist attitude and not properly defending the sector between the Causeway and the Kranji River. Elphick also claims that Australians made up the majority of stragglers. According to another source, Taylor cracked under the pressure. Thompson argues, however, that the 22nd Brigade was "so heavily outnumbered that defeat was inevitable", while Costello states that Percival's insistence on concentrating the 22nd Brigade's strength at the water's edge had been a serious mistake. Yamashita, the Japanese commander, laid the blame on the British "underestimating Japanese military capabilities", and Percival's hesitancy in reinforcing the Australians on the western side of the island.

A classified wartime report by Wavell released in 1992 blamed the Australians for the loss of Singapore. Yet according to John Coates, the report "lacked substance", as whilst there had undoubtedly been ill-discipline in the final stages of the campaign-particularly among the poorly trained British, Indian and Australian reinforcements that were hurriedly dispatched as the crisis worsened-the Australian 8th Division had fought well and had gained the respect of the Japanese. Indeed, at Gemas, Bakri and Jemaluang "they achieved the few outstanding tactical successes" of the campaign in Malaya, and although the Australians made up just 13 percent of the British Empire's ground forces, they sustained 73 percent of its battle deaths. Coates argues that the real reason for the fall of Singapore was the failure of the British strategy, to which Australian policy-makers had contributed in their acquiescence, and the overall lack of military resources allocated to the fighting in Malaya.

Allied losses during the fighting for Singapore were heavy, with a total of nearly 85,000 personnel captured, in addition to losses during the earlier fighting in Malaya. About 5,000 were killed or wounded, of which Australians made up the majority. Japanese casualties during the fighting in Singapore amounted to 1,714 killed and 3,378 wounded. Throughout the entire 70-day campaign in Malaya and Singapore, total Allied casualties amounted to 8,708 killed or wounded and 130,000 captured, while Japanese losses during this period amounted to 9,824 battle casualties. During this time the Japanese had advanced a total of 650 miles (1,050 km) from Singora, Thailand, to the southern coast of Singapore at an average of 9 miles (14 km) a day.

While impressed with Japan's quick succession of victories, Adolf Hitler reportedly had mixed views regarding Singapore's fall, seeing it as a setback for the "white race", but ultimately something that was in Germany's military interests. Hitler reportedly forbade Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop from issuing a congratulatory communique.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill called the fall of Singapore to the Japanese "the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history". Churchill's personal physician Lord Moran wrote:

The fall of Singapore on February 15 stupefied the Prime Minister. How came 100,000 men (half of them of our own race) to hold up their hands to inferior numbers of Japanese? Though his mind had been gradually prepared for its fall, the surrender of the fortress stunned him. He felt it was a disgrace. It left a scar on his mind. One evening, months later, when he was sitting in his bathroom enveloped in a towel, he stopped drying himself and gloomily surveyed the floor: 'I cannot get over Singapore', he said sadly.

The Japanese occupation of Singapore started after the British surrender. Japanese newspapers triumphantly declared the victory as deciding the general situation of the war. The city was renamed Syonan-to (昭南島 Shōnan-tō; literally: 'Southern Island gained in the age of Shōwa', or 'Light of the South'). The Japanese sought vengeance against the Chinese and to eliminate anyone who held anti-Japanese sentiments. The Japanese authorities were suspicious of the Chinese because of the Second Sino-Japanese War and murdered thousands in the Sook Ching massacre. The other ethnic groups of Singapore-such as the Malays and Indians-were not spared. Residents suffered great hardships under Japanese rule over the following three and a half years.

Numerous British and Australian soldiers taken prisoner remained in Singapore's Changi Prison and many died in captivity. Thousands of others were transported by sea to other parts of Asia, including Japan, to be used as forced labour on projects such as the Siam-Burma Death Railway and Sandakan airfield in North Borneo. Many of those aboard the ships perished.

An Indian revolutionary, Rash Behari Bose, formed the pro- independence Indian National Army (INA) with the help of the Japanese, who were highly successful in recruiting Indian prisoners of war. In February 1942, from a total of about 40,000 Indian personnel in Singapore, about 30,000 joined the INA, of which about 7,000 fought Allied forces in the Burma Campaign as well as in the northeast Indian regions of Kohima and Imphal. Others became POW camp guards at Changi. An unknown number were taken to Japanese-occupied areas in the South Pacific as forced labour. Many of them suffered severe hardships and brutality similar to that experienced by other prisoners of Japan during the war. About 6,000 survived until they were liberated by Australian and US forces in 1943-1945 as the war in the Pacific turned in favour of the Allies.

British forces had planned to reconquer Singapore in Operation Mailfist in 1945 but, the war ended before it could be carried out. It was re-occupied in Operation Tiderace by British, Indian and Australian forces following the surrender of Japan in September. Yamashita was tried by a US military commission for war crimes but not for crimes committed by his troops in Malaya or Singapore. He was convicted and hanged in the Philippines on 23 February 1946.

Footnotes

Citations

Corrigan, Gordon (2010). The Second World War: A Military History. New York: Atlantic Books. ISBN 9780857891358.

Drea, Edward (April 1991). "Reading Each Other's Mail: Japanese Communication Intelligence, 1920-1941". The Journal of Military History. 55 (2): 185-206. doi:10.2307/1985894. ISSN 1543-7795. JSTOR 1985894.

Felton, Mark (2008). . Barnsley: Pen & Sword Military. ISBN 9781844157679.

Gillison, Douglas (1962). Royal Australian Air Force 1939-1942. Australia in the War of 1939-1945. Series 3 - Air. 1. Canberra: Australian War Memorial. OCLC 2000369.

Keogh, Eustace (1962). Malaya 1941-42. Melbourne: Printmaster. OCLC 6213748.

Kirby, Stanley Woodburn (1954). War Against Japan: The Loss of Singapore. History of the Second World War. I. HMSO. OCLC 58958687.

Morgan, Joseph (2013). "A Burning Legacy: The Broken 8th Division". Sabretache. Military Historical Society of Australia. LIV (3, September): 4-14. ISSN 0048-8933.

Murdoch, Lindsay (15 February 2012). "The Day The Empire Died in Shame". The Sydney Morning Herald. ISSN 0312-6315.

Rai, Rajesh (2014). Indians in Singapore, 1819-1945: Daspora in the Colonial Port City. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-809929-1. OCLC 904956637.

Richards, Dennis; Saunders, Hilary St. George (1954). The Fight Avails. Royal Air Force 1939-1945, Volume 2. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office. OCLC 64981538.

Toland, John (1970). The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire 1936-1945. New York: Random House. ISBN 9780394443119.

Toye, Hugh (2006). Subhash Chandra Bose, (The Springing Tiger): A Study of a Revolution. Mason, Philip. (Thirteenth Jaico impression ed.). Mumbai. ISBN 81-7224-401-0. OCLC 320977356.

Wigmore, Lionel (1957). The Japanese Thrust. Australia in the War of 1939-1945. Series 1 - Army. 4. Canberra, Australian Capital Territory: Australian War Memorial. OCLC 3134219.

