Table of Data Points

Eighteen days after the battle began, British colonial officials headed by the Governor of Hong Kong, Sir Mark Aitchison Young, surrendered in person at the Japanese headquarters. This day is known in Hong Kong as "Black Christmas".

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.

The Japanese Navy conducts a surprise attack on the US Navy based at Pearl Harbor, resulting in the United States becoming militarily involved in World War II. It was intended as a preventive action to detain the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

Eighty-eight Soviet divisions, shielded by a blizzard, attack sixty-seven German divisions spread along a five hundred mile front. German forces, ill equipped to deal with the Russian winter, are pushed back.

Light cruiser HMAS Sydney and the German aux cruiser Kormoran fought each other off Western Australia. The two ships severely damaged one another, and Sydney was lost with all of her 645 crew members. Kormoran was scuttled and her crew became POWs.