Podcasts about Percival

Last time we spoke about the fall of Hong Kong. As dawn broke on December 20, 1941, Japanese battalions tightened their grip on Hong Kong Island. While the defenders fought desperately at Repulse Bay Hotel, Wongneichong Gap, and the heights around Mount Nicholson and Mount Cameron, piecemeal counter-attacks by exhausted Canadians, Royal Scots, Rajputs, and Hong Kong Volunteers were shattered by rain, darkness, and poor coordination.Resistance stiffened at Stanley Peninsula, but ammunition ran low and hope faded. On Christmas Eve, the Japanese stormed St Stephen's College hospital. They bayoneted wounded soldiers in their beds, murdered doctors, and raped nurses in an orgy of horror that became known as the St Stephen's Massacre.On Christmas morning—forever "Black Christmas"—Governor Young surrendered the colony after seventeen days of fighting. As white flags rose, Rear-Admiral Chan Chak and a small party made a daring escape by sea under fire, eventually rescued by Chinese Communist guerrillas of the East River Column who would save hundreds more lives in the months ahead.   #219 The Malayan Campaign Part 1: Bicycle Blitzkrieg   Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. Now in the last episode we spoke about the battle of Hong Kong, which of course was fought on Chinese territory and did involve Chinese participation. I took some time to think about what aspects of the early Pacific War should be covered in depth here, ie: what pertains the most to the Chinese experience. We are not going to talk about the Philippines or Dutch East Indies, but the Malayan campaign and fall of Singapore I would argue need to be dived into. There was a lot of ethnic Chinese participation in this campaign. No worries after this brief series on the Malayan Campaign we will be jumping back to China. Following World War One, Britain sought to counter growing Japanese ambitions by establishing a major naval base in Singapore during the 1920s. The location offered strategic advantages, particularly its exemption from the Washington Naval Treaty's non-fortification clause, making it ideal for housing a powerful deterrent fleet. The plan was straightforward: maintain overwhelming naval superiority to discourage Japanese expansion. Yet this calculation proved dangerously optimistic. Japanese aggression accelerated throughout the 1930s, while the European war's outbreak in 1939 drained Britain's resources, leaving its Far Eastern colonies—Malaya, Burma, and Hong Kong—dangerously exposed. Churchill remained convinced that Japan would not strike in 1941, prompting him to channel reinforcements toward the Mediterranean theater. The defensive strategy hinged on buying time; should Japan attack, British forces would delay the enemy while holding Singapore as a fortress until relief arrived. This plan contained a fatal flaw: Britain lacked the capacity to actually send reinforcements to the region. Commander-in-Chief Robert Brooke-Popham led Britain's Far Eastern Command from Malaysia, acutely aware of the challenge ahead. Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival commanded ground forces comprising 31 poorly trained infantry battalions—approximately 88,600 personnel total—largely untrained for jungle warfare. These troops were distributed across three divisions. Air defense proved equally problematic. With only fourteen squadrons flying outdated aircraft, the RAF faced a critical shortfall. Squadrons were scattered across multiple airfields: Vickers Vildebeest and PBY Catalina aircraft at Seletar; Bristol Blenheims at Tengah; Brewster Buffalos at Sembawang and Kallang; further Buffalos and Blenheims at Sungei Patani; Lockheed Hudsons at Kota Bharu; and additional Blenheims at Kuantan and Alor Setar. Allied units occupied three strategic zones. The Indian 11th Infantry Division under Major General David Murray-Lyon held northern Malaya, defending airfields and the Thai frontier from positions near Kota Bharu, Jitra, and Alor Setar. These installations remained lightly garrisoned and vulnerable. The Indian 9th Infantry Division occupied central Malaya, tasked with holding delaying positions at Jitra and Gurun—positions themselves poorly constructed and uncoordinated. Australia's 8th Division under Gordon Bennett anchored the south near Mersing and Johor, forming the last line before Singapore's fortress. Singapore itself bristled with coastal defenses and commanded a substantial naval garrison, expected to repel any Japanese approach. A week before Japan's offensive erupted, Churchill sent Force Z to Singapore—the battleship Prince of Wales, battlecruiser Repulse, and four destroyers. Despite vigorous objections from admirals, particularly Captain William Davis, who warned the Prince of Wales without air cover would be "a hostage to fortune," Churchill overruled them, seeking to project confidence and maintain American goodwill. Admiral Sir Tom Phillips commanded Force Z. Known as "Tom Thumb" for his diminutive stature, Phillips sparked controversy—critics labeled him a "desk admiral"—yet Field Marshal Smuts called him "an admirable choice" and American Admiral Thomas Hart praised his administrative acumen. Phillips' record was mixed. He advocated astutely for tank deployment in Malaya and correctly questioned the Brewster Buffalo's effectiveness, urging Hurricanes instead. Yet he fatally underestimated the threat aircraft posed to capital ships, believing the Prince of Wales' anti-aircraft batteries could defend a maneuvering vessel. An unnoticed handicap compounded this: tropical humidity had disabled the Prince of Wales' fire-control computer before she ever fired. Force Z reached Singapore on December 2, 1941, amid misplaced confidence. Nineteen-year-old Richard Smith recalled: "Everyone believed the Japanese fleet was made of rice paper and string. We assumed we would crush them effortlessly." Churchill's public declaration seemed to goad Japan into action. Admiral Yamamoto responded decisively, dispatching thirty-six Mitsubishi bombers to reinforce existing aircraft and ordering intensive training for "ship-killing"—specialized torpedo and bombing attacks. Three air groups, led by Miyauchi, Nakanishi, and Shoji, trained relentlessly in low-level runs and ocean navigation. Phillips, stripped of air cover, commanded only aging destroyers alongside his capital ships. The stage was set for disaster. In November 1940, the German raider Atlantis captured the British steamer Automedon in the Indian Ocean, seizing documents destined for Air Marshal Brooke-Popham that exposed Singapore's vulnerabilities. The Germans shared this intelligence with Japan in December. By January 1941, the Japanese had also broken British Army codes, revealing the weakness of Singapore's defenses and enabling them to plan an invasion accordingly. The invasion of Malaya followed an audacious strategy devised by Colonel Tsuji Masanobu. Japanese forces would conduct amphibious landings in southern Thailand and northern Malaya, then push 400 miles through jungle terrain toward Singapore. The 25th Army, commanded by Lieutenant-General Yamashita Tomoyuki and initially comprising two divisions, led this operation, supported by Admiral Kondō Nobutake's 2nd Fleet, which provided convoy escort. Thailand's strategic position was crucial; the British could not defend it, offering Japan a favorable staging ground. Marshal Plaek Phibun, Thailand's leader, had informally agreed to allow Japanese passage but simultaneously negotiated with British and American diplomats, creating uncertainty. A second force, the 15th Army under Lieutenant-General Iida Shōjirō, was preparing to invade Burma through Thailand. If the Thai withheld passage by December 7, these forces would advance directly from Indochina. Brooke-Popham devised Operation Matador to counter the Japanese threat. This ambitious plan called for the 11th Indian Division to preemptively seize Singora and Patani—critical Thai ports essential to Japanese invasion plans. The operation's centerpiece was capturing the Ledge, a key terrain feature south of Patani. Control of the Ledge would allow British forces to block roads from Patani, securing retreat routes for the 11th Division and denying the Japanese access to rear areas. Failure would expose the British to encirclement and force withdrawal from Perak and Kedah. However, Matador faced insurmountable obstacles. Britain was uncertain whether Thailand would resist or accommodate Japan, and invading neutral Thai territory risked driving the Thai government into Japanese arms. Command hesitation, combined with poor intelligence, created fatal delays. Matador was never approved. Instead, authorities authorized Operation Krohcol, a scaled-down alternative named after the town of Kroh. This operation tasked a small British-Indian force with advancing into southern Thailand to capture the Ledge, destroy bridges and roads, and delay Japanese movements. Though far less ambitious than Matador, Krohcol represented Britain's final attempt at preemptive action. It would be activated only after Japan opened hostilities, but by then, opportunity had already slipped away.   On December 4, Japanese transport ships escorted by Admiral Kondō's fleet departed Hainan Island toward their objectives. Two days later, British reconnaissance spotted the fleet, but Brooke-Popham lacked authorization to intervene—he could only alert his forces. At 23:00 on December 7, Japan issued an ultimatum to Thailand, demanding passage and giving a two-hour response window. Unable to locate Prime Minister Phibun until late morning, Thailand was invaded hours later. From Indochina, Japanese Imperial Guards and the 55th Division landed at Phra Tabong and pushed northwest toward Aranyaprathet. The 5th Division's regiment landed at Patani while the division's main force seized Singora, quickly overwhelming Thai defenders. From Saigon, elements of the 15th Army conducted additional naval landings across Thailand but encountered unexpectedly fierce Thai resistance that stalled their progress. Just before Pearl Harbor came under attack, the Japanese 18th Division landed at Kota Bharu. The defenders—the 8th Indian Infantry Brigade under Brigadier B.W. Key, supported by artillery from the 21st Mountain Battery and the 73rd Field Battery—faced a daunting task. The 3/17th Dogra Regiment, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel G.A. Preston, held a 10-mile coastal stretch fortified with mines, barbed wire, and pillboxes overlooking the narrow beaches of Badang and Sabak, separated by estuaries and surrounded by creeks, lagoons, and swamp islands. The Dogras unleashed devastating fire as Japanese landing craft approached at midnight. Colonel Masanobu Tsuji observed that enemy pillboxes "responded with such overwhelming force that our men lying on the beach, partially submerged in water, could not lift their heads." The first waves were pinned down, with casualties mounting from artillery, machine gun fire, and Allied aircraft from nearby airfields. British Hudsons bombed the invasion fleet and stranded soldiers, sinking one Japanese transport and destroying seven of their own aircraft in the process. The defenders inflicted heavy casualties, but intense hand-to-hand combat eventually breached the line's center by 03:45, threatening the nearby airfield. Simultaneously, 17 Japanese bombers attacked Singapore with minimal damage and 61 casualties, surprising the British with evidence of enemy long-range aircraft. Japanese fighters and bombers dominated the skies over Kota Bharu and northern Malaysian airfields, demonstrating clear air superiority. Amid the chaos, counterattacks by Malayan battalions failed, forcing the British to destroy northern airfields to prevent capture. The defenders retreated from the beaches to Kota Bharu itself that night. As confusion engulfed British headquarters, Operation Krohcol commenced at 15:00. This scaled-down preemptive operation aimed to delay the Japanese invasion by securing and destroying the Ledge—a six-mile road carved through steep hillside with a sheer drop into a river. Blowing this section would severely impede enemy advance. The force consisted primarily of the 3/16th Punjab Regiment under Lieutenant Colonel Henry Moorhead, supplemented by engineers, traveling in Marmon-Herrington trucks provided by the Australian Motor Transport Company. Krohcol was undermanned from the start; the 5/14th Punjab Regiment and artillery battery failed to arrive on schedule, forcing the column to proceed without them. Crossing the border at Kroh, Indian troops encountered determined resistance from Thai police under Major Prayoon Rattanakit in Betong. These roadblocks delayed the Indian advance for two full days while Prayoon's officers simultaneously engaged Japanese forces at Patani. After several hours of combat, Japan and Thailand reached an armistice by midday, with Phibun granting Japan passage, though Thai forces remained neutral. Japanese forces at Patani, navigating poor roads but facing no opposition, began their advance toward the Ledge—approximately 60 miles distant—initiating a critical race against Krohcol to determine who would occupy this vital position first. Meanwhile, renewed fighting erupted at Kota Bharu as Japanese forces infiltrated around British strongpoints, causing alarm among commanders. By December 10, with the situation deteriorating, defenders received authorization to abandon Kota Bharu and withdraw south to Machang.   Just hours after the Pearl Harbor attack, Admiral Phillips ordered Force Z to intercept Japanese invasion forces in the South China Sea without air support. Phillips believed he could "finish quickly and escape to the east before the Japanese could organize a significant attack." Ten Brewster Buffaloes were assigned to support the fleet, but he departed without requesting their cover. Force Z failed to locate the Japanese fleet, which had moved northwest into the Gulf of Siam. By afternoon on December 9, Japanese submarine I-65 detected Force Z, followed by reconnaissance aircraft. When Phillips altered course toward Kuantan, crews grew complacent. Bert Wynn recalled shipboard conversation centered on sinking Japanese warships. A flag officer remarked to CBS correspondent Cecil Brown, "Oh, but they are Japanese. There's nothing to worry about." That evening, Brown questioned whether the British were overconfident given Pearl Harbor. Officers conceded theoretically but remained dismissive. One replied, "We just don't think the enemy is much good. They could not beat China for five years." At 11:00 AM on December 10, Japanese aircraft struck. Three waves of Nell and Betty bombers from Indochina, after more than five hours aloft, approached from the horizon. With no air support—Phillips had maintained radio silence—defense rested entirely on anti-aircraft batteries. Nells attacked at 12,000 feet, dropping 250 kg bombs. Repulse twisted violently, evading most, but one struck her seaplane deck, killing two dozen men instantly. At 11:30, seventeen Nells attacked at wave-top level, focusing on Prince of Wales. Nine aircraft divided their approach, flying below 100 feet from both bows. The ship's inexperienced anti-aircraft crews, hampered by inoperable radar from tropical humidity, struggled to track targets. Once torpedoes were released, the planes sped away, losing only one aircraft.   