Tsuji, Masanobu (1960). Japan's Greatest Victory, Britain's Worst Defeat: The Capture of Singapore, 1942. Singapore: The Japanese Version. New York: St. Martin's Press.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Battle of Singapore Part of the Malayan Campaign of World War II Lieutenant-General Arthur Ernest Percival (right), led by a Japanese officer, walks under a flag of truce to negotiate the capitulation of Allied forces in Singapore, on 15 February 1942. It was the largest surrender of British-led forces in history.

# data[].attributes.headline
Giorgio Othello 'G.O.' Gumban C7-Alfonso

# data[].attributes.subject
Giorgio Othello 'G.O.' Gumban C7-Alfonso

# data[].attributes.body
1 - Anu-ano ang mga ginawa ng mga Hapones sa Indonesia na nakatulong sa paglakas at pagkalat ng nasyonalismong Indones?
-Di pinagbawalan at sinupil ng mga Hapones ang pag-praktis at pagsasanay ng mga Indones ng kanilang katutubong kultura, wika at tradisyon, tulad ng ginawa ng mga Hapones sa Korea. Dahil dito ay patuloy pa rin isinasagawa ng mga Indones ang pag-praktis ng kanilang mga katutubong gawain na nakatulong sa pagpapalakas at pagkalat ng nasyonalismong Indones. 'Di rin pinagbawalan ng mga Hapon na magkaroon ng lideratong posisyon ang mga Indones sa mga lokal na posisyon, at ito ay naging malaking tulong sa pag-usbong ng nasyonalismong Indones.

2 - Sa pangkalahatan, paano nakatulong ang mga ito sa paglakas at pagkalat ng nasyonalismong Indones?
-Dahil sa mga binanggit ko sa itaas, napukaw at lumakas ang nasyonalismong Indones. Sanhi ng patuloy na pagsasanay at pag-praktis ng kanilang mga katutubong kultura, wika at tradisyon ay nagdulot ng nag-umiigting na damdaming nasyonalismong Indones.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Nationalism has many definitions, but it is broadly the increasing desire of a people to determine their identity, lifestyle and destiny for themselves. For the Netherland Indies, controlled by Dutch colonists since the 1800s, nationalism, which began circa 1900, would finally lead give rise to a new nation-state, Indonesia.

Indonesia from the 1900 to the 1940s

During this period, there was a growing consciousness of a national concern, seen by the formation of several organizations taking the whole colony as their organizational frame, as opposed to groups with smaller perspectives, such as ethnic or local issues. Some such organizations include:

National Indies Party, founded in 1912 by Javanese, Eurasian and Dutch men

Partai Komunis Indonesia, founded in 1921 by communists

Congress of Indonesian Women, a federation of women's organizations founded in 1928

Partai Nasional Indonesia, founded in 1929 by Sukarno

Sukarno, in particular, was an important figure. His eloquence at political rallies helped to spread the message of freedom across a diverse Indonesia, galvanizing them to set aside differences, unite, and oppose colonial rule. Sukarno would eventually become President of Indonesia upon their independence in 1945.

However, Dutch responses to Indonesian nationalism were not encouraging, and they reacted by tightening laws and getting rid of the leading political activists through jail or exile. Sukarno himself was exiled in 1934.

It was the Japanese Occupation during World War II that radically boosted Indonesia's case for independence.

Effects of Japanese Occupation on Indonesian Nationalism

Similar to rest of Southeast Asia, the Japanese occupation fuelled nationalism, as European dominance was increasingly questioned and rejected. Some positive effects specific to Indonesia include:

The Japanese continued to use Indonesian as the language of administration, rather than enforcing the use of Japanese, helping unity upon independence.

Locals were empowered through being given leadership opportunities which they were previously denied under Dutch rule.

The military training was given to the Indonesians, originally to support the Japanese war machine, would come in useful during the conflicts from 1946 to 1949.

However, there were also some negative aspects which would hamper the nationalistic cause.

This included the taxing of resources to fuel the war effort. This is marked in the shortage of food and clothing, and also the romusha program, where it was mandatory for fit males to provide free labour to support the war effort.

Japan also split Indonesia it into three portions for easier administration, to be controlled by different sections of the Japanese armed forces. This had the effect of breaking unifying processes of Batavia as Indonesia's centre, which the Dutch had emplaced over the years, and compromising the idea of Indonesia as a single nation.

It was the concentration of men who were committed to the idea of Indonesia in Java (notably Sukarno and Hatta), and their seizing of power from there in 1945 upon Japanese surrender, that enabled Indonesia to emerge as a single colonial state after the war rather than three different ones.

Challenges upon Indonesia's Declaration of Independence

Indonesian nationalism had carried the country to a point in history that was exciting and optimistic, yet also chaotic and dangerous, and the new nation's problems were just beginning. Dutch rejection of their declaration of independence would bring about a tumultuous period of armed conflicts and negotiations from 1946 to 1949, before the final recognition of their independence by the United Nations.

There were also many internal problems which had to be addressed. This included the question of what political structure to adopt, and the role of Islam in politics. An economy which had just been through war and thus would not be able to support the country's needs, as well as a still ambiguous cultural idea of what Indonesian national identity was exactly would be issues that Indonesia would need to address.

Bibliography:

1. A Short History of South-east Asia (3rd edition) by Peter Church (published 2003)

2. The Emergence of Modern Southeast Asia Edited by Normal G. Owen et al. (published 2005)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Tracing the Rise of Nationalism in Indonesia: An Important Period of Indonesian History

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Nationalism has many definitions, but it is broadly the increasing desire of a people to determine their identity, lifestyle and destiny for themselves. For the Netherland Indies, controlled by Dutch colonists since the 1800s, nationalism, which began circa 1900, would finally lead give rise to a new nation-state, Indonesia.

# data[].attributes.headline
Giorgio Othello 'G.O.' Gumban C7-Alfonso

# data[].attributes.subject
Giorgio Othello 'G.O.' Gumban C7-Alfonso

# data[].attributes.body
1 - Batay sa palabas na pinanood, siping binasa at iba pang gawain sa araling ito, anong paglalahat ang maaari nating mabuo sa kaugnayan ng Ikalawang Digmaang Pandaigdig sa paglakas at pagkalat ng nasyonalismo sa Asya (at sa mundo)?
-Matapos ang ikalawang digmaang pandaigdig, ay nawala ang image of invincibility, ng mga makapangyarihang imperyalista tulad ng Britanya. Naging mulat na rin ang mundo sa karahasan at paghihirap na nararanasan ng mga kolonya sa mga imperyalistang mananakop. Ang pagbuklod-buklod ng mga lokal na mamamayan ng mga nasasakupang bansa ay nagkaroon din ng lakas loob na mag-protesta at makilaban sa mga imperyalistang naghahari sa kanilang bansa. Ang Hapon ay nag-ambisyon ding mapalawak ang kanilang teritoryo sa pamamagitan ng pag-occupy ng mga karatig bansa sa Asya, ngunit nabigo ito matapos ng digmaan. Sabay-sabay itong nangyari at nagbunga ito ng pagkamit ng kalayaan ng maraming mga bansang dati ay kolonya ng mga imperyalistang makapangyarihan. Matapos ang ikalawang digmaang pandaigdig, ang kolonyalismo ay isang konsepto na malinaw na hindi na napapanahon, at pinalitan ng ideyang mga kaalyadong bansa para o laban sa komunismo, dahil dalawang bansa (US at USSR) ang lumitaw bilang nangungunang lakas ng mundo pagkatapos ng giyera. Lumakas din ang damdaming nasyonalismo sa mga bansa sa Asya, at ito ay nagbigay ng lakas loob sa kanilang hilingin ang kanilang kalayaan.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The aftermath of World War II saw the rise of two global superpowers, the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States (US). The aftermath of World War II was also defined by the rising threat of nuclear warfare, the creation and implementation of the United Nations as an intergovernmental organization, and the decolonization of Asia and Africa by European and East Asian powers, most notably by the United Kingdom, France, and Japan.

