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The Fall of Singapore: The road to the fall of Singapore, 1939-42

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Old photo of pilots in aircraft cockpit
The Fall of Singapore: The road to the fall of Singapore, 1939-42

SUBJECTS:  History

YEARS:  9–10


Imagine a situation in which your country's safety was based on a myth.

From September 1939, Britain and Australia were at war with Nazi Germany. Meanwhile, Japan had been invading China since 1932.

Discover why Australians believed that, if Japan threatened Australia, our country could not be invaded because Singapore was 'a bastion of British power', an island fortress that could never fall to an enemy.


Things to think about

  1. 1.How did Australia respond to the outbreak of World War II? After Nazi Germany invaded Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939. Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies immediately announced that 'as a result, Australia is also at war'. Australia raised a Second AIF (Australian Imperial Force) of volunteer soldiers to fight alongside British forces.
  2. 2.Where were three of the four AIF divisions fighting by 1940-41? Why was the AIF 8th Division sent to Malaya? Why did Japan want to capture British Malaya and the Dutch East Indies? Why was Singapore of great strategic importance? What was Britain's 'Singapore strategy' and what is the narrator suggesting by stating that the strategy would be 'found to be bankrupt'?
  3. 3.Australians had fought in the wars of the British Empire since the late 19th century and had made enormous sacrifices supporting Britain during World War I. In what ways do you think that this could have contributed to a false certainty that Britain would always defend Australia? Was it realistic to assume that Britain would be able to defend Australia while fighting powerful European enemies?
  4. 4.This video makes extensive use of film taken during the first years of the war. How would you describe the general mood of Australians as depicted in the film? Evaluate the reliability of such a primary source. For example, might some footage have been intended to raise morale or for propaganda purposes? If that was the case, in what way would these sources still be useful?



Date of broadcast: 29 Jun 1982


Copyright

Metadata © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia Ltd 2012 (except where otherwise indicated). Digital content © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). Video © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). All images copyright their respective owners. Text © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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