Allied Defeats in the Pacific and Asia (late December 1941-1942)
Simultaneous with the dawn raid on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese carried out an invasion of Malaya, landing troops at Kota Bharu on the east coast, supported by land based aircraft from bases in Vietnam and Taiwan. The British attempted to oppose the landings by dispatching Force Z, comprising the battleship HMS Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser HMS Repulse, with their escorting destroyers, from the naval base in Singapore, but this force was intercepted and destroyed by bombers before even reaching their objective.
In a series of swift maneuvers down the Malay peninsula, thought by the British to be "impassable" to an invading force landing so far north, the Japanese advanced down to the Johor Straits at the southernmost tip of the peninsula by January 1942. The Japanese were even using tanks, which the British had thought would not be able to penetrate the jungles but they were wrong.
During a short two week campaign the Japanese crossed the Straits of Johor by amphibious assault and conducted a series of sharp battles, notably the battle of Kent Ridge when the Royal Malay Regiment put up a brave but futile effort to stem the tide. Singapore fell on 15 February 1942 and with its fall, Japan was now able to control the sea approaches from the Indian Ocean through the Malacca Straits. The natural resources of the Malay peninsula, in particular rubber plantations and tin mines, were now in the hands of the Japanese.
Other Allied possessions, especially in the oil rich East Indies (Indonesia) were also swiftly captured, and all organised resistance effectively ceased, with attention now shifting to events closer to Midway, the Solomon Islands, the Bismark Sea and New Guinea.