WWII history

Singapore's hidden military secrets

Inside the dimly lit underground bunker, 12 military commanders are about to trigger the largest capitulation in British military history.

At 9:45 a.m. on February 15, 1942, Lt. Gen. Arthur Percival and 11 other senior officers agreed to surrender the British Empire's forces, numbering more than 120,000 in Malaysia and Singapore, to the Japanese, whose troops numbered under half that.

They made that decision from within "the Battlebox," a secret and heavily fortified underground military bunker that's been turned into a museum at Fort Canning Hill in Singapore.

After 70 days of brutal jungle warfare, Percival's crew was short on ammunition, food and water.

"The primary defense of the British Empire rested on the defense of Singapore. From there, Britain could span her entire empire in Asia," explains Battlebox director Jeya Ayadurai. But surrender soon became the only option.

Percival's decision would not just open the darkest chapter in Singapore's modern history -- it also sparked the unraveling of the British Empire.