A single torpedo struck Prince of Wales near the outer propeller shaft. When restarted, water flooded engine room B. Auxiliary power failed, halting drainage and causing an 11.5-degree list to port. Her 5-inch guns became powerless; she slowed to 15 knots, severely crippled. At 12:20, twenty-six Bettys attacked in coordinated "anvil" assaults with simultaneous torpedo drops on both bows. Repulse evaded initially but two or three torpedoes found their mark. One crew member recalled, "Suddenly there was a massive explosion. I immediately knew we'd lost Repulse, for within seconds she took on a frightening list to port, so rapid no amount of counter flooding would save her." Captain's last order: "You've put up a good show, now save yourselves." At 12:23 PM, Repulse rolled over and sank stern-first, her enormous hull protruding vertically from the water. Men jumped into oil-blackened water; many drowned during hours of waiting while destroyer escorts frantically retrieved survivors. Cecil Brown described it as "a confusing, macabre game"—orange flames, white tracers, and gray aircraft "astonishingly close, like butterflies pinned on blue cardboard." With Repulse gone, bombers concentrated on the damaged Prince of Wales. At 12:44, a 500 kg bomb struck between her stacks where wounded crew sheltered, causing devastating casualties. Men ordered to abandon ship faced drowning if trapped below deck. Destroyers rushed in to save swimmers, though HMS Express nearly capsized in rescue efforts. Ten Buffaloes arrived as Prince of Wales sank—too late. One pilot recalled, "After an hour, lack of petrol forced me to leave, but during that hour I had seen many men in dire danger waving, cheering and joking, as if they were holiday-makers waving at a low-flying aircraft. It shook me, for here was something above human nature." In just over an hour, the battleship era ended: 47 British officers and 793 men perished, including Admiral Phillips. Repulse's captain later acknowledged, "The enemy's attacks were undoubtedly carried out magnificently and pressed home effectively. The high-level bombers maintained tight formation and did not veer off course." By December 10, Krohcol reached Betong, just 26 miles from the Ledge. However, a Japanese ambush caught them off-guard near the target, forcing retreat when they were only a mile away. The 5th Division's regiment reached the Ledge by midday, dealing the Indians significant casualties. By December 13, Krohcol was pushed back to Kroh, the operation failed. Meanwhile, the 5th Division advanced south from Singora toward Jitra. Major-General David Murray-Lyon commanded the 11th Indian Division's weak defensive positions at Jitra's road junction, unaware that the critical Alor Setar airfield had already been abandoned. His forces—6th Indian Brigade holding a 10-mile coastal sector, 15th Brigade covering the road, and 28th Brigade in reserve—had sent two delaying detachments on December 9. On December 11, Japanese tanks overwhelmed these covering battalions, inflicting heavy casualties. Murray-Lyon committed his reserves prematurely, leaving Alor Setar lightly defended. That night, Japanese tanks reached the main position north of Jitra, with the 5th Division following. Heavy fighting ensued between Japanese armor and demoralized Indian troops. British defenses penetrated around 06:00, forcing successive Indian units to be overrun. Murray-Lyon repeatedly requested withdrawal permission. At 19:30 on December 12, General Percival finally approved. Due to poor communication and confusion, the 11th Indian Division suffered heavy casualties but disengaged by December 13, withdrawing to Gurun. The primary British defenses in northern Malaya had been breached, the 11th Division severely weakened, and the Japanese advance down the peninsula had begun unstoppably. Percival's first significant defense occurred at Jitra on December 11th, intended to push the Japanese as far north as possible and protect remaining Allied airfields. The Japanese quickly overwhelmed the Indian defenders, and Colonel Tsuji observed the engagement firsthand: "Our tanks were ready on the road, and the twenty or so enemy armored cars ahead were literally trampled underfoot. The enemy armored cars could not escape by running away, and were sandwiched between our medium tanks. It was speed and weight of armor that decided the issue." Major General Murray-Lyon commanded the 11th Indian Division. A World War I veteran, he had served with distinction in the Highland Light Infantry, earning the Military Cross for bravery in Flanders and the Distinguished Service Order for his actions at Moeuvres. The citation stated: "For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. When the enemy attacked and penetrated the line after intense fighting and continual bombing attacks, by his courage and personal example he succeeded in driving them out and held his position against further heavy attacks with splendid coolness and determination." This was no desk officer, but a frontline commander faced with an impossible task. Murray-Lyon's division appeared formidable on paper but was severely compromised. It contained only two regular British battalions—the Leicestershire and East Surrey Regiments—with the remainder consisting of four newly raised Indian Army battalions and three inexperienced Gurkha battalions. The Gurkhas, though renowned as elite soldiers, were primarily composed of 18-year-old recruits fresh from deployment. Like all Allied forces in Malaya, the division lacked tanks while facing an enemy flush with armor. After only days of intense combat, Murray-Lyon sought permission to withdraw, convinced the Japanese forces greatly outnumbered him. Ironically, Yamashita's army was outnumbered two to one. The Japanese commander employed Blitzkrieg tactics inspired by his time as a military attaché in Berlin, coordinating air and ground forces with remarkable precision. His approach involved fast-moving tanks, bomber aircraft deployed as mobile artillery, and—most unusually—bicycle-mounted infantry. Prior to the invasion, Japanese planners decided bicycles were ideal for the tropical jungle terrain. Rather than shipping thousands, they seized bicycles from the local population. The offensive typically began with bombing raids on Allied defensive positions, followed by tanks smashing through. As defenders retreated, bicycle infantry continuously harassed and attacked, while coastal amphibious assaults flanked positions along the shore. Colonel Alfred Harrison of the 11th Indian Division reflected on the psychological toll: "Fatigue had stretched the men's mind to the limit and the moral ascendancy which the Japanese achieved in these few weeks included a psychic side. The troops were beginning to attribute almost supernatural powers to the Japanese." Yamashita had rehearsed these tactics extensively on Hainan Island, conducting exercises in amphibious landings, bridge destruction and repair, and jungle operations. The bicycle innovation proved revolutionary—troops covered greater distances more quickly with less fatigue, repeatedly outflanking British forces who found themselves pushed off roads and encircled. The rapid movements created a psychological multiplier effect; British commanders, mistaken about enemy numbers, believed they faced far larger forces than actually present. This "Bicycle Blitzkrieg," as it became known, echoed Mongol tactics—a single swift force striking multiple targets so quickly that enemies believed they faced several armies. Tanks were crucial to this success. The British had deployed no tanks to Malaya before the war, a fatal omission. Combined with bicycle infantry, Japanese armor allowed them to engage British forces before defensive positions could be established. Percival authorized withdrawal from Jitra, directing troops south to Gurun, but those defenses remained unfinished and the Japanese advance was too rapid. Percival later reflected in his memoir, War in Malaya: "This withdrawal would have been difficult under the most favorable conditions. With the troops tired, units mixed as the result of the fighting, communications broken and the night dark, it was inevitable that orders should be delayed and that in some cases they should never reach the addressees. This is what in fact occurred. The withdrawal, necessary as it may have been, was too fast and too complicated for disorganized and exhausted troops, whose disorganization and exhaustion it only increased." From the start, British forces stretched too thinly across a 14-mile front in challenging terrain—dense jungle on the right flank, monsoon-soaked rice fields and rubber plantations in the center, mangrove swamps to the left. Yamashita's concentrated attacks breached the line. Repeated retreats cost both personnel and equipment, as overrun positions offered no opportunity for evacuation and bicycle infantry prevented orderly withdrawal. The Jitra defeat exposed a fundamental strategic error: deploying under-resourced troops across Malaya's entire breadth rather than establishing a shorter, more defensible line further south, which could have shortened British supply lines while lengthening Japan's—a disadvantage the Japanese could not exploit. The Allied retreat continued southward to the Gurun area, though the chaotic withdrawal from Jitra itself inflicted more casualties than the fighting had—many frontline units never received withdrawal orders, while others became lost crossing the Bata River. Murray eventually fell back to the Muda River, establishing defensive positions along the Krian River some thirty miles south. Percival, increasingly desperate, realized his entire strategy had depended on holding the Japanese as far north as possible to minimize air threats to Singapore. The rapid Japanese advance made this impossible. Reluctantly, he ordered a general withdrawal south of the Perak River, while his field commanders pleaded for reinforcements they would never receive. Though Percival had an Australian division in Johor, he refused to commit them north, fearing a Japanese naval invasion further south could threaten Singapore itself.   As Yamashita's 25th Army advanced westward toward Penang, Japanese bombers subjected the island to daily raids. British command, recognizing the island as indefensible, evacuated European residents on December 17th—leaving the local Malay population to face the Japanese. Mrs Muriel Reilly's recollection captures the moment's bitter legacy: "it still hurts to think how the white race 'let down hundreds of similarly faithful servants who trusted in us, and looked to us for protection from the hated Japanese." The abandonment had strategic consequences. In their haste, the British left massive stockpiles of arms and supplies in Penang that fell directly into Yamashita's hands. More profoundly, local Malays turned against their former colonial rulers. Some historians now argue "the moral collapse of British rule in Southeast Asia occurred not at Singapore, but at Penang." Under subsequent Japanese occupation, Penang endured three years and eight months of hardship—food shortages, rampant hyperinflation from the "banana dollar," and systematic repression including comfort women camps and the Sook Ching massacres targeting Chinese communities the Japanese feared might become guerrillas.  The Japanese occupiers' fears about Chinese resistance were prescient. Among the Chinese communities of Malaya and Singapore, anti-Japanese sentiment had been building for over a decade. Since Japan's 1937 invasion of China, ethnic Chinese populations had viewed Tokyo with deep hostility. The Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, followed by the escalating horrors of the Second Sino-Japanese War, had created a reservoir of determination to resist Japanese expansion wherever it might emerge. As British colonial authority crumbled, this sentiment transformed from passive resentment into active organization. The Battle of Jitra exposed a fundamental miscalculation: attempting to defend all of Malaya with an undersized army. A more strategic withdrawal to Johore would have shortened British supply lines while extending Japan's. As December ended, Murray-Lyon was dismissed from command—a casualty of circumstance. He had spent weeks preparing for the cancelled Operation Matador while neglecting proper defenses at Jitra and Gurun. At fifty-one, this decorated soldier, who had earned the Military Cross and Distinguished Service Order in the Great War, became a civilian during Britain's darkest hour. He was replaced by Brigadier Archibald Paris, equally inexperienced in jungle warfare, who paradoxically proved more effective by facilitating the retreat of Murray's division while inflicting unexpected casualties on overconfident Japanese units. By December 26th, the Japanese 5th Division and 4th Guards Regiment crossed the Perak River, preparing an assault on Kampar. This position was crucial—located halfway between Penang and Kuala Lumpur, its terrain was unsuitable for tanks and difficult to outflank, offering a rare opportunity to make a stand. Paris gathered infantry battalions, many composed of Jitra and Gurun survivors: British battalions from the Leicesters and East Surreys, along with Jat and Punjabi units including Sikhs. The 12th Brigade hastily dug trenches, strung wire, and cleared fields around Kampar's ridges to improve visibility. After three weeks of continuous fighting and retreat, the defenders' morale had collapsed. Colonel Alfred Harrison observed on Christmas Day: "fatigue had stretched the men's mind to the limit and the moral ascendancy which the