Once allies during World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union became competitors on the world stage and engaged in the Cold War, so called because it never resulted in overt, declared total war between the two powers. It was instead characterized by espionage, political subversion and proxy wars. Western Europe and Asia were rebuilt through the American Marshall Plan, whereas Central and Eastern Europe fell under the Soviet sphere of influence and eventually behind an " Iron Curtain". Europe was divided into a US-led Western Bloc and a USSR-led Eastern Bloc. Internationally, alliances with the two blocs gradually shifted, with some nations trying to stay out of the Cold War through the Non-Aligned Movement. The war also saw a nuclear arms race between the two superpowers; part of the reason that the Cold War never became a "hot" war was that the Soviet Union and the United States had nuclear deterrents against each other, leading to a mutually assured destruction standoff.

As a consequence of the war, the Allies created the United Nations, an organization for international cooperation and diplomacy, similar to the League of Nations. Members of the United Nations agreed to outlaw wars of aggression in an attempt to avoid a third world war. The devastated great powers of Western Europe formed the European Coal and Steel Community, which later evolved into the European Economic Community and ultimately into the current European Union. This effort primarily began as an attempt to avoid another war between Germany and France by economic cooperation and integration, and a common market for important natural resources.

The end of the war opened the way for decolonization from the great powers. Independence was granted to India and Pakistan (from the United Kingdom), Indonesia (from the Netherlands), the Philippines (from the US) and a number of Arab nations, from specific mandates which had been granted to great powers from League of Nations Mandates and in addition to the establishment of Israel (from the United Kingdom and United States). Independence for the nations of Sub-Saharan Africa came in the 1960s.

The aftermath of World War II saw the rise of communist influence in East Asia, with the People's Republic of China, as the Chinese Communist Party emerged victorious from the Chinese Civil War in 1949.

At the end of the war, millions of people were dead and millions more homeless, the European economies had collapsed, and much of Europe's industrial infrastructure had been destroyed. The German people as a whole, but its youth in particular, ended up being deeply scorched psychologically by the ordeal which they went through during the previous decade, from the time when the Nazis took power promising them a thousand years of world dominance, until their major cities were destroyed, turned to rubble by the Allied bombardments. The trauma caused to them was multifaceted as it permeated all levels of society, by means of the systematic Nazification of the country with the strategic creation of the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda which tookover the media and all institutions, and put in place the systematic indoctrination of the very young via the creation of the Hitler Youth, the Deutsches Jungvolk, the League of German Girls and the Jungmädelbund. Then by the end of the war, once their major cities were devastated, ensued a widespread famine, which was followed by the wave of denazification which swept throughout their humiliated country, ending with the pervasive shame of their parents who believed in the illusive promises of their defeated Führer.

By the end of the war, the economy of the United Kingdom was one of severe privation. More than a quarter of its national wealth had been consumed. Until the introduction in 1941 of Lend-Lease aid from the US, the UK had been spending its assets to purchase American equipment including aircraft and ships-over £437 million on aircraft alone. Lend-Lease came just before its reserves were exhausted. Britain had placed 55% of its total labour force into war production.

Britain's war debt was described by some in the American administration as a "millstone round the neck of the British economy". Although there were suggestions for an international conference to tackle the issue, in August 1945 the U.S. announced unexpectedly that the Lend-Lease programme was to end immediately.

The abrupt withdrawal of American Lend-Lease support to Britain on 2 September 1945 dealt a severe blow to the plans of the new government. It was only with the completion of the Anglo-American loan by the United States to Great Britain on 15 July 1946 that some measure of economic stability was restored. However, the loan was made primarily to support British overseas expenditure in the immediate post-war years and not to implement the Labour government's policies for domestic welfare reforms and the nationalisation of key industries. Although the loan was agreed on reasonable terms, its conditions included what proved to be damaging fiscal conditions for sterling. From 1946 to 1948, the UK introduced bread rationing, which it had never done during the war.

Ruins in Stalingrad, typical of the destruction in many Soviet cities.

The economy had been devastated. Roughly a quarter of the Soviet Union's capital resources were destroyed, and industrial and agricultural output in 1945 fell far short of pre-war levels. To help rebuild the country, the Soviet government obtained limited credits from Britain and Sweden; it refused assistance offered by the United States under the Marshall Plan. Instead, the Soviet Union coerced Soviet-occupied Central and Eastern Europe to supply machinery and raw materials. Germany and former Nazi satellites made reparations to the Soviet Union. The reconstruction programme emphasised heavy industry to the detriment of agriculture and consumer goods. By 1953, steel production was twice its 1940 level, but the production of many consumer goods and foodstuffs was lower than it had been in the late 1920s.

The immediate post-war period in Europe was dominated by the Soviet Union annexing, or converting into Soviet Socialist Republics, all the countries invaded and annexed by the Red Army driving the Germans out of central and eastern Europe. New satellite states were set up by the Soviets in Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Albania, and East Germany; the last of these was created from the Soviet zone of occupation in Germany. Yugoslavia emerged as an independent Communist state allied but not aligned with the Soviet Union, owing to the independent nature of the military victory of the Partisans of Josip Broz Tito during World War II in Yugoslavia. The Allies established the Far Eastern Commission and Allied Council for Japan to administer their occupation of that country while the establishment Allied Control Council, administered occupied Germany. In accordance with the Potsdam Conference agreements, the Soviet Union occupied and subsequently annexed the strategic island of Sakhalin.

Post-WW II occupation zones of Germany, in its 1937 borders, with territories east of the Oder-Neisse line shown as annexed by Poland and the Soviet Union, plus the Saar protectorate and divided Berlin. East Germany was formed by the Soviet Zone, while West Germany was formed by the American, British, and French zones in 1949 and the Saar in 1957.

In the east, the Sudetenland reverted to Czechoslovakia following the European Advisory Commission's decision to delimit German territory to be the territory it held on 31 December 1937. Close to one-quarter of pre-war (1937) Nazi Germany was de facto annexed by the Allies; roughly 10 million Germans were either expelled from this territory or not permitted to return to it if they had fled during the war. The remainder of Germany was partitioned into four zones of occupation, coordinated by the Allied Control Council. The Saar was detached and put in economic union with France in 1947. In 1949, the Federal Republic of Germany was created out of the Western zones. The Soviet zone became the German Democratic Republic.

