Given its position in the western Pacific, Singapore had long been recognised as being strategically important for the Royal Navy to counter the growing influence of the Japanese, who were regarded as being the logical threat to Britain's interests in the Far East and the Pacific. To counter this, the Admiralty devised the Singapore strategy, which required a well equipped naval base. Thereby in 1942, Singapore was considered an impregnable fortress, being nicknamed the "Gibraltar of the East". When Japanese Army conquered it in only 8 days (8 to 15 February 1942), Winston Churchill considered this "the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history."
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