Japanese had achieved in these few weeks included a 'psychic' side. The troops were beginning to attribute almost supernatural powers to the Japanese." The Japanese, by contrast, had grown accustomed to victory and approached each engagement with unshakeable confidence. Yamashita employed German-inspired tactics using aircraft as mobile artillery—vital in terrain where conventional gun placement was impossible. Engagements began with bombing raids on Allied positions, followed by frontal assaults to establish a line, then flanking maneuvers through jungle to encircle defenders. When the assault came from the western coastal roads, Japanese tanks struck the 12th Brigade along a three-mile rural stretch near Gopeng. Small arms and heavy machine gun fire erupted as infantry dismounted from trucks and spread into the brush. Some tanks advanced alone onto a bridge near Dipang, where they encountered defenders with Lanchester submachine guns and Bren gun carriers equipped with anti-tank rifles. Lt Colonel Ian Stewart noted the grim reality: "the anti-tank rifle made no impression against the Jap mediums, while their 37 mm guns went through our armour like paper." The Japanese tankers, closing their hatches in the oppressive subtropical heat—what they described as a "Turkish bath"—approached cautiously, aware of potential counterattacks. British defenders fired desperately at vision slits, their bullets ricocheting uselessly. A 2-pounder anti-tank gun destroyed a single tank, prompting Japanese armor to withdraw and wait for infantry support. Meanwhile, two hundred defenders on the opposite side prepared to destroy the bridge. Fortunately, Kampar's shallow water allowed most to wade across a mile downstream. Stewart's 12th Brigade had purchased time. The British established a strong perimeter around Kampar Hill, resembling a "goose egg" on the map. Their artillery, better supplied than the Japanese equivalent, was concealed in the jungle with two hundred rounds stacked beside each gun. The 15th/6th Brigades occupied the low ground where the road and railway ran through town. Unlike earlier battles where Japanese forces kept defenders pinned with close contact, Kampar's expansive fields of fire and terrain offered space to maneuver—a rare advantage the British would finally exploit. Major General Saburo Kawamura led the attack on Kampar with his 9th Brigade. On December 31st, he probed the 28th Gurkha Brigade entrenched on the hill. Japanese howitzer fire drew return artillery that effectively repelled their advances. At midnight on New Year's Eve, Lt. Colonel Augustus Murdoch ordered a 12-gun salute fired at the Japanese—perhaps a cheeky gesture. Seven hours later, Kawamura launched his main assault on the western side targeting the trunk road. The brunt fell on a newly formed British battalion, the Leicesters and East Surreys, under Lt. Colonel Esmond Morrison. The 48-year-old, though some dismissed him as a "polo-playing playboy," proved a serious soldier despite his peacetime reputation, frequently sharing front-line dangers with his men. Japanese infantry emerged from the mist carrying mortars. Mortar fire became intense—one casualty was a company commander whose jaw was shattered by a splinter. However, observation officers from the 88th Field Regiment pinpointed Japanese advances, unleashing devastating artillery fire. Colonel Masanobu Tsuji observed "a continuous stream of casualties coming back down the hill to safety, either carried on stretchers or supported on the shoulders of comrades who were themselves wounded." Japanese artillery pieces were covertly moved through secondary jungle to hide their positions. During the fighting, one of Morrison's lieutenants encountered Japanese soldiers in a trench, fired his revolver, and retreated. A gunnery driver named Walker, noticing a nearby Bren position overrun, exited his vehicle armed with a Thompson submachine gun and launched a surprise attack, forcing the Japanese to retreat—earning him a medal. Troop Sergeant Major Hugill, commanding an outlying observation post connected by field telephone, received a distinguished conduct medal for calmly calling in protective artillery fire while cut off. When the attack subsided, he encountered isolated Japanese soldiers who had captured a Vickers-Berthier machine gun. Hugill gathered five infantrymen and led a bayonet charge to reclaim it. Emergency commissioned officer Lt. Edgar Newland commanded a platoon of 30 men in one of the most forward positions. His platoon was surrounded for much of the battle yet successfully repelled numerous assaults over two consecutive days. General Percival specifically praised Newland and his men. Newland received a Military Cross; his platoon sergeant, Euan McDonald, received a distinguished conduct medal. After two days, Japanese forces captured part of Thompson's Ridge. Morrison ordered two platoons of Sikhs and Gujars to bayonet charge under mortar fire. Tragically, 34 soldiers died, including their 21-year-old commander, Charles Lamb, killed in the initial charge. Captain John Graham lost both legs to a grenade but continued encouraging his men, throwing grenades at Japanese trenches before bleeding to death—but they had retaken the position. Courage, artillery, and terrain proved insufficient. Yamashita decided to outflank Percival with seaborne landings on the Malayan west coast. He transported 40 small craft by rail to Alor Star and ordered landings near Telok Anson, 30 miles southeast of Kampar. If successful, he would cut off Percival's 11th Indian Division defending Kampar. Yamashita devised a three-pronged attack: the Imperial Guards Division would paddle down the Perak River into town; another force would approach from the west on landing craft entering from the opposite direction; a third would move up the Bernam River and march north toward Telok Anson. Lt. General Takuro Matsui commanded the landings. While Kampar held, 1,500 of Matsui's men crowded onto landing craft. One steamer towing ten craft went too far south, attempting the Selangor River defended by a Jat battalion with artillery. The Japanese were repelled, losing one to three craft before moving north. In Perak, four landing rafts ran aground on a sandbar and required rescue. A British patrol boat spotted them but left to report—no action followed. Percival later remarked: "unfortunately neither the navy nor the air force were able to take advantage of this unique opportunity." Despite setbacks, Japanese forces landed and advanced on Telok Anson. On January 2nd, they encountered the 3rd Indian Cavalry and 1st Independent Company under Stewart, equipped with armored cars and Thompson and Bren guns. They inflicted significant casualties but with only 250 men couldn't hold. Stewart ordered delaying actions instead. Telok Anson fell, leaving Kampar defenders at risk of encirclement. Although Kawamura's forces showed no signs of breaking after four days of fighting, Paris feared his main supply route had been cut. He requested permission from Percival to withdraw to the Slim River defensive line. Paris prioritized preserving troops over territory: "With no reserves in hand, we were still in a position of being unable to accept major losses." The 12th Brigade held while Paris organized the division's withdrawal. An unusual discovery emerged during delaying actions: Brigadier Stewart found the body of a dead European cyclist in British uniform. Earlier, a Punjabi sentry had shot a man on a bridge attempting to grab his Thompson. Both were likely German deserters from Vichy Indo-China's Foreign Legion, in contact with the Nazi embassy. The British Legation in Bangkok had warned of such infiltrators offering sabotage and espionage assistance. Percival was particularly struck by the German who tried single-handedly to disarm a sentry and seize a bridge. The 12th Brigade discovered another European body—a German political refugee and former mining engineer who had disappeared weeks earlier. Exhausted after three weeks of near-constant combat, the 12th Brigade continued delaying actions. Japanese air forces wreaked havoc on vehicles; Stewart estimated half his casualties—around 90 killed and wounded from 4,000 troops—resulted from aerial attacks. Stewart expressed satisfaction: "It had been an eminently successful battle," though it was more a series of brief skirmishes than traditional battle. Kampar fell when Telok Anson was captured. Percival might have committed Australian brigades from Johore or garrison battalions from Singapore, but concentrating forces at Kampar risked prompting Yamashita to attack elsewhere. The Kampar defenders retreated 30 miles to the Slim River. Tsuji reluctantly acknowledged Yamashita's breakthrough was impressive, if risky. On the east coast, defenders faced more resistance at Kuantan. Percival clung to the airfield, determined to deny the Japanese RAF facilities and limit their ability to strike at reinforcement convoys approaching Singapore. The first convoy from Bombay, carrying the half-trained 45th Brigade under Brigadier Horatio Duncan, was 24 hours away. The 22nd Indian Brigade, led by Brigadier George Painter, defended Kuantan against the Takumi detachment of the 18th Division. One battalion, commanded by a veteran of Kota Bharu, fortified the airfield with barbed wire and trenches. When Takumi's forces approached, the Japanese encountered 4.5-inch howitzer fire inflicting significant casualties. The defenders fought fiercely, each equipped with six grenades instead of two, creating deadly chaos. Tsuji noted the airfield "was obstinately defended," particularly at night when grenades rolled into confined trenches with devastating effect. Word reached the defenders that General Barstow's entire 9th Indian Division was retreating through Kuala Lipis-Jerantut-Raub. The 22nd Brigade demolished installations and prepared to withdraw, though their rearguard risked encirclement. One night, investigating his southern flank with Captain Ian Grimwood, battalion commander Cumming spotted Japanese soldiers climbing barbed wire meters away. Armed with a .455 Webley revolver, Cumming and Grimwood faced seven Japanese soldiers charging with bayonets. They fired as they were knocked down, killing all attackers, but Cumming suffered two bayonet wounds to his stomach. Grimwood dragged him to battalion HQ for first aid. As the airfield was overrun, Cumming ordered withdrawal. A grenade or mortar round knocked him unconscious. He regained consciousness in a vehicle where Private Albel Singh reported a Japanese roadblock ahead. Spotting a fallen tree creating passage, Cumming ordered Singh to charge through. Machine gun fire rained down; Cumming was hit again with a shattered arm, possibly from an anti-personnel mine, while Singh endured a .256 armor-piercing bullet through both thighs yet maintained control, driving 30 miles per hour. The vehicle arrived at brigade HQ covered in blood from six occupants. Cumming would receive the Victoria Cross for his heroism. Painter held the airfield long enough for reinforcements to approach, though it cost much of one of the best Indian battalions. Painter, fixated on flanking fears, believed it "better to lose half a battalion than an entire brigade." The 22nd Indian Brigade lost a third of its strength but retreated by January 3rd. While this unfolded eastward, Yamashita's forces advanced south. Defenders prepared a new defensive line at Trolak, five miles north of Slim River. Reinforcements had arrived; the 45th Brigade was immediately dispatched to repel the enemy's advance on Kuala Selangor, which held another crucial airfield. Whether defenders could withstand Yamashita's onslaught remained to be seen.   While British forces retreated in disarray toward Singapore, another chapter was quietly beginning in the shadows of the collapsing colonial order. On December 25, 1941—Christmas morning, even as Governor Young raised the white flag over Hong Kong—Chinese volunteers in Singapore formalized their resistance. That day, the Singapore Overseas Chinese Anti-Japanese Volunteer Army, officially known as Dalforce, was established under the command of Lieutenant Colonel John Dalley. Dalforce emerged from urgent necessity. As the Japanese invasion accelerated and British defenses crumbled, recruitment of local Chinese volunteers escalated dramatically. What had begun as an informal volunteer effort in 1939 now crystallized into organized military structure. The initial cadre of 200 volunteers swelled to 4,000 members as the invasion reached Singapore's doorstep. These were not professional soldiers—Dalforce members came from the Chinese civilian population, motivated by the knowledge that Japanese occupation would target them specifically. Many lacked military training; some were armed only with sporting firearms due to critical shortages of military weapons. Supply ships intended for Dalforce, such as the SS Empress of Asia, were sunk before their cargo could reach Singapore. Yet the volunteers pressed forward, organizing themselves despite severe handicaps: makeshift uniforms, inadequate equipment, and internal divisions between Communist and Kuomintang factions, each trained separately by British officers. Dalforce would soon earn the nickname "Dalley's Desperadoes" from British forces—a name reflecting both affection for their fierce combat effectiveness and incredulity that such a hastily assembled, poorly equipped force could fight with such determination. Unlike the demoralized British and Indian troops retreating southward, these Chinese volunteers were not defending a colonial order they had experienced as oppressive. They were fighting for their homes, their families, and their survival against an enemy they had every reason to fear and oppose. As the Malayan Campaign entered its final phase and the focus shifted to Singapore itself, Dalforce would play a role that British military historians had largely overlooked but that Chinese participants would never forget. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me.   In December 1941, Japan invaded Malaya. British commanders placed their faith in "impregnable" Singapore, but disaster struck immediately. On December 10, Japanese bombers sank Force Z—battleships Prince of Wales and Repulse—in a stunning air attack.Using tanks and bicycles in a lightning "Bicycle Blitzkrieg," Japanese troops shattered Allied lines at Kota Bharu and Jitra, sending exhausted British, Indian, and Australian forces reeling southward in chaos.  