Germany paid reparations to the United Kingdom, France, and the Soviet Union, mainly in the form of dismantled factories, forced labour, and coal. The German standard of living was to be reduced to its 1932 level. Beginning immediately after the German surrender and continuing for the next two years, the US and Britain pursued an "intellectual reparations" programme to harvest all technological and scientific know-how as well as all patents in Germany. The value of these amounted to around US$10 billion (US$156 billion in 2023 dollars). In accordance with the Paris Peace Treaties, 1947, reparations were also assessed from the countries of Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Finland.

The hunger-winter of 1947. Thousands protest against the disastrous food situation. Sign says "we want coal. we want bread." (31 March 1947).

US policy in post-war Germany from April 1945 until July 1947 had been that no help should be given to the Germans in rebuilding their nation, save for the minimum required to mitigate starvation. The Allies' immediate post-war "industrial disarmament" plan for Germany had been to destroy Germany's capability to wage war by complete or partial de-industrialization. The first industrial plan for Germany, signed in 1946, required the destruction of 1,500 manufacturing plants to lower German heavy industry output to roughly 50% of its 1938 level. Dismantling of West German industry ended in 1951. By 1950, equipment had been removed from 706 manufacturing plants, and steel production capacity had been reduced by 6.7 million tons. After lobbying by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Generals Lucius D. Clay and George Marshall, the Truman administration accepted that economic recovery in Europe could not go forward without the reconstruction of the German industrial base on which it had previously been dependent. In July 1947, President Truman rescinded on "national security grounds" the directive that had ordered the US occupation forces to "take no steps looking toward the economic rehabilitation of Germany." A new directive recognised that "[a]n orderly, prosperous Europe requires the economic contributions of a stable and productive Germany." From mid-1946 onwards Germany received US government aid through the GARIOA programme. From 1948 onwards West Germany also became a minor beneficiary of the Marshall Plan. Volunteer organisations had initially been forbidden to send food, but in early 1946 the Council of Relief Agencies Licensed to Operate in Germany was founded. The prohibition against sending CARE Packages to individuals in Germany was rescinded on 5 June 1946.

After the German surrender, the International Red Cross was prohibited from providing aid such as food or visiting POW camps for Germans inside Germany. However, after making approaches to the Allies in the autumn of 1945 it was allowed to investigate the camps in the UK and French occupation zones of Germany, as well as to provide relief to the prisoners held there. On 4 February 1946, the Red Cross was also permitted to visit and assist prisoners in the U.S. occupation zone of Germany, although only with very small quantities of food. The Red Cross petitioned successfully for improvements to be made in the living conditions of German POWs.

As France was liberated from German occupation, an épuration (purge) of real and suspected Nazi collaborators began. At first this was undertaken in an extralegal manner by the French Resistance (called the épuration sauvage, "wild purge"). French women who had had romantic liaisons with German soldiers were publicly humiliated and had their heads shaved. There were also a wave of summary executions estimated to have killed about 10,000 people.

When the Provisional Government of the French Republic established control, the Épuration légale ("legal purge") began. There were no international war crimes trials for French collaborators, who were tried in the domestic courts. Approximately 300,000 cases were investigated; 120,000 people were given various sentences including 6,763 death sentences (of which only 791 were carried out). Most convicts were given amnesty a few years later.

The aftermath of World War II left Italy with an anger against the monarchy for its endorsement of the Fascist regime for the previous twenty years. These frustrations contributed to a revival of the Italian republican movement. In the 1946 Italian constitutional referendum, held on 2 June, a day celebrated since as Festa della Repubblica, the Italian monarchy was abolished, having been associated with the deprivations of the war and the Fascist rule, especially in the North, and Italy became a republic. This was the first time that Italian women voted at the national level, and the second time overall considering the local elections that were held a few months earlier in some cities.

King Victor Emmanuel III's son, King Umberto II, was forced to abdicate and exiled. The Republican Constitution was approved on 1 January 1948, resulting from the work of a Constituent Assembly formed by the representatives of all the anti-fascist forces that contributed to the defeat of Nazi and Fascist forces during the liberation of Italy. Unlike in Germany and Japan, no war crimes tribunals were held against Italian military and political leaders, though the Italian resistance summarily executed some of them (such as Mussolini) at the end of the war; the Togliatti amnesty, taking its name from the Communist Party secretary at the time, pardoned all wartime common and political crimes in 1946.

Istrian Italians leave Pola in 1947 during the Istrian-Dalmatian exodus

The 1947, Treaty of Peace with Italy spelled the end of the Italian colonial empire, along with other border revisions, like the transfer of the Italian Islands of the Aegean to the Kingdom of Greece and the transfer to France of Briga and Tenda, as well than to minor revisions of the Franco-Italian border. Moreover, under the Treaty of Peace with Italy, Istria, Kvarner, most of the Julian March as well as the Dalmatian city of Zara was annexed by Yugoslavia causing the Istrian-Dalmatian exodus, which led to the emigration of between 230,000 and 350,000 of local ethnic Italians ( Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians), the others being ethnic Slovenians, ethnic Croatians, and ethnic Istro-Romanians, choosing to maintain Italian citizenship, towards Italy, and in smaller numbers, towards the Americas, Australia and South Africa.

The 1947 Treaty of Peace compelled Italy to pay $360 million (US dollars at 1938 prices) in war reparations: $125 million to Yugoslavia, $105 million to Greece, $100 million to the Soviet Union, $25 million to Ethiopia and $5 million to Albania. In 1954 the Free Territory of Trieste, an independent territory between northern Italy and Yugoslavia under direct responsibility of the United Nations Security Council, was divided between the two states, Italy and Yugoslavia. The Italian border that applies today has existed since 1975, when Trieste was formally re-annexed to Italy after the Treaty of Osimo. In 1950, Italian Somaliland was made a United Nations Trust Territory under Italian administration until 1 July 1960.

Silent film footage taken in Hiroshima in March 1946 showing survivors with severe burns and keloid scars.

After the war, the Allies rescinded Japanese Empire pre-war annexations such as Manchuria, and Korea became militarily occupied by the United States in the south and by the Soviet Union in the north. The Philippines and Guam were returned to the United States. Burma, Malaya, and Singapore were returned to Britain and Indochina back to France. The Dutch East Indies was to be handed back to the Dutch but was resisted leading to the Indonesian war for independence. At the Yalta Conference, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt had secretly traded the Japanese Kurils and south Sakhalin to the Soviet Union in return for Soviet entry in the war with Japan. The Soviet Union annexed the Kuril Islands, provoking the Kuril Islands dispute, which is ongoing, as Russia continues to occupy the islands.

Hundreds of thousands of Japanese were forced to relocate to the Japanese main islands. Okinawa became a main US staging point. The US covered large areas of it with military bases and continued to occupy it until 1972, years after the end of the occupation of the main islands. The bases still remain. To skirt the Geneva Convention, the Allies classified many Japanese soldiers as Japanese Surrendered Personnel (JSP) instead of POWs and used them as forced labour until 1947. The UK, France, and the Netherlands used JSP to support their military operations in the region after World War II. General Douglas MacArthur established the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. The Allies collected reparations from Japan.

