Germany broadcasting! Germany broadcasting! People of Britain, greetings from the Third Reich! ... This is the voice of terror. ibid.
I’ve asked Mr Sherlock Holmes to come here. In this emergency we should take advantage of everyone’s peculiar gifts. ibid.
You’re Mr Sherlock Holmes, ain’t ya? I wouldn't come down here if I was you. This is Limehouse and we don’t fancy your sort of bloke in these parts. ibid. geezer
Our country. England is at stake. ibid. Sherlock to Kitty
We Nazis keep our promises. ibid. Nazi broadcast
On this shore just after midnight on 7th December 1941 Japanese troops invaded the British colony of Malaysia. The Pacific War had begun. The Fall of Singapore: The Great Betrayal, BBC 2012
Japan’s crowning victory – the fall of Singapore, symbol of British power in the East. ibid.
It was the British who gave the Japanese the know-how to take out Pearl Harbor and capture Singapore ... through a mole who was a peer of the realm known to Churchill himself. ibid.
Within two years [William] Sempill and his military missionaries had given Japan’s naval air service a potentially world-wide reach. ibid.
Rutland’s paymasters then revealed they had a much more important job for him: they would increase his salary if he agreed how to show their pilots how to fly off and on to the decks of carriers. ibid.
Sempill was passing on a whole range of secret information. ibid.
MI5 was appalled by Sempill’s behaviour. ibid.
Japan now had the means to realise her imperial ambitions. She set her sights on South East Asia. The ultimate prize was Singapore. ibid.
Sempill maintained his secret links with the Japanese. ibid.
Sempill was never prosecuted. ibid.
Rutland was deported to Britain where he was interned for two years. ibid.
A history of foreign invasion, smouldering racial tension and violent struggle against imperial power. After more than a hundred years of colonial rule in 1941 the flames of independence were lit when Japan bombed Singapore. Singapore 1942: End of Empire I, BBC 2012
It was a call to arms that echoed within the ranks of the British army, causing 20,000 British Indian army soldiers to switch sides and fight for the Japanese. ibid.
Singapore: The bastion of the British empire fell in just 70 days. It was Japan’s greatest victory and Britain’s most humiliating defeat of World War II. The fall of Singapore changed the face of South-East Asia for ever, and heralded the beginning of the end for the British Empire. ibid.
Many locals Malays began to help the Japanese. ibid.
The bicycle brigades were a vital asset of the Japanese army, and the routes were planned long before they invaded. ibid.
Penang fell unopposed to the Japanese. ibid.
There were less than a hundred Argyles who hadn’t been killed or captured. ibid.
On 8th December 1941 with World War II raging in Europe, Japan seized the opportunity to launch a brutal campaign to expand its empire and expel the white colonials from Asia. Singapore 1942: End of Empire II
Many deserted under fire. The so-called impregnable fortress had been breached. ibid.
The fanaticism of the Japanese soldiers shocked the empire troops. ibid.
Those left stranded on the wharf were left to face the fearsome occupying force now at the gates of their city. ibid.
Over three years in captivity. 30,000 British, 15,000 Australian and 40,000 Indian troops joined 30,000 POWs already taken in Malaysia. ibid.
The Japanese promised the Malays independence but it never came. Instead they increasingly behaved like a harsh new Colonial power. ibid.
Britain finally granted Malaysia independence on 31st August 1957. ibid.
Among the local Singaporeans, what little respect remained for the empire forces would quickly be dispelled. ibid.
An estimated 50,000 Chinese-Singaporeans were executed by the Japanese. ibid.
On 12th September 1945 the British returned to Singapore. It was the Japanese’ turn to be marched through in the streets in front of the locals. ibid.
For the people of South-East Asia things had changed. ibid.
On August 3rd 1944 a Royal Air Force reconnaissance plane flew a routine mission over German-occupied Amsterdam. Among the structures photographed was an office located at Prinsengracht 263. The next day, in that building, Anne Frank and her seven companions would be arrested. Anne Frank: The Nazi Capture, caption, National Geographic 2015
Anne’s father chose exile rather than live under the new Nazi government in his native Germany. ibid.
Holland surrendered within one week. At the time of this surrender 140,000 Jews lived within its borders. ibid.
In July of 1942, when the Frank family went into hiding, over 20,000 concentration camps were under construction. ibid.
The Second World War was fought in thousands of places, too many for one accounting. This is the story of four American towns and how their citizens experienced that war. Ken Burns, The War: A Very Fearful Time, captions, Yesterday 2014
A German U-boat surfaced silently off Manhattan ... America’s largest city was still ablaze with lights. ibid.
A specific target – the more than 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry living along the West Coast. They were about to be forced from their homes ... Almost no-one protested the government’s plan. ibid.
Guadalcanal would prove a crucial victory. After six long months the Americans were beginning to learn to beat the Japanese. ibid.
By January of 1943 Americans had been at war for more than a year. US Navy war planes had stopped the Japanese advance at the Battle of Midway. Ken Burns, The War: The Worst is Yet to Come
On February 14th Rommel sent his seasoned veterans against the untested, poorly led and ill-equipped Americans. ibid.
Along a thousand-mile front the Soviets were struggling to hurl the Nazis from their soil. Ken Burns, The War: When Things Get Tough
A series of annual war-bond drives; the whole country got involved. ibid.
It took the Allies just thirty-eight days to capture Sicily. ibid.
Life magazine: Three dead Americans on the beach. Ken Burns, The War: A Helluva War
The War was now being felt by every citizen in every town in America. ibid.
The War was profoundly altering life for African-Americans. ibid.
Roosevelt had ordered some 110,000 Japanese aliens and American citizens of Japanese descent living along the West Coast out of their homes and into ten internment camps. ibid.
By January of 1944 Americans all over the country had already become accustomed to scanning their newspaper every morning ... Men and material were streaming into England ... The newspaper casualty lists would soon be growing longer. Ken Burns, The War: A Deadly Calling
The armed forces of the United States remained strictly segregated. ibid.
By the late spring of 1944 on both sides of the world there were signs that the tide of war had begun to turn. Ken Burns, The War: Pride of Our Nation
Those who had managed to push past the dead and dying in the shallows found they had nowhere to go once they had reached the shore. ibid.
The Allies were on the offensive now. In Western Europe as well as the Pacific. Ken Burns, The War: A Volunteer Basis
On July 10th Saipan was officially declared secure. In almost four weeks of fighting, 16,525 Americans had been killed, wounded or reported missing. ibid.
All across France the Germans were in full retreat. ibid.
FUBAR – beyond all recognition. Ken Burns, The War: FUBAR