In today's Read On we talk to Damian Barr about his novel The Two Roberts and we hear from Coronation Street and Carry On actress Amanda Barrie about her memoir I'm Still Here - My 90 Years and we find a link between those two books. We also find some new books in the RNIB Library and get a Books Of My Life from the winner of the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Percival Everett.

A partir de 2026, este podcast va a estar disponible en Spotify únicamente en formato de audio.Si querés ver mi contenido con imagen, sigo publicando en mi canal de YouTube:

Motherhood is different for each person who experiences it, and yet one thing is for certain: everyone has an opinion about it. This week, Danièle speaks with Kirsty Bolton about the places mothers appeared in medieval romance, from birthing rooms to otherworldly forests, and what this can tell us about the lives of real medieval mothers.This podcast is made possible by the generous support of listeners like you! To find out how to help spread the joy of medieval history, please visit patreon.com/themedievalpodcast

A battle for survival looms for South Australia's pelicans as bird flu advances.

Let me know your thoughts on the show and what topic you would like me to discuss next.Most men don't implode. We just get quiet about the gap between who we said we'd be and who we've become, then we build a life strong enough to distract us from noticing. This conversation is me taking the “Band of Brothers” line you've heard for weeks and finally putting real shape to it: what it is, what it replaces, and why it's built for the one place high-performing men keep trying to solve with willpower and private promises.I walk through why self-reliance works in markets, systems, and technical problems but breaks down with blind spots and integrity drift. A book can't press you with a follow-up question. A podcast can't notice the pattern you've repeated for six weeks. Real accountability requires other men, a shared standard, and a consistent cadence where showing up is not optional and anonymity is not the mechanism.You'll also hear the smallest first step we offer: the Integrity Mirror, a 15-minute self-assessment built to name which pattern is running you using five archetypes (Thomas, Arthur, Gawain, Percival, and Odysseus). Then I explain how the program runs in two phases, Foundations and weekly fire teams, plus the mission tracks focused on self-mastery, leadership, marriage, fatherhood, and risk and adventure.If “later” has become your favorite hiding place, take one action today. Listen, share this with a man who needs it, and subscribe and leave a review if you want more conversations like this. What would change if you stopped making an exception of yourself this week?Key moments in this episode:00:00 What's Actually Behind The Door01:04 The Vague Promise...Named03:33 Why A Room, Not A Book05:57 The First Step07:42 What's Actually In The Room?10:54 The Objection You're Already Building12:37 It's Time For ActionSupport the showThanks for listening to the Revolutionary Man Podcast.  For more information about our programs, please use the links below to learn more about us. It could be the step that changes your life. 

Tasting Notes Include: Forcing Tiny Tony to Grow Up Fast, Percival being Immortal, but not Invulnerable, Archie being a General in the War for Good and Evil, Percival can teleport, but his clothes can't, Powers get turned on their users, Percy gets got by the Devil, A Comet is coming to crash into Riverdale and also the World.   So Sorry about how long it took to get these episodes out. Life is dark and full of terrors. Say hi on Social Media because we love to hear from you!   Our Socials: @Riverdale Runs on Bluesky and riverdale_runs on Insta Our Email: arrtipod@gmail.com

Guess who's baaaaack??? It's us (hiiiii). We've returned from our hiatus and what better way to celebrate than to turn our focus to that ol' party animal Percival (middle name redacted) Weasley? Did that textbook middle child really get a fair representation in the series? What is the narrative purpose of the series of events surrounding Percy's return in Book 7? And which Wilson is headed to an ashram? Support the showSupport FFH on Patreon: patreon.com/thefoxandthefoxhoundFollow us!IG: @thefoxandthefoxhoundTikTok: @thefoxandthefoxhound

We often think about watering, pruning, and fertilizing when a fruit tree struggles. In this Classic Episode, Dr. Glynn Percival explores another possibility: compacted soil. Learn what vertical mulching is, when it may help, and why healthy roots begin with healthy soil.Dr. Glynn Percival is a Senior Arboricultural Research Manager at Bartlett Tree Experts in the UK.You can download Glynn's PowerPoint presentation referred to in the show by clicking here. The host of the Orchard People radio show and podcast is Susan Poizner of the fruit tree care education website www.orchardpeople.com.  Susan is the author of four books on fruit tree care. Learn more here: https://www.orchardpeople.com/booksHOW TO TUNE IN TO OUR PODCAST

Our Pulse Special episodes feature the hottest content from the 2026 event, including panel discussions with leading brands and technology vendors.Exclusive to Inside Commerce, these discussions share interesting insights from respected industry practitioners.In this panel, Jake Messer, founder of bound and UN:IK Clothing, and Ian Mackey, Global Marketing Director at Percival, discuss how each business is thriving through brand and performance marketing, driving sustainable revenue growth.About PulsePulse is an ecommerce conference designed for ambitious high-growth retailers and brands looking for inspiration and innovation from some of the top speakers in ecommerce and digital marketing.

This week, we're sharing a recent episode of Zero to Well-Read that dives deep into James by Percival Everett. This award-winning modern classic reimagines Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the point of view of Jim, the escaped enslaved man who accompanies Huck down the river in the original tale. James is out now in paperback after a two-year hardcover run, and is absolutely worth the read. Subscribe to Zero to Well-Read on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or get early, ad-free episodes and bonus content on Patreon. Subscribe to All the Books! using RSS, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify and never miss a beat book. Sign up for the weekly New Books! newsletter for even more new book news. Keep track of new releases with Book Riot's New Release Index, now included with an All Access membership. Click here to get started today! Head to cozyearth.com and use my code ALLTHEBOOKS for an exclusive 20% off. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Subscribe to Throwing Fits on Patreon. Our interview with Terry Donovan is crazy. Terry—chief of brand at Percival—hopped across the pond and worked the pod into his business trip so we could banter on not committing corporate espionage, the OG Crazy Terry era which included modeling shirtless in a gay nightlife flyer, back at the office he's got his fingers in a lot of pies, the 999 (that's British for 911) parody gone horribly wrong, what it's like working for and with his buddy and friend of the show Christopher Gove, how Chris' TF ep landed them a dream Brighton collab, sometimes more red tape is actually better, reformulating your collaboration strategy, a look at some of the hyperspecific skilled jobs if there is officially any Guinness on set, you gotta celebrate the wins, tariffs made American customers disappear overnight, if you work with your best friend you better know how to make each other laugh, knowing too much to ever start your own brand, beefy club nights on the DJ circuit, guys dressing back up and a return to the classics, the retail experience in the UK vs. the US, whether or not marketing works on a marketing master, and much more on Terry Donovan's interview with The Only Podcast That Matters™.   Shop at REVOLVE.com/THROWINGFITS  and use code THROWINGFITS for 15% off your entire order. #REVOLVEpartner

This week we were honored to interview Ray Scott Percival, a significant but also woefully under-appreciated figure in critical rationalism. Percival has been active in critical rationalist forums, conferences, and academic journals since the 90s and before. He has written for Quillette. He was the editor of a book of critical responses to Steven Pinker. He created an excellent documentary film called Liberty Loves Reason. But most significantly, in 2012 he wrote a book called Myth of the Closed Mind, which is available on Amazon in all the formats, including audio. The basic idea he explores there is that humans care about truth. We are truth seekers that create and pass on both rational and irrational memes. Dawkins calls the worst of these memes “mind viruses,” but what Percival points out is that as flawed as humans are, the good kind of memes have a competitive advantage in the war of ideas. Such a simple idea, but the implications of this are profound, and Percival has spent a lifetime wresting with them.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Support us on Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Myth of the Closed Mind: https://amzn.to/48xAoDGX: @Ray_S_Percival