To further remove Japan as a potential future military threat, the Far Eastern Commission decided to de-industrialise Japan, with the goal of reducing Japanese standard of living to what prevailed between 1930 and 1934. In the end, the de-industrialisation programme in Japan was implemented to a lesser degree than the one in Germany. Japan received emergency aid from GARIOA, as did Germany. In early 1946, the Licensed Agencies for Relief in Asia were formed and permitted to supply Japanese with food and clothes. In April 1948 the Johnston Committee Report recommended that the economy of Japan should be reconstructed due to the high cost to US taxpayers of continuous emergency aid.

Survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, known as (被爆者), were ostracized by Japanese society. Japan provided no special assistance to these people until 1952. By the 65th anniversary of the bombings, total casualties from the initial attack and later deaths reached about 270,000 in Hiroshima and 150,000 in Nagasaki. About 230,000 hibakusha were still alive as of 2010, and about 2,200 were suffering from radiation-caused illnesses as of 2007.

In the Winter War of 1939-1940, the Soviet Union invaded neutral Finland and annexed some of its territory. From 1941 until 1944, Finland aligned itself with Nazi Germany in a failed effort to regain lost territories from the Soviets. Finland retained its independence following the war but remained subject to Soviet-imposed constraints in its domestic affairs.

In 1940 the Soviet Union invaded and annexed the neutral Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. In June 1941, the Soviet governments of the Baltic states carried out mass deportations of "enemies of the people"; as a result, many treated the invading Nazis as liberators when they invaded only a week later. The Atlantic Charter promised self-determination to people deprived of it during the war. The British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, argued for a weaker interpretation of the Charter to permit the Soviet Union to continue to control the Baltic states. In March 1944 the U.S. accepted Churchill's view that the Atlantic Charter did not apply to the Baltic states. With the return of Soviet troops at the end of the war, the Forest Brothers mounted a guerrilla war. This continued until the mid-1950s.

An estimated one million military and civilian Filipinos were killed from all causes; of these 131,028 were listed as killed in seventy-two war crime events. According to a United States analysis released years after the war, U.S. casualties were 10,380 dead and 36,550 wounded; Japanese dead were 255,795.

During the war, the United States government interned approximately 110,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese who lived along the Pacific coast of the United States in the wake of Imperial Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. Canada interned approximately 22,000 Japanese Canadians, 14,000 of whom were born in Canada. After the war, some internees chose to return to Japan, while most remained in North America.

The Soviet Union expelled at least 2 million Poles from the east of the new border approximating the Curzon Line. This estimate is uncertain as neither the Polish Communist government or the Soviet government kept track of the number of expelled people. The number of Polish citizens inhabiting Polish borderlands ( Kresy region) was about 13 million before World War II broke out according to official Polish statistics. Polish citizens killed in the war that originated from the Polish borderlands territory (killed by either the German Nazi regime or the Soviet regime, or expelled to distant parts of Siberia) were accounted as Russian, Ukrainian or Belarusian casualties of war in official Soviet historiography. This fact imposes additional difficulties in making the correct estimation of the number of Polish citizens forcibly transferred after the war. The border change also reversed the results of the 1919-1920 Polish-Soviet War. Former Polish cities such as Lwów came under control of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Additionally, the Soviet Union transferred more than two million people within their own borders; these included Germans, Finns, Crimean Tatars, and Chechens.

As Soviet troops marched across the Balkans, they committed rapes and robberies in Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. The population of Bulgaria was largely spared of this treatment, possibly due to a sense of ethnic kinship or to the leadership of Marshal Fyodor Tolbukhin. The population of Germany was treated significantly worse. Rape and murder of German civilians was as bad as, and sometimes worse than, Nazi propaganda had anticipated. Political officers encouraged Soviet troops to seek revenge and terrorise the German population. On "the basis of Hochrechnungen (projections or estimations)", "1.9 million German women altogether were raped at the end of the war by Red Army soldiers." About one-third of all German women in Berlin were raped by Soviet forces. A substantial minority was raped multiple times. In Berlin, contemporary hospital records indicate between 95,000 and 130,000 women were raped by Soviet troops. About 10,000 of these women died, mostly by suicide. Over 4.5 million Germans fled towards the West. The Soviets initially had no rules against their troops "fraternising" with German women, but by 1947 they started to isolate their troops from the German population in an attempt to stop rape and robbery by the troops. Not all Soviet soldiers participated in these activities.

Foreign reports of Soviet brutality were denounced as false. Rape, robbery, and murder were blamed on German bandits impersonating Soviet soldiers. Some justified Soviet brutality towards German civilians based on previous brutality of German troops toward Russian civilians. Until the reunification of Germany, East German histories virtually ignored the actions of Soviet troops, and Russian histories still tend to do so. Reports of mass rapes by Soviet troops were often dismissed as anti-Communist propaganda or the normal byproduct of war.

Rapes also occurred under other Allied forces in Europe, though the majority were committed by Soviet troops. In a letter to the editor of published in September 1945, a United States Army sergeant wrote, "Our own Army and the British Army along with ours have done their share of looting and raping ... This offensive attitude among our troops is not at all general, but the percentage is large enough to have given our Army a pretty black name, and we too are considered an army of rapists." Robert Lilly's analysis of military records led him to conclude about 14,000 rapes occurred in Britain, France, and Germany at the hands of US soldiers between 1942 and 1945. Lilly assumed that only 5% of rapes by American soldiers were reported, making 17,000 GI rapes a possibility, while analysts estimate that 50% of (ordinary peacetime) rapes are reported. Supporting Lilly's lower figure is the "crucial difference" that for World War II military rapes "it was the commanding officer, not the victim, who brought charges". According to German historian Miriam Gebhardt, as many as 190,000 women were raped by U.S. soldiers in Germany.

During the Italian campaign, the Goumiers, French Moroccan colonial troops attached to the French Expeditionary Forces, have been accused of committing rape and murder against the Italian peasant communities, mostly targeting civilian women and girls, as well as a few men and boys. In Italy the victims of these acts were described as Marocchinate meaning literally "Moroccaned" (or people who have been subjected to acts committed by Moroccans). According to Italian victims associations, a total of more than 7,000 civilians, including children, were raped by Goumiers.

In the first few weeks of the American military occupation of Japan, rape and other violent crime was widespread in naval ports like Yokohama and Yokosuka but declined shortly afterward. There were 1,336 reported rapes during the first 10 days of the occupation of Kanagawa prefecture. Historian Toshiyuki Tanaka relates that in Yokohama, the capital of the prefecture, there were 119 known rapes in September 1945.

Historians Eiji Takemae and Robert Ricketts state that "When US paratroopers landed in Sapporo, an orgy of looting, sexual violence, and drunken brawling ensued. Gang rapes and other sex atrocities were not infrequent" and some of the rape victims committed suicide.

