Table of Data Points

The first fleet action in history in which aircraft carriers engaged each other without seeing or firing directly on each other. Though a tactical victory for Japan, the loss of key carriers was a factor in their subsequent loss at Midway.

Australian machine gunners opened fire on vessels carrying a first wave of 4,000 troops from the 5th and 18th Divisions towards Singapore island. The 22nd Brigade bore the brunt of the attack and, unreinforced, was forced to withdraw.

The Australian light cruiser HMAS Perth is torpedoed and sunk by Japanese destroyers during the Battle of Sunda Straight.

The Japanese air raids on Darwin, Australia, on 19 February 1942 were the largest attacks ever mounted by a foreign power against Australia.

The Japanese assault on the Allied stronghold at Singapore, the "Gibraltar of the East". About 80,000 British, Australian and Indian troops became POWs. Churchill called the fall of Singapore the "worst disaster" in British history.