Percival Everett: Ausradiert (Roman) | Aus dem Englischen von Jens Seeling | Hanser Taschenbuch 2026 | Preis: 14 Euro | 347 Seiten

Welcome back to Blade Runner: Electric Dreams. Tracking down missing LAPD replicant, Leah, who appears to have shot and killed her colleague, Sandor, the rep detect unit is getting closer and interested parties have taken notice. With some new information from the Esper Wall database Percival and Fenna head out into the city in possession of a photo depicting a young Leah, an image that shouldn't exist. Meanwhile, after taking a brutal beating in the back of the Aurelian's butterfly shop, Bakker and Novak are roughly awoken, tied to chairs in a leaky pre-war apartment complex. Join: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCd5_xAWJ4yX6NZ5cZaccqPw/join Community Discord: https://discord.gg/z2NW53APFa Merch: https://mystery-quest-shop.fourthwall.com/en-gbp Members and Patrons get $7 off your order - that's like a free membership along with your stylish new adventuring attire! Check out Blade Runner RPG here: https://freeleaguepublishing.com/games/blade-runner-rpg/ The scenario is 'Electric Dreams' and is included in the starter set: https://freeleaguepublishing.com/shop/blade-runner-rpg/starter-set/ Podcast: https://www.pickaxe.uk/mystery-quest Patreon link: https://www.patreon.com/MysteryQuest Follow the Cast: Tom: @AngoryTom Dan: @apocplayers⁩ Lydia: https://twitch.tv/squidgame Ravs: @Ravs_ Danann: ⁠@apocplayers ⁠ Editing & Sound Design: Oscar Henderson Thumbnail Art: Jack Bailey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode, we sit down with Professor Bryan Banker to unpack the literary and historical weight of James by Percival Everett, a bold revisiting of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn that challenges how we understand freedom, language, and power. Together, we explore how language becomes both a tool of survival and resistance within systems of oppression, and why, in the context of American slavery, the path to freedom ultimately required violent upheaval. The conversation also confronts the lingering distortions in how we remember this history, revealing how deeply embedded narratives still shape modern perspectives. We examine the sharp contrast between Mark Twain's use of humor and satire and Everett's relentless pacing, where every moment carries the tension of life or death. James by Percival Everett is a bold literary reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, but told from the perspective of Jim, the enslaved man who, in Twain's version, exists largely on the margins of the story. Everett centers Jim as the intellectual and moral core of the narrative, revealing a deeply perceptive, strategic, and linguistically adept character whose survival depends on carefully navigating the expectations of a white-dominated society. One of the novel's most striking elements is its focus on language as both a mask and a weapon. Jim consciously shifts between different modes of speech, performing ignorance when necessary while internally maintaining a sharp, articulate voice. This duality exposes how language was used to enforce hierarchy, while also showing how it could be subverted as a means of resistance and self-preservation. Set slightly closer to the American Civil War, the novel carries a heightened sense of urgency, where the threat of violence is constant and escape is not just a hopeful journey, but a perilous necessity. Everett strips away much of the romanticism and humor found in Twain's work and replaces it with a sharper, more immediate tension, forcing readers to confront the brutal realities of slavery more directly. If you're interested in literature that forces you to rethink the past, and its impact on today, this episode delivers both intellectual depth and real insight. Also, read James by Percival Everett!

Taking the shortcut from Kisvalu, the party finally reaches Zipser and quickly discovers something is indeed off about the unwholesome city. After dealing with a villainous man named Valek, they sneak into the castle, intent on rescuing Percival's sweetheart. On the way out, they give the city something to remember them by. 

Welcome back to Blade Runner: Electric Dreams. Percival and Fenna investigate Leah's last known steps on the LAPD's Esper Wall a vast surveillance network of cameras spanning the entire city. Meanwhile detectives Novak and Bakker head out to Animoid Row seeking the craftsman behind Leah's synthetic butterflies. Join: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCd5_xAWJ4yX6NZ5cZaccqPw/join Community Discord: https://discord.gg/z2NW53APFa Merch: https://mystery-quest-shop.fourthwall.com/en-gbp Members and Patrons get $7 off your order - that's like a free membership along with your stylish new adventuring attire! Check out Blade Runner RPG here: https://freeleaguepublishing.com/games/blade-runner-rpg/ The scenario is 'Electric Dreams' and is included in the starter set: https://freeleaguepublishing.com/shop/blade-runner-rpg/starter-set/ Podcast: https://www.pickaxe.uk/mystery-quest Patreon link: https://www.patreon.com/MysteryQuest Follow the Cast: Tom: @AngoryTom Dan: @apocplayers⁩ Lydia: https://twitch.tv/squidgame Ravs: @Ravs_ Danann: ⁠ @apocplayers ⁠ Editing & Sound Design: Oscar Henderson Thumbnail Art: Jack Bailey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We're diving into Season 8's opener, “The Reincarnation of Nellie – Part 1,” an episode that wastes no time asking: what if we solved emotional problems… with deeply questionable decisions?First shocking news--Nellie and Percival are officially in New York and--surprise!--NEVER COMING BACK. And Harriet Oleson is not handling it well. So naturally, the solution is: adopt a child immediately. No therapy, no hobbies, no self-reflection—just a full human being to fill the Nellie-shaped void. What could possibly go wrong? Enter Nancy, a sweet-faced orphan who—within approximately 30 seconds—sets off every alarm bell known to man. Except, of course, for Harriet, who sees only potential and maybe a chance to relive her glory days of raising a menace.The episode also hits viewers with another big shift: Goodbye to Mary and Adam...FOREVER! A noticeable absence that makes Nancy's arrival feel even more like a “here we go” moment.Nancy, for her part, wastes zero time stepping into Nellie's legacy. The lies are sharper, the manipulation is colder, and the vibes are… unsettling. And Harriet's determined not to notice. Choices? Everywhere. Bad parenting? Thriving. Part 1 is messy, chaotic, and full of “wait, they did WHAT?” energy—and honestly, we're kind of here for it.Then, join us on Patreon where we discuss the caveats of being a child actor. Does it benefit them in the long run? Is it more for the parents than it is for the child? Can a child even really consent? (The anser is NO). We discuss it all. Links and Resources:Haven't signed up for Patreon yet? Get more behind-the-scenes info and fun conversation we can't do on the podcast...PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/LittleHousePodcastwww.LittleHouse50Podcast.com to connect with our hosts and link to their websites.www.LivinOnaPrairieTV.com  Check out the award-winning series created by Pamela Bob, with special guest stars Alison Arngrim and Charlotte Stewart.Prairie Legacy Productions - the place to go for info about all new Little House events!To learn more about Little House on the Prairie, Visit www.littlehouseontheprairie.comFacebook/Instagram/TikTok:Dean Butler @officialdeanbutlerAlison Arngrim @alisonarngrimPamela Bob @thepamelabob, @prairietvSocial Media Team: Joy Correa and Christine Nunez https://www.paclanticcreative.com/Producer: Tony Sweetwww.ubngo.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/little-house-on-the-prairie-50th-anniversary-podcast--6055242/support.

Welcome back to Blade Runner: Electric Dreams. After a thorough chewing out by LAPD chief deputy Holden, our blade runners are summoned to Wallace Corp HQ, manufacturers of the new Nexus 9 model replicants, including Percival, Fenna and the missing replicant Leah. Join: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCd5_xAWJ4yX6NZ5cZaccqPw/join Community Discord: https://discord.gg/z2NW53APFa Merch: https://mystery-quest-shop.fourthwall.com/en-gbp Members and Patrons get $7 off your order - that's like a free membership along with your stylish new adventuring attire! Check out Blade Runner RPG here: https://freeleaguepublishing.com/games/blade-runner-rpg/ The scenario is 'Electric Dreams' and is included in the starter set: https://freeleaguepublishing.com/shop/blade-runner-rpg/starter-set/ Podcast: https://www.pickaxe.uk/mystery-quest Patreon link: https://www.patreon.com/MysteryQuest Follow the Cast: Tom: @AngoryTom Dan: @apocplayers⁩ Lydia: https://twitch.tv/squidgame Ravs: @Ravs_ Danann:  @apocplayers  Editing & Sound Design: Oscar Henderson Thumbnail Art: Jack Bailey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In Tiddlewick-on-the-Turnip, a sleepy wizard named Merlin Muddlewick and his bold, magical sheep Percival race to compete in the Grand Magic Sheepherding Contest—only to oversleep disastrously. Desperate to make it in time, they take a dangerous shortcut through enchanted forests, mischievous bogs, and a smoky Shadow Hound, where Merlin’s nerves make his magic wildly unpredictable. At the final obstacle, just when all seems lost, Percival reveals there’s far more to him than anyone ever suspected.

Tasting Notes Include: Flashes of the Sweet Here After, Jughead not wanting to be alive, Sabrina coming to Town, Sabrina loving dead people so much that she takes them on a date, Cheryl using fire to resurrect those who died in the plagues, Percival verbally abusing Kevin and Reg going to Rome. Reach Out to us Via Instagram or Email! We'd love to hear from you! Our Insta: riverdale_runs Our Email: arrtipod@gmail.com  

We're back to finish what we started! After spending an entire episode dissecting the first half of Part 2 of Little House on the Prairie Season 6's dramatic finale, we are finally diving into the last half—where the misunderstandings unravel, the truths come out, and Walnut Grove delivers peak romantic payoff.Almanzo's secret sacrifices are revealed through a scary bout of pneumonia (yes, he really was laying in a real ice tub!), and Laura finally realizes that maybe—just maybe—she misjudged the whole “saloon woman” situation.Meanwhile, Nellie and Percival continue to steal scenes. Percival dumping eggs on Nellie's head remains one of the most unexpectedly satisfying moments in Walnut Grove history. Percival continues to be the only man in town brave enough to challenge the Oleson women, and somehow it works. A quick proposal and wedding for these 2, because even Nellie can't resist a good Jewish man. "Off to the honeymoon!"And of course, we revel in the big romantic payoff that makes this two-part saga worth every sigh, side-eye, and saloon misunderstanding. There are moments that remind us why this show still makes us swoon 50 years later.It took us three podcast episodes to cover this one television event, but honestly? These iconic Prairie love stories deserve the extra time.Then, join us on Patreon where we discuss our own relationships and the ways our better halfs support us.Links and Resources:Haven't signed up for Patreon yet? Get more behind the scenes info and fun conversation we can't do on the podcast...PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/LittleHousePodcastwww.LittleHouse50Podcast.com to connect with our hosts and link to their websites.www.LivinOnaPrairieTV.com  Check out the award-winning series created by Pamela Bob, with special guest stars Alison Arngrim and Charlotte Stewart.Prairie Legacy Productions - the place to go for info about all new Little House events!To learn more about Little House on the Prairie, Visit www.littlehouseontheprairie.comFacebook/Instagram/TikTok:Dean Butler @officialdeanbutlerAlison Arngrim @alisonarngrimPamela Bob @thepamelabob, @prairietvSocial Media Team: Joy Correa and Christine Nunez https://www.paclanticcreative.com/Producer: Tony Sweetwww.ubngo.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/little-house-on-the-prairie-50th-anniversary-podcast--6055242/support.

When Stephen Spielberg adapts your novel for the big screen you know it's the big time! 