According to Takemae and Ricketts, members of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF) were also involved in rapes:

A former prostitute recalled that as soon as Australian troops arrived in Kure in early 1946, they "dragged young women into their jeeps, took them to the mountain, and then raped them. I heard them screaming for help nearly every night". Such behavior was commonplace, but news of criminal activity by Occupation forces was quickly suppressed.

Rape committed by U.S. soldiers occupying Okinawa was also a notable phenomenon. Okinawan historian Oshiro Masayasu (former director of the Okinawa Prefectural Historical Archives) writes:

Soon after the U.S. marines landed, all the women of a village on Motobu Peninsula fell into the hands of American soldiers. At the time, there were only women, children and old people in the village, as all the young men had been mobilized for the war. Soon after landing, the marines "mopped up" the entire village, but found no signs of Japanese forces. Taking advantage of the situation, they started "hunting for women" in broad daylight and those who were hiding in the village or nearby air raid shelters were dragged out one after another.

According to Toshiyuki Tanaka, 76 cases of rape or rape-murder were reported during the first five years of the American occupation of Okinawa. However, he claims this is probably not the true figure, as most cases were unreported.

During World War II the Japanese military established brothels filled with " comfort women", a euphemism for the 200,000 girls and women who were forced into sexual slavery for Japanese soldiers. In Confucian nations like Korea and China, where premarital sex is considered shameful, the subject of the "comfort women" was ignored for decades after 1945 as the victims were considered pariahs. Dutch comfort women brought a successful case before the Batavia Military Tribunal in 1948.

Soviet expansion, change of Central-Eastern European borders and creation of the Communist Eastern bloc after World War II

The alliance between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union began to deteriorate even before the war was over, when Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill exchanged a heated correspondence over whether the Polish government-in-exile, backed by Roosevelt and Churchill, or the Provisional Government, backed by Stalin, should be recognised. Stalin won.

On 5 March 1946, in his "Sinews of Peace" (Iron Curtain) speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, Winston Churchill said "a shadow" had fallen over Europe. He described Stalin as having dropped an " Iron Curtain" between East and West. Stalin responded by charging that co-existence between communist countries and the West was impossible. In mid-1948 the Soviet Union imposed a blockade on the Western zone of occupation in Berlin.

Due to the rising tension in Europe and concerns over further Soviet expansion, American planners came up with a contingency plan code-named Operation Dropshot in 1949. It considered possible nuclear and conventional war with the Soviet Union and its allies in order to counter a Soviet takeover of Western Europe, the Near East and parts of Eastern Asia that they anticipated would begin around 1957. In response, the US would saturate the Soviet Union with atomic and high-explosive bombs, and then invade and occupy the country. In later years, to reduce military expenditures while countering Soviet conventional strength, President Dwight Eisenhower would adopt a strategy of massive retaliation, relying on the threat of a US nuclear strike to prevent non-nuclear incursions by the Soviet Union in Europe and elsewhere. The approach entailed a major buildup of US nuclear forces and a corresponding reduction in America's non-nuclear ground and naval strength. The Soviet Union viewed these developments as "atomic blackmail".

The "Big Three" at the Yalta Conference: Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin. Diplomatic relations between their three countries changed radically in the aftermath of World War II.

In Greece, civil war broke out in 1946 between Anglo-American-supported royalist forces and communist-led forces, with the royalist forces emerging as the victors. The US launched a massive programme of military and economic aid to Greece and to neighbouring Turkey, arising from a fear that the Soviet Union stood on the verge of breaking through the NATO defence line to the oil-rich Middle East. On 12 March 1947, to gain Congressional support for the aid, President Truman described the aid as promoting democracy in defence of the " free world", a principle that became known as the Truman Doctrine.

The US sought to promote an economically strong and politically united Western Europe to counter the threat posed by the Soviet Union. This was done openly using tools such as the European Recovery Program, which encouraged European economic integration. The International Authority for the Ruhr, designed to keep German industry down and controlled, evolved into the European Coal and Steel Community, a founding pillar of the European Union. The United States also worked covertly to promote European integration, for example using the American Committee on United Europe to funnel funds to European federalist movements. In order to ensure that Western Europe could withstand the Soviet military threat, the Western European Union was founded in 1948 and NATO in 1949. The first NATO Secretary General, Lord Ismay, famously stated the organisation's goal was "to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down". However, without the manpower and industrial output of West Germany no conventional defence of Western Europe had any hope of succeeding. To remedy this, in 1950 the US sought to promote the European Defence Community, which would have included a rearmed West Germany. The attempt was dashed when the French Parliament rejected it. On 9 May 1955, West Germany was instead admitted to NATO; the immediate result was the creation of the Warsaw Pact five days later.

The Cold War also saw the creation of propaganda and espionage organisations such as Radio Free Europe, the Information Research Department, the Gehlen Organization, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Special Activities Division, and the Ministry for State Security, as well as the radicalization and proliferation of numerous far-left and far-right terrorist organizations in Western European countries ( Italy, France, West Germany, Belgium, Francoist Spain, and the Netherlands), with spillovers in Northern and Southeastern Europe.

World map of colonization at the end of the Second World War in 1945

In Asia, the surrender of Japanese forces was complicated by the split between East and West as well as by the movement toward national self-determination in European colonial territories.

Decisions to decolonize British India led to an agreement to a partition of the country along religious lines into two independent dominions: India and Pakistan. The partition resulted in communal violence and massive displacements of population. It is often described as the largest mass human migration and one of the largest refugee crises in history.

Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Chinese nationalist Kuomintang

With the Communist victory in the civil war, the Soviet Union gave up its claim to military bases in China that were given to it by its Western Allies at the end of World War II.

While large scale hostilities largely ceased by 1950, intermittent clashes occurred between the two from 1950 to 1979. Taiwan unilaterally declared the civil war over in 1991, but no formal peace treaty or truce has been signed and the PRC continues to officially see Taiwan as a breakaway province that rightfully belongs to it.

The outbreak of the Korean War a few months after the conclusion of the Chinese Civil War and continued US support for the KMT were the main reasons that prevented the PRC from invading Taiwan.

Korea, formerly under Japanese rule, and which had been partially occupied by the Red Army following the Soviet Union's entry into the war against Japan, was divided at the 38th parallel on the orders of the US War Department. A US military government in southern Korea was established in the capital city of Seoul. The American military commander, Lt. Gen. John R. Hodge, enlisted many former Japanese administrative officials to serve in this government. North of the military line, the Soviets administered the disarming and demobilisation of repatriated Korean nationalist guerrillas who had fought on the side of Chinese nationalists against the Japanese in Manchuria during World War II. Simultaneously, the Soviets enabled a build-up of heavy armaments to pro-communist forces in the north. The military line became a political line in 1948, when separate republics emerged on both sides of the 38th parallel, each republic claiming to be the legitimate government of Korea. It culminated in the north invading the south, start of the Korean War two years later.

Labour and civil unrest broke out in the British colony of Malaya in 1946. A state of emergency was declared by the colonial authorities in 1948 with the outbreak of acts of terrorism. The situation deteriorated into a full-scale anti-colonial insurgency, or Anti-British National Liberation War as the insurgents referred to it, led by the Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA), the military wing of the Malayan Communist Party. The Malayan Emergency would endure for the next 12 years, ending in 1960. In 1967, communist leader Chin Peng reopened hostilities, culminating in a second emergency that lasted until 1989.

French Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia)

Ho Chi Minh declaring the independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam from French Indochina at the Ba Dinh Square on September 2nd, 1945

Dutch East Indies (Indonesia)

Japan invaded and occupied the Dutch East Indies during the war and replaced the colonial government with a new administration. Although the top positions were held by Japanese officers, the internment of all Dutch citizens meant that Indonesians filled many leadership and administrative positions. Following the Japanese surrender in August 1945, Indonesian nationalist leaders such as Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta declared Indonesia as independent. A four and a half-year struggle followed as the Dutch tried to re-establish their rule in colony, using a significant portion of their Marshall Plan aid to this end. The Dutch were aided by British forces for the first phase of the conflict until the United Kingdom withdrew. The British also initially used 35,000 Japanese Surrendered Personnel to support their military operations in Indonesia. Although Dutch forces re-occupied most of Indonesia, an Indonesian guerrilla campaign supported by the majority of Indonesians ensured, and ultimately international opinion favoured independence. In December 1949, the Netherlands formally recognised Indonesian sovereignty.

Aleksandras Lileikis, a Lithuanian collaborationist unit commander who oversaw the murder of 60,000 Jews in Lithuania, later worked for the CIA.[104]

British covert operations in the Baltic States, which began in 1944 against the Nazis, escalated after the war. In Operation Jungle, the Secret Intelligence Service (known as MI6) recruited and trained Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians for the clandestine work in the Baltic states between 1948 and 1955. Leaders of the operation included Alfons Rebane, Stasys Žymantas, and Rūdolfs Silarājs. The agents were transported under the cover of the "British Baltic Fishery Protection Service". They launched from British-occupied Germany, using a converted World War II E-boat captained and crewed by former members of the wartime German navy. British intelligence also trained and infiltrated anti-communist agents into Soviet Union from across the Finnish border, with orders to assassinate Soviet officials. In the end, counter-intelligence supplied to the KGB by Kim Philby allowed the KGB to penetrate and ultimately gain control of MI6's entire intelligence network in the Baltic states.

Vietnam and the Middle East would later damage the reputation gained by the US during its successes in Europe.

The KGB believed that the Third World rather than Europe was the arena in which it could win the Cold War. Moscow would in later years fuel an arms buildup in Africa. In later years, African countries used as proxies in the Cold War would often become "failed states" of their own.

In 2014, The New York Times reported that "In the decades after World War II, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and other United States agencies employed at least a thousand Nazis as Cold War spies and informants and, as recently as the 1990s, concealed the government's ties to some still living in America, newly disclosed records and interviews show." According to Timothy Naftali, "The CIA's central concern [in recruiting former Nazi collaborators] was not so much the extent of the criminal's guilt as the likelihood that the agent's criminal past could remain a secret."

When the divisions of postwar Europe began to emerge, the war crimes programmes and denazification policies of Britain and the United States were relaxed in favour of recruiting German scientists, especially nuclear and long-range rocket scientists. Many of these, prior to their capture, had worked on developing the German V-2 long-range rocket at the Baltic coast German Army Research Center Peenemünde. Western Allied occupation force officers in Germany were ordered to refuse to cooperate with the Soviets in sharing captured wartime secret weapons, the recovery for which, specifically in regards to advanced German aviation technology and personnel, the British had sent the Fedden Mission into Germany to contact its aviation technology centers and key personnel, paralleled by the United States with its own Operation Lusty aviation technology personnel and knowledge recovery program.

In Operation Paperclip, beginning in 1945, the United States imported 1,600 German scientists and technicians, as part of the intellectual reparations owed to the US and the UK, including about $10 billion (US$156 billion in 2023 dollars) in patents and industrial processes. In late 1945, three German rocket-scientist groups arrived in the U.S. for duty at Fort Bliss, Texas, and at White Sands Proving Grounds, New Mexico, as "War Department Special Employees".

The wartime activities of some Operation Paperclip scientists would later be investigated. Arthur Rudolph left the United States in 1984, in order to not be prosecuted. Similarly, Georg Rickhey, who came to the United States under Operation Paperclip in 1946, was returned to Germany to stand trial at the Mittelbau-Dora war crimes trial in 1947. Following his acquittal, he returned to the United States in 1948 and eventually became a US citizen.

The Soviets began Operation Osoaviakhim in 1946. NKVD and Soviet army units effectively deported thousands of military-related technical specialists from the Soviet occupation zone of post-war Germany to the Soviet Union. The Soviets used 92 trains to transport the specialists and their families, an estimated 10,000-15,000 people. Much related equipment was also moved, the aim being to virtually transplant research and production centres, such as the relocated V-2 rocket centre at Mittelwerk Nordhausen, from Germany to the Soviet Union. Among the people moved were Helmut Gröttrup and about two hundred scientists and technicians from Mittelwerk. Personnel were also taken from AEG, BMW's Stassfurt jet propulsion group, IG Farben's Leuna chemical works, Junkers, Schott AG, Siebel, Telefunken, and Carl Zeiss AG.

The operation was commanded by NKVD deputy Colonel General Serov, outside the control of the local Soviet Military Administration. The major reason for the operation was the Soviet fear of being condemned for noncompliance with Allied Control Council agreements on the liquidation of German military installations. Some Western observers thought Operation Osoaviakhim was a retaliation for the failure of the Socialist Unity Party in elections, though Osoaviakhim was clearly planned before that.

As a general consequence of the war and in an effort to maintain international peace, the Allies formed the United Nations (UN), which officially came into existence on 24 October 1945. The UN replaced the defunct League of Nations (LN) as an intergovernmental organization. The LN was formally dissolved on 20 April 1946 but had in practice ceased to function in 1939, being unable to stop the outbreak of World War II. The UN inherited some of the bodies of the LN, such as the International Labour Organization.

League of Nations mandates, mostly territories that had changed hands in World War I, became United Nations Trust Territories. South-West Africa, an exception, was still governed under terms of the original mandate. As the successor body to the League, the UN still assumed a supervisory role over the territory. The Free City of Danzig, a semi-autonomous city state that was partly overseen by the League, became part of Poland.

The UN adopted The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, "as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations." The Soviet Union abstained from voting on adoption of the declaration. The US did not ratify the social and economic rights sections.

The five major Allied powers were given permanent membership in the United Nations Security Council. The permanent members can veto any United Nations Security Council resolution, the only UN decisions that are binding according to international law. The five powers at the time of founding were: the United States of America, the United Kingdom, France, the Soviet Union and the Republic of China. The Republic of China lost the Chinese Civil War and retreated to the island of Taiwan by 1950 but continued to be a permanent member of the Council even though the state in control of mainland China was the People's Republic of China (PRC). This was changed in 1971 when the PRC was given the permanent membership previously held by the Republic of China. Russia inherited the permanent membership of the Soviet Union in 1991 after the dissolution of that state.

