A rare shortwave broadcast from Radio Tokyo with the news (and commentary) in English.
A gist of the events of the day:
From British and Japanese sources indications are that between 55,000 and 60,000 British, Australian and Indian troops with their auxiliaries fell into Japanese hands at the surrender of Singapore Sunday. Units known by the British to have been defending Singapore. at the end were the 18th British Division, two-thirds of the Australian 8th Division, the 9th and 11th Indian Divisions and fortress troops. One British military commentator said the Battle of Singapore did not have the consolation of being another Dunkerque. There was no indication, he said, to give hope any large Empire forces were evacuated.
The policy was fight it out, he added, and the only known evacuees were women, children and wounded, of whom a considerable number were brought out. Domei, Japanese News Agency, in a dispatch from Singapore today claimed British forces in Singapore at the time of the surrender comprised 60,000 men. ‘These troops,” Domei said, included campaigning forces, fortress guards and volunteers made up of 15,000 of the British metropolitan forces, 13,000 Australian and the remainder Indians.” “There are 1,000,000 inhabitants still in Singapore, including 100,000 British.” It was announced 1,000 members of the garrison would serve as an auxiliary police force to maintain order until Japanese troops, who entered the city at 8 a.m. today, could complete their occupation. The remainder of the garrison laid down its arms at 10 o’clock Sunday night (6 a.m., P.D.T. Sunday), and the Japanese said the captives would be taken at once to prison camps.
Britain today still had heard from her own leaders only the bald fact so sombrely told them Sunday by Prime Minister Churchill, that “Singapore has fallen,” but unofficial information indicated its defenders surrendered only after they had suffered heavy losses, and extreme shortages of water, gasoline and food. The last official message from Singapore’s commander, Lt. -Gen. A. E. Percival, received here Sunday night, was said to have contained information of the defenders’ dire plight and his decision, therefore, to surrender. British observers, conjecturing on the next phase of Japan’s campaign far Pacific, leaned to Sumatra–already invaded- as the likeliest focus of attack because from it could be gained undisputed control of the gateway into the Indian Ocean and a prime source of fuel. A second possibility mentioned was that the Japanese, taking a leaf from the German book, might try to send warships and transports through the Malacca Strait under an umbrella of land based aircraft for a combined air-and-sea assault on Burma.
Editors note: This is a shortwave broadcast that was recorded from a listening post in the U.S. at very slow speed. Subsequently, the sound is not anywhere near high quality – there are parts that are barely discernible, coupled with the age of the original recordings and being stored in less-than-ideal circumstances. But it is unique in the sense they were not known to exist and that the Japanese government during World War 2 kept doing broadcasts in English just adds to the historic value of this recording. It is also a prime example of propaganda on a daily basis. Most people think of Japanese propaganda during World War 2 consisting primarily of Tokyo Rose broadcasts. Far from it. Many hours each day were devoted to English language programs from Radio Tokyo – and this was one of them.