Folks, we talked so much about this action-packed episode that we had to break it up into 2 parts! So today, we're back in Walnut Grove for Part 2 of the Season 6 finale, but only the first hour of the recap, because let's face it—we spent a full day analyzing Laura, Almanzo, Nellie, and Percival's love sagas. Next week will will finish the episode, officially!But today, Laura is busy helping Mary and Adam open the new blind school, all while trying to ignore her feelings for Almanzo. Meanwhile, Almanzo secretly works extra jobs to cover the school rent. And of course, a “saloon girl sighting” (Pamela's favorite character) almost sends Laura spiraling, and sparks a conversation with our hosts about sex and sexuality in the Prairie days.Meanwhile, Nellie and Percival's story is cooking up (pun intended!). Percival's strict training regimen is actually starting to work on Nellie, softening her attitude in a very "Taming of the Shrew" way. But it makes us ask...Is Nellie a submissive? Do short men have more masculine energy? It's giving Kermit and Piggy vibes, people!We laugh, swoon, and debate every glance, tearful scene (without actual tears? Where's the glycerin when you need it!), and prairie misstep—from Almanzo overworking himself into illness to Nellie's gradual change—making this hour full of classic Walnut Grove tomfoolery and romantic confusion.Next week, we'll finish Part 2 of Part 2, talk ice baths, dodge balls to the face, and nice Jewish husbands. You won't want to miss it!Then join us on Patreon, where we chat about Valentine's Day and Pamela shares the epic story of the annual LIW Dinner Party she attended!Links and Resources:Haven't signed up for Patreon yet? Get more behind the scenes info and fun conversation we can't do on the podcast...PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/LittleHousePodcastwww.LittleHouse50Podcast.com to connect with our hosts and link to their websites.www.LivinOnaPrairieTV.com  Check out the award-winning series created by Pamela Bob, with special guest stars Alison Arngrim and Charlotte Stewart.Prairie Legacy Productions - the place to go for info about all new Little House events!To learn more about Little House on the Prairie, Visit www.littlehouseontheprairie.comFacebook/Instagram/TikTok:Dean Butler @officialdeanbutlerAlison Arngrim @alisonarngrimPamela Bob @thepamelabob, @prairietvSocial Media Team: Joy Correa and Christine Nunez https://www.paclanticcreative.com/Producer: Tony Sweetwww.ubngo.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/little-house-on-the-prairie-50th-anniversary-podcast--6055242/support.

Before we dive in, we invite YOU to submit your Valentine's Day Little House character slogans in the comments on our YouTube channel! We'll pick five to feature on our social media on Valentine's Day. Be as silly—or as cutting—as you like. We cannot wait to read them.Now buckle up, because this episode is LOADED. Between awkward social situations, questionable advice, and peak prairie tomfoolery, everyone is learning (or very much not learning) important lessons about growing up, feelings, and communication. We're recapping "He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not-Part 1" and we're breaking down the romantic chaos, the side-eye moments, and why Part 1 has us screaming, “JUST TALK TO EACH OTHER.” Saddle up—prairie romance has officially entered its messy era.Spring arrives in Walnut Grove with big feelings and zero impulse control. Laura's dream comes true when Almanzo proposes—romance! hope! a future!—until Charles Ingalls calmly announces that no daughter of his is getting married before 18 (and honestly… he's not wrong). Laura eventually handles this with surprising maturity. Almanzo, meanwhile, reacts like an impatient brat who's taken bad advice from the manosphere, launching a sulk so legendary it's earned him a near-unanimous Reddit consensus as a douchebag (sorry, Dean!).Over in Oleson-land, Nellie's Restaurant is failing, so in comes efficiency expert Percival Dalton. Armed with charts and sheer willpower, he somehow transforms Nellie from “actively hostile” to “mildly tolerable,” which in Walnut Grove counts as a miracle. Elsewhere, Mary and Adam receive devastating news about Adam's father, shattering both their hearts and Adam's dream of funding the new school for the blind.But wait—there's more (and it's only Part 1)! Enter Houston, a smooth-talking stranger in Sleepy Eye who quickly learns that Laura, despite her youth, is a certified Frontier Shark. In what may be the fastest real-estate deal in TV history, Laura secures the old courthouse for the future blind school.By episode's end, Nellie is fully in love after one of the most iconic scenes of all time (yes—the eggs, the “short” jokes, all of it), and Ma quietly plays matchmaker by sending Laura to Sleepy Eye to clear her head… fully aware that Almanzo is already there. Ma Ingalls knows exactly what she's doing.THEN, join us on Patreon, where Alison talks to us about Percival himself, the beloved Steve Tracey!Links and Resources:Haven't signed up for Patreon yet? Get more behind the scenes info and fun conversation we can't do on the podcast...PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/LittleHousePodcastwww.LittleHouse50Podcast.com to connect with our hosts and link to their websites.www.LivinOnaPrairieTV.com  Check out the award-winning series created by Pamela Bob, with special guest stars Alison Arngrim and Charlotte Stewart.Prairie Legacy Productions - the place to go for info about all new Little House events!To learn more about Little House on the Prairie, Visit www.littlehouseontheprairie.comFacebook/Instagram/TikTok:Dean Butler @officialdeanbutlerAlison Arngrim @alisonarngrimPamela Bob @thepamelabob, @prairietvSocial Media Team: Joy Correa and Christine Nunez https://www.paclanticcreative.com/Producer: Tony Sweetwww.ubngo.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/little-house-on-the-prairie-50th-anniversary-podcast--6055242/support.

This week, in honor of Black History Month, the ladies review Percival Everett's powerful and provocative novel The Trees. They begin with the book's gripping premise: when detectives from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation arrive in Money, Mississippi to investigate a series of brutal murders, they discover something unsettling at each crime scene, a second body resembling Emmett Till. Met with resistance from local law enforcement and racist townsfolk, the detectives begin to suspect these killings are acts of retribution. As eerily similar murders begin unfolding across the country, it becomes clear that the past refuses to stay buried and that something larger is underway.In this bold and biting page turner, Everett confronts the legacy of lynching, white supremacy, and racial violence in America with sharp satire and unflinching honesty. The hosts unpack the novel's layered storytelling, dark humor, historical weight, and cultural commentary, discussing how it challenges readers while refusing comfort. It is a thought provoking conversation about memory, justice, and what it means when history demands to be reckoned with. Cheeers!SPOILERS & Trigger Warning: This book discusses the use of racial slurs, racial violence, racial hatred, lynchings, and other forms of racist behavior. Depictions of violence in this novel are graphic. *Please be advised this episode is intended for adult audiences and contains adult language and content. We are expressing opinions on the show for entertainment purposes only. Dedication: To our patrons as always!! We love you!Moni: To Carter G Woodson the father of Black History Month, to all the victims of racial violence in America and around the world past and present, to my mother in law, get well soon & I love you!Kat: To the man who found and returned my wallet in Kroger, thank you. To the series Wonder Man.About the book:https://www.npr.org/2021/09/22/1039434714/percival-everett-the-trees-reviewThe Trees was published by Graywolf Press in 2021. The Trees was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2022. Pages: Approximately 288–320/8 hours Author:https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/31723. Percival Everett is the author of 22 novels. He has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and is a Guggenheim Fellow (2015).NPR Book Review:https://www.npr.org/2021/09/22/1039434714/percival-everett-the-trees-reviewMoni learned a new word: Nescience: lack of knowledge or ignorance (nesh-ence)Other topics on the show:Monkey Obama Meme/Trump https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-shares-racist-video-depicting-obamas-monkeys-rcna257756Surrage mix up: https://people.com/couple-sues-fertility-clinic-after-welcoming-baby-girl-not-biologically-related-to-them-11895783Epstein Files: No blacks allowed  https://www.ms.now/news/epstein-emailed-with-silicon-valley-elites-about-racist-eugenicist-ideas**Stranger than Fiction:

This episode features an interview with a psychotherapist based in Ann Arbor Michigan. Her writings are featured in Medium at https://medium.com/@marijogro and Braided Way, Tiferet, Snapdragon, Sojourners, and Embody Kind. Here are some of the references to mentions in the podcast John Matthews on the Grail https://graal.substack.com/p/healing-the-wounded-kingThe Grail Legend (Die Graalslegende), Emma Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz https://www.labyrinthbooks.com/the-grail-legend/ This book provides a deep Jungian analysis of the Percival myth. Rather than a single "title," the book is structured into two primary parts that reflect the individual contributions of the two authors and the psychological evolution of the legend.Creation Centered Spirituality a movement which explores mysticism from a very broad perspective https://www.cscommunities.org/To make a one time donation of any amount to support the podcast, please donate tohttps://www.paypal.com/paypalme/BlackMadonnaHeartBecome a Patron for the channel at https://www.patreon.com/TheBlackMadonnaSpeaksTo purchase Black Madonna Speaks extra content, please visithttps://www.patreon.com/theblackmadonnaspeaks/shop#divinefeminine #sacredfeminine #virginmary #ourlady #blackmadonna #anthroposophy#spiritualjourney #camino #pilgrimage #mothermary #spirituality #Jung #TheHolyGrail #Parsifal