Japanese holdouts persisted on various islands in the Pacific Theatre until at least 1974. Although all hostilities are now resolved, a peace treaty has never been signed between Japan and Russia due to the Kuril Islands dispute.

In Europe, West Germany, after having continued to decline economically during the first years of the Allied occupation, later experienced a remarkable recovery, and had by the end of the 1950s doubled production from its pre-war levels. Italy came out of the war in poor economic condition, but by the 1950s, the Italian economy was marked by stability and high growth. France rebounded quickly and enjoyed rapid economic growth and modernisation under the Monnet Plan. The UK, by contrast, was in a state of economic ruin after the war and continued to experience relative economic decline for decades to follow.

The Soviet Union also experienced a rapid increase in production in the immediate post-war era. Japan experienced rapid economic growth, becoming one of the most powerful economies in the world by the 1980s. China, following the conclusion of its civil war, was essentially bankrupt. By 1953, economic restoration seemed fairly successful as production had resumed pre-war levels. This growth rate mostly persisted, though it was interrupted by economic experiments during the disastrous Great Leap Forward.

East German propaganda poster in 1957

In 1951 several laws were passed, ending the denazification. As a result, many people with a former Nazi past ended up again in the political apparatus of West Germany. West German President Walter Scheel and Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger were both former members of the Nazi Party. In 1957, 77% of the West German Ministry of Justice's senior officials were former Nazi Party members. Konrad Adenauer's State Secretary Hans Globke had played a major role in drafting antisemitic Nuremberg Race Laws in Nazi Germany.

When World War II ended scientists did not have procedures for safe disposal of chemical arsenals. At the direction of the UK, US and Russia, chemical weapons were loaded onto ships by the metric ton and dumped into the sea. The exact locations of the dumping are not known due to poor record keeping, but it is estimated that 1 million metric tons of chemical weapons remain on the ocean floor where they are rusting and pose the risk of leaks. Sulfur mustard exposure has been reported in some parts of coastal Italy and sulfur mustard bombs have been found as far as Delaware, likely brought in with the shellfish cargo.

Black, Monica. A Demon-Haunted Land: Witches, Wonder Doctors, and the Ghosts of the Past in Post-WWII Germany (Metropolitan Books, 2020).

Gatrell, Peter. The unsettling of Europe: the great migration, 1945 to the present (Penguin UK, 2019).

Hilton, Laura J. "Who was 'worthy'? How empathy drove policy decisions about the uprooted in occupied Germany, 1945-1948". Holocaust and Genocide Studies 32.1 (2018): 8-28. online

Hoffmann, Steven A. "Japan: Foreign Occupation and Democratic Transition". in Establishing Democracies (Routledge, 2021) pp. 115-148.

Iatrides, John O, ed. (1981). Greece in the 1940s: A Nation in Crisis. Hanover and London: University Press of New England.

Jones, Howard (1989). A New Kind of War: America's Global Strategy and the Truman Doctrine in Greece. London: Oxford University Press.

Kehoe, Thomas J., and Elizabeth M. Greenhalgh. "Bias in the Treatment of Non-Germans in the British and American Military Government Courts in Occupied Germany, 1945-46". Social Science History 44.4 (2020): 641-666.

Konrád, Ota, Boris Barth, and Jaromír Mrňka. "Reshaping the Nation: An Introduction to the Collective Identities and Post-war Violence in Europe, 1944-1948". in Collective Identities and Post-War Violence in Europe, 1944-48 (Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2022) pp. 1-16.

Laar, Mart (1992). War in the Woods: Estonia's Struggle for Survival, 1944-1956. Translated by Ets, Tiina. Foreword by Parming, Tönu. Howells House. ISBN 0-929590-08-2.

Lowe, Keith (2013). Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II. Picador. ISBN 978-1250033567.

Lundtofte, Henrik. "Purges, Patriotism, and Political Violence: The Danish Case 1944-1945". in Collective Identities and Post-War Violence in Europe, 1944-48 (Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2022) pp. 129-164.

McClellan, Dorothy. S., and Knez, Nikola. "Post-World War II Forced Repatriations to Yugoslavia: Genocide's Legacy for Democratic Nation Building". International Journal of Social Sciences 7.2 (2018): 62-91.

Mayers, David. America and the postwar world: Remaking international society, 1945-1956 (Routledge, 2018).

Naimark, Norman M. "Violence in the European Interregnum, 1944-1947". in Collective Identities and Post-War Violence in Europe, 1944-48 (Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2022) pp. 17-33.

Piketty, Guillaume. "From the Capitoline Hill to the Tarpeian Rock? Free French coming out of war". European Review of History: Revue européenne d'histoire 25.2 (2018): 354-373. Archived 2022-04-21 at the Wayback Machine.

Pritchard, Gareth. "East-Central Europe: From Nazi rule to communism, 1943-1948". in The Routledge History of the Second World War (Routledge, 2021) pp. 671-686.

Strupp, Christoph. "The Port of Hamburg in the 1940s and 1950s: Physical Reconstruction and Political Restructuring in the Aftermath of World War II". Journal of Urban History 47.2 (2021): 354-372.

Szulc, Tad (1990). Then and Now: How the World Has Changed since W.W. II. New York: W. Morrow & Co. 515 p. ISBN 0-688-07558-4.

Tippner, Anja. "Postcatastrophic entanglement? Contemporary Czech writers remember the holocaust and post-war ethnic cleansing". Memory Studies 14.1 (2021): 80-94.

Ward, Robert E., and Yoshikazu Sakamoto, eds. Democratizing Japan: The Allied Occupation (University of Hawaii Press, 2019).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The aftermath of World War II saw the rise of two global superpowers, the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States (US). The aftermath of World War II was also defined by the rising threat of nuclear warfare, the creation and implementation of the United Nations as an intergovernmental organization, and the decolonization of Asia and Africa by European and East Asian powers, most notably by the United Kingdom, France, and Japan.

# data[].attributes.body
1. Ang naging epekto nito ay ang paglagay ng Singapore sa mga kamay ng mga Hapones. Habang nasa kamay ng Hapon ang Singapore, marami silang ginawang pang-aabuso, at naghirap ang maraming tao.

2.
1) Mayroon silang mga "comfort women" na pinilitang gawin ang mga gusto ng mga Hapones.
2) Naging normal ang pagbugbog ng mga sundalo sa mga sibilyan at billango.
3) Nagkaroon ng Ethnic Cleansing.

# data[].attributes.body
1. Ang Ikalawang Digmaang Pandaigdig ay naging isang magandang oportunidad para sa mga mamamayang nasa ilalim ng mga imperyalista. Ito ay dahil maraming gamit at "resources" ang ginamit ng kanilang mga imperyalista sa digmaang ito. Dahil dito, hindi na nila kayang suportahan ang mga bansa na sinakop nila. Ang Japan naman ay natamaan ng dalawang bomba na nagdulot ng maraming "casualties". Ginamit ng mga bansa ito upang humingi ng kanilang kalayaan. Mas namulat din ang mga mamamayan sa mga pang-aabuso na ginawa ng kanilang mga imperyalista kaya lumaban sila sa kanila. Ito ang mga nagpalakas ng nasyonalismo sa Asya.