Northside/Southside Radio Players of Chicago are back and they ppresent "Murder& Mistletoe" just in time for Christmas! "Murder & Mistletoe" was written by Juliet Youngren and features the following cast members: Monica: Sherri Berger; Frank: Dennis Newport; Libby: Kate LeVan; Jenkins the butler: Michael Hagedorn; Percival the Pekingese: Carol Seymour. Directed by Carol Seymour. Sound effects: Pam Frederick. Music: David Drazin. Announcer: Marshall Rubin. Newlyweds Monica and Frank visit Monica's wealthy Aunt Matilda on Christmas Eve to break the news that Monica has married Frank against her aunt's wishes, which threatens Monica's inheritance. A whodunit with a twist. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Northside/Southside Radio Players of Chicago are back and they ppresent "Murder& Mistletoe" just in time for Christmas! "Murder & Mistletoe" was written by Juliet Youngren and features the following cast members: Monica: Sherri Berger; Frank: Dennis Newport; Libby: Kate LeVan; Jenkins the butler: Michael Hagedorn; Percival the Pekingese: Carol Seymour. Directed by Carol Seymour. Sound effects: Pam Frederick. Music: David Drazin. Announcer: Marshall Rubin. Newlyweds Monica and Frank visit Monica's wealthy Aunt Matilda on Christmas Eve to break the news that Monica has married Frank against her aunt's wishes, which threatens Monica's inheritance. A whodunit with a twist. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey before I begin I just want to thank all of you who have joined the patreon, you guys are awesome. Please let me know what other figures, events or other things you want to hear about in the future and I will try to make it happen.   If you are a long time listener to the Pacific War week by week podcast over at KNG or viewer of my youtube channel you have probably heard me talk about Tomoyuki Yamashita, the Tiger of Malaya quite often. It goes without saying when it comes to Japanese generals of WW2 he stands out. Not just to me, from the offset of the war he made a large impression on westerners, he achieved incredible feats early on in the war. Now if you look up books about him, you will pretty much only find information in regards to his infamous war crimes trial. Hell it was so infamous the legal doctrine of hierarchical accountability for war crimes, whereby a commanding officer is legally responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by his subordinates, was created. This is known as the command responsibility or “the Yamashita standard”. His court case was very controversial, he remains a controversial figure, certainly to the people of territories he campaigned in, but I think what can be said of him the most is he was special amongst the Japanese generals. Anyways lets get the show on the road as they say.   So who was Yamashita? When he was 59 years old commanding forces in the Philippines against General Douglas MacArthur, he weighed 220 ls and stood 5 feet 9 inches. His girth pressed out against his green army uniform. He had an egg shaped head, balding, wide spaced eyes and a flat nose. He wore a short mustache, sort of like Hitlers, until it grayed then he shaved it off. He was not a very attractive man, Filipinos referred to him as “old potato face” while Americans called him “a florid, pig faced man”.   Tomobumi Yamashita was born in 1885, he was the second son of Dr. Sakichi Yamashita and Yuu Yamashita in Osugi village, on Shikoku island. Like most males of his day he was indoctrinated into military preparatory school from a young age. Yamashita had no chosen the army as a career, in his words ‘my father suggested the idea, because I was big and healthy, and my mother did not seriously object because she believed, bless her soul, that I would never pass the highly competitive entrance examination. If I had only been cleverer or had worked harder, I would have been a doctor like my brother”Yamashita would graduate from the 18th class of the IJA academy in november of 1905, ranked 16th out of 920 cadets.    In 1908 he was promoted to the rank of Lt and during WW1 he fought against Imperial German and Austro-Hungarian forces in the famous siege of Qingdao, which if you are interested I did an episode over on my Youtube channel about this battle. Its a very overlooked battle, but many histories firsts occurred at it like the first carrier attack. In 1916 he was promoted to captain and attended the 28th class of the Army War college to graduate sixth in his class that year. He also married Hisako Nagayama in 1916, she was the daughter of the retired General Nagayama.    It seems Yamashita's brush against the Germans in 1914 had a huge influence on him, because he became fascinated with Germany and would serve as assistant military attache at Bern and Berlin from 1919-1922. He spent his time in Germany alongside Captain Hideki Tojo, both men would run into each other countless times and become bitter rivals. Both men toured the western front, visiting Hamburg and witnessed first hand the crippling inflation and food prices that came from Germany's defeat. Yamashita said to Tojo then “If Japan ever has to fight any nation, she must never surrender and get herself in a state like this.” He returned to Japan in 1922, was promoted to major and served a few different posts in the Imperial Headquarters and Staff College. Yamashita became a leading member of the Kodoha faction, while Tojo became a leading member of the rival Toseiha faction. In 1927 Yamashita was sent again to Europe, this time to Vienna as a military attache. Just prior to departing he had invested in a business selling thermometers starting by one of his wife's relatives, the business failed horribly and Yamashita was tossed into debt, bailiffs literally came to seize his house. As told to us by his biographer “For a regular officer to have contracted such a debt, however innocently, was a disgrace. He felt he should resign his commission.” Yamashita's brother refused to allow him to quit, instructing him to leave for Vienna, while he resolved his debts. His days in Vienna were the best of his life, professed Yamashita. He studied economics at Vienna university and made friends with a Japanese widow, who introduced him to a German woman named Kitty and they had an affair. This would spring forward his reputation as an eccentric officer. Yamashita was obsessed over hygiene,and refused to eat fruit unless it was thoroughly washed. He avoided ice water, hated dancing and never learnt how to drive a car. One of his most notable quirks was his habit of falling asleep often during meetings where he legendarily would snore. Like I may have said in previous podcast and youtube episodes, this guy was quite a character, often described as a big bear.    Now this is not a full biography on Yamashita so I cant devolve to far into things, such as his first fall from grace. During the February 26th coup incident of 1936, Yamashita was a leading member of the Kodoha faction and helped mediate a peaceful end to the standoff, however in truth he was backing the coup. He simply managed to not get caught red handed at the time doing too much for the mutineers, regardless he lost favor with the outraged Emperor and many young captains whom he loved like sons killed themselves in disgrace. If you want to know more about the February coup of 1936, check out my series on Emperor Hirohito or General Ishawara, they both talk about it in depth and touch upon Yamashita's role a bit.    The coup led to the dissolvement of the Kodoha faction and the dominance of the Toseiha, led by Tojo. Yamashita tried to resign from the IJA, but his superiors dissuade him. He was relegated to a post in Korea, which honestly was a punishment. Yamashita would say “When I was posted to Korea, I felt I had been given a tactful promotion but that in fact my career was over. Even when I was given my first fighting company in North China, I still felt I had no future in the Army, so I was always on the front line, where the bullets flew the thickest. I sought only a place to die.”  He had some time to reflect upon his conduct while in Korea, he began to study Zen Buddhism. He was promoted to Lt General in November of 1937 and when the China war broke out he was one of those speaking out that the incident needed to end swiftly and that peaceful relations must be made with the UK and US. He received a unimportant post in the Kwantung army and in 1938 was assigned command of the IJA 4th division. He led the forces during in northern china against insurgents until he returned to Tokyo in July of 1940. His fellow officers lauded him as Japan's finest general. Meanwhile Tojo had ascended to war minister and one of his first moves was to send a delegation to Germany. Tojo considered Yamashita a ruthless and forceful commander and feared he would become a powerful rival against him one day. Yamashita would go on the record to say then “I have nothing against Tojo, but he apparently has something against me.” You see, Yamashita had no political ambitions, unlike Tojo who was by nature a political monster. “My life, is that of a soldier; I do not seek any other life unless our Emperor calls me.” In late 1940, Tojo asked Yamashita to lead a team of 40 experts on a 6 month train tour of Germany and Italy, a move that kept him out of Tokyo, because Tojo was trying to solidify his political ambitions. This is going to become a looming theme between the two men.   He was presented to Adolf Hitler in January of 1941, passing along messages from Tojo and publicly praising the Fuhrer, though privately he was very unimpressed by the man  “He may be a great orator on a platform, with his gestures and flamboyant way of speaking. But standing behind his desk listening he seems much more like a clerk.” Hitler pressed upon him to push Japan to declare war on Britain and the US. At the time of course Japan was facing China and had two major conflicts with the USSR, thus this was absolutely not in her interest. “My country is still fighting in China, and we must finish that war as soon as possible. We are also afraid that Russia may attack us in Manchuria. This is no time for us to declare war on other countries.” Yamashita hoped to inspect Germany's military techniques and technology to help Japan. Hitler promised open exchanges of information stating “All our secrets are open to you,”, but this would prove to be a lie. “There were several pieces of equipment the Germans did not want us to see. Whenever I tried to persuade the German General Staff to show us things like radar—about which we had a rudimentary knowledge—the conversation always turned to something else.”   Yamashita met with field Marshal Hermann Goring who gave him an overview of the war in europe. Goring would complain about Yamashita falling asleep during lectures and meetings and he believed the man was drunk often. Yamashita met Benito Mussolini in June of 1941 receiving a similar rundown to what he got in Germany. Yamashita visited Kitty in Vienna for a quick fling, but overall the trip deeply impacted Yamashita's resolve that Japan should stay out of the Europeans war and that Germany made a grievous error invading the USSR in June of 1941. This is what he said the members of the commission “You know the results of our inspection as well as I do. I must ask you not to express opinion in favor of expanding the alliance between Japan, Germany and Italy. Never suggest in your report that Japan should declare war on Great Britain and the United States. We must not and cannot rely upon the power of other nations. Japan needs more time, particularly as there may be aggression against us from Russia. We must have time to rebuild our defense system and adjust the whole Japanese war machine. I cannot repeat this to you often enough.” His report was similar, and it really pissed off Tojo who was trying to develop plans for a war against America. Yamashita would then get exiled to Manchuria in July of 1941, but Tojo's resentment towards him could only go so far, because Yamashita was one of their best generals and in his planned war against Britain and America, he would need such a man.   Yamashita's time in Europe reshaped his views on how to conduct war. He saw first hand blitzkrieg warfare, it seems it fascinated him. He consistently urged the implementation of new proposals calling for the streamlining of air arms; to mechanize the Army; to integrate control of the armed forces in a defense ministry coordinated by a chairman of Joint Chiefs of staff; to create a paratroop corps and to employ effective propaganda. Basically he saw what was working for the Germans against the allies and wanted Japan to replicate it. Tojo did not like many of the proposal, hated the fact they were coming from Yamashita, so he obviously was not keen on making them happen. Luckily for Yamashita he would be given a chance to implement some of his ideas in a big way.   On November 6th of 1941, Lt General Yamashita was appointed commander of the 25th Japanese army. His orders were to seize the Malay Peninsula and then the British naval base at Singapore. The Malaya Peninsula snakes 700 miles south of Thailand, a rugged sliver of land that constricts at its narrowest point to about 60 miles wide. It hold mountains that split the peninsula in half, some going as high as 7000 feet. During this time Malaya produced around 40% of the worlds rubber, 60% of its tin, two resources vital for war. At its very southern tip lies Singapore, a diamond shaped island connected to the mainland by a 1115 stone causeway. Singapore's largest asset was its naval base guarding the passage from the Pacific and Indian oceans. Together Malay and Singapore represented the key to controlling what Japan called the Southern Resource Area.   Singapore was known as the gibraltar of the east for good reason. It was a massively fortified naval base. The base had been developed between 1923-1938 and cost 60 million pounds, around 2 billion pounds today. It was 21 square miles, had the largest dry dock in the world, the 3rd largest floating dock and enough fuel tanks to support the entire royal navy for 6 months. She was defended by 15 inch naval guns stationed at the Johre battery, Changi and Buona vista battery. And despite the infamous myth some of you may have heard, these guns were fully capable of turning in all directions including the mainland. For those unaware a myth perpetuated after the fall of Singapore that her large 15 inch guns could not turn to the mainland and that this spelt her doom, no it was not that, it was the fact they mostly had armor piercing shells which are using to hit ships and not land targets. Basically if you fire an armor piercing shell at land it imbeds itself then explodes, while HE shells would have torn any Japanese army to pieces. Alongside the 15 inch monsters, there were countless other artillery pieces such as 9.2 inch guns. By December of 1941 Malaya and Singapore held 164 first line aircraft out of a total of 253 aircraft, but many of the fighters were the obsolete Brewster F2A Buffalo, a pretty slow, fat little beast that could take a licking as it was armored, but against the Zero fighter it was unbelievably outmatched in speed and maneuverability.    The Japanese acquired a major gift prior to the outbreak of war. On november 11th, 1940, the SS Automedon, a German raider attacked the HMS Atlantis which was carrying documents intended for the British far east command. The documents indicated the British fleet was not going to help Singapore; that Britain would not declare war if Thailand was invaded and that Hong Kong was expendable. The Germans gave the documents to the Japanese who were very excited by the information.    Starting in January of 1941, Colonel Masanobu Tsuji led the Taiwan Army Research section based on Formosa to investigate how a campaign could be waged in Malay and Singapore. His findings on the defenses of Malay and Singapore were summed up in these 3 points: 1. Singapore Fortress was solid and strong facing the sea, but vulnerable on the peninsular side facing the Johore Strait;  Newspaper reports of a strong Royal Air Force (RAF) presence were propaganda;  Although British forces in Malaya numbered from five to six divisions (well over 80,000 men), less than half were Europeans.    Now just a little bit about Tsuji as he was to become the chief of staff operations and planning under Yamashita. Tsuji was extremely insubordinate and a political schemer. He was a Toseiha faction fanatic, loyal to Tojo and thus definitely an enemy to Yamashita. Yamashita wrote of Tsuji in his war diary “is egotistical and wily. He is a sly dog and unworthy to serve the country. He is a manipulator to be carefully watched.” Tsuji would go on to have a infamous reputation for ordering atrocities in the name of his superiors, often without them knowing and this would be very much the case under Yamashita. Now using Tsuji's intelligence Yamashita began plans at his HQ at Samah, a port on Hainan island, starting in November of 1941 on how to launch the campaign. He was initially offered 5 divisions for the invasion, but he felt he could accomplish the objective with only three. There are a few reasons why he believed this; first, Tsuji's research suggested the peninsula roads would be the center of the battlefront and that the flanks would extend no more than a km or so to the left or right due to the dense jungle terrain (in fact Yamashita was planning to assault from the jungle specifically); 2nd intelligence indicated the defending troops were not of the highest caliber (the British were busy in Europe thus many of the troops in southeast asia were poorly trained, half were british regulars the rest were Australian, Indian and Malayan); 3rd Yamashita was aware “the Japanese army were in the habit of flinging more troops into the battle than could possibly be maintained” boy oh boy tell that one to the future boys on Guadalcanal. Thus he calculated 3 divisions was the maximum to be fed, equipped and supplied. Based on his recommendations the 25th army was created with 3 divisions; the 5th under Lt General Takuma Matsui; 18th under Lt General Renya Mutaguchi and the Imperial guards division of Lt General Takuma Nishimura. Supporting these would be two regiment of heavy field artillery and the 3rd tank brigade. Something that made Yamashita's campaign quite interesting was the usage and amount of tanks. He was invading with around 200 or so tanks consisting of the Type 95 Ha-Go light tank, type 97 Chi-Ha and Type 89 I-Go medium tanks and Type 97 Te-Ke tankettes. For aircraft he had the 3rd Air division, 459 aircraft strong with an additional 159 aircraft from the IJN to support them. The 3rd air division had a variety of aircraft such as Nakajima Ki-27 Nate's, Nakajima ki-43 Oscars, Kitsubishi ki-51 Sonia's, Kawasaki ki-48 Lily's, Mitsubishi ki-21 sally's, Mitsubishi ki-30 Ann's, Mitsubishi ki-15 babs and Mitsubishi ki-46 dinahs. For the IJN it was the 22nd air flotilla using Mitsubishi G3M1 Nell's, Mitsubishi A5M4 Claudes and some A6M Zeros. To say it was a lot of firepower at his disposal is an understatement, Yamashita was packing heat, heat he could use in a blitzkrieg fashion.   His staff at Samah identified 5 operational objectives: 1 Simultaneous capture of Singora and Patani, Thailand and Kota Bharu, Malaya.  2 Capture of all enemy airfields in southern Thailand and Malaya.  3 Occupation of Kuala Lumpur, Malaya.  4 Occupation of Johore Bahru, and control of Johore Strait.  5 Conquest of Singapore.    Colonel Tsuji, appointed Chief of Operations and Planning for the 25th Army, proposed the following plan which was readily approved:  Land the main strength of the 5th Division simultaneously and without warning at Singora and Patani, and at the same time land a powerful section of the 18th Division to attack Kota Bharu.  The troops disembarked at Singora and Patani to press forward immediately to attack the line of the Perak River Hand capture its bridge and the Alor Star aerodrome.  The troops landed at Kota Bharu to press forward along the eastern coast as far as Kuantan.    The landing at Kota Bharu, the only one in Malaya was expected to be opposed and quite risky. But if it was successful, it would create a useful diversion away from the main force landings in Thailand.   The landings took place around 2:15am local time on December 8th, about an hour and 20 minutes before the attack on Pearl Harbor. The landings went largely unopposed, except at Kota Bahru where the Japanese saw heavy resistance. The British had anticipated this landing point and created operation Matador, a plan to pre-emptively invade southern thailand to secure defensive lines against the Japanese, however this plan was never accepted by British high command for obvious political reasons. But on December 5th, with a Japanese invasion looking certain, suddenly London gave permission to the Far east commanders to decide if Operation matador should be activated or not. The commander in Malaya, General Arthur Percival recommended forestalling it, fearing to violate Thai sovereignty, which ultimately would be the doom of a defense for Malaya.   At the battle of Kota Bharu, the 9th infantry division of Major General Barstow attempted holding off the Japanese from taking the important Kota Bharu airfield. The 8th brigade of Billy Key had fortified the beaches with pillboxes, barbed wire and land mines. The Japanese took heavy losses, but they were able to find gaps and fill them up until Brigadier Key had to ask permission to pull out. The royal air force at Kota Bharu tossed Hudson bombers to hit the troop transports, but it was a suicide mission to do so. Meanwhile the IJA 5th division landed at Pattani and Songkhla in Thailand while the Imperial guards division marched over the border from French Indochina. The Japanese encountered very little resistance, the leader of Thailand Plaek Pibulsonggram had been trying to get assurances from the allies and Japanese all the way up until the invasion, once the Japanese landed he knew his best option was to play nice and sign an armistice. This basically spelt doom for malaya as the Japanese were given access to Thailand's airfields which they used to smash the forward airfields in Malaya.   The first day of aerial encounters were a catastrophe for the British. General Percival would comment “The rapidity with which the Japanese got their air attacks going against our aerodromes was quite remarkable. Practically all the aerodromes in Kelantan, Kedah, Province Wellesley, and Penang, were attacked, and in most cases fighters escorted the bombers. The performance of Japanese aircraft of all types, and the accuracy of their bombing, came as an unpleasant surprise. By the evening our own air force had already been seriously weakened.” Brigadier Key withdrew after causing an estimated 800 casualties upon the Japanese while taking roughly 465. While Kota Bharu was being fought over, Percival unleashed Operation Krohcol, a 2.0 of Matador seeing British forces cross into Thailand to intercept the incoming enemy. It was an absolute disaster, the British attackers were defeated not only by the Japanese 5th division, but some Royal Thai police also defended their territory. The operation had basically become a race to who could seize the important focal point first and the Japanese took it first thus winning decisively. To add to that misery, force Z, consisting of the battleship HMS Prince of Wales,, battlecruiser Repulse and 4 destroyers tried to intercept the Japanese invasion fleet only to be utterly destroyed by overwhelming Japanese airforces.   Within 4 days of the landings, the 5th division advanced from Singora through the town of Jitra to capture the RAF airfield at Alor star, around 100 miles away. Yamashita managed this using flanking techniques that saw his army take town after town and airfield after airfield. There were numerous natural obstacles to the advance such as dense jungles, very long supply lines, torrential rain and heat, but he had a secret weapon, bicycles. At Jitra Percival made his first major stand. Holding Jitra would safeguard the northern airfields of Malaya, but it was a folly to do so as the airfields in question were not provided adequate aircraft and the British lacked something extremely important to be able to defend themselves, tanks. Colonel Tsuji saw the fighting at Jitra first hand and reported “Our tanks were ready on the road, and the twenty or so enemy armored cars ahead were literally trampled underfoot … The enemy armored cars could not escape by running away, and were sandwiched between our medium tanks … It was speed and weight of armor that decided the issue.” The British had spread themselves far too thinly across a 14 mile front with jungle on their right flank and rubber plantations and mangrove swamps to their left. Yamashita used a innovative blitzkrieg like tactic, he combined his air, artillery, tanks and bicycle infantry to punch holes in concentrated attacks forcing allied defenders to withdraw. As Percival would write later in his memoirs “This withdrawal would have been difficult under the most favorable conditions. With the troops tired, units mixed as the result of the fighting, communications broken and the night dark, it was inevitable that orders should be delayed and that in some cases they should never reach the addressees. This is what in fact occurred … the withdrawal, necessary as it may have been, was too fast and too complicated for disorganized and exhausted troops, whose disorganization and exhaustion it only increased”    Yamashita had ingeniously thought of employing large numbers of bicycles for his infantry so they could keep up momentum and speed with his mechanized forces. Oh and he didn't bring thousands of bicycles over to Malaya, the real genius was that they were there ready for him. His intelligence prior to the invasion indicated nearly all civilians in malaya had bicycles, so when the Japanese came over they simply stole them. Half of Yamashitas troops moved in motor vehicles while the rest road on 18,000 bicycles. As noted by Tsuji “With the infantry on bicycles, there was no traffic congestion or delay. Wherever bridges were destroyed the infantry continued their advance, wading across the rivers carrying their bicycles on their shoulders, or crossing on log bridges held up on the shoulders of engineers standing in the stream.” They Japanese overwhelmed the defenders who were forced to fight, flee into the jungles or flee along the roads where they were simply outsped by the faster Japanese. The defenders left numerous stores of food, abandoned vehicles, and supplies that Yamashita's men would dub “churchill's allowance”. British Lt Colonel Spencer Chapmanwas forced to hide on the sides of roads watching Japanese pedal past remarking “The majority were on bicycles in parties of forty or fifty, riding three or four abreast and talking and laughing just as if they were going to a football match.” The Japanese had the ability to carry their gear on the bicycles, giving them an enormous advantage over the allies fleeing on foot. The Japanese could travel faster, further and less fatigued. When the British destroyed 250 bridges during their flight, “the Japanese infantry (to continue) their advance, wading across the rivers carrying their bicycles on their shoulders, or crossing on log bridges held up on the shoulders of engineers standing in the stream”. The British could not escape the bicycle blitzkrieg as it became known, countless were forced to surrender under constant pressure and relentless pursuit.    Alongside the bicycle warfare, whenever Yamashita faced terrain unsuitable for his tanks, he ordered amphibious landings further south to outflank the enemy's  rear.   Meanwhile the war in the air went equally terrible for the allies. The RAF had pulled back its best pilots and aircraft to deal with the war for Britain against the Luftwaffe. 21 airfields were in Malaya and Singapore, few of them had modern facilities, only 15 concrete runways. The heavy rain made the grass airstrips unusable. All the airfields were allocated around 8 heavy and 8 light anti aircraft guns. Quality radar units were completely inadequate. The Super Spitfires and Hyper Hurricanes were mostly in Britain fighting the Germans, while Buffaloes were allocated to Malaya. The Japanese airforces easily overcame the allied opposition and established air superiority quickly. Launching from airfields in Vietnam, they bombed all the airfields into submission and continuously applied pressure to Singapore. . The aerial dominance of the Zero and ‘Oscar' fighters served to undermine the morale of the British infantryman on the ground. As historian H. P. Wilmot has observed, “in the opening phase of the war the Zero-sen was just what the Japanese needed, and the Allies were devastated by the appearance of a ‘super fighter.' To add insult to injury, every airfield taken starting at the most northern going further and further south towards Singapore offered the Japanese new launching points to make for faster attack.   Yamashita's forces reached the southern tip of the peninsula in just 8 weeks, his men had covered some 700 miles, about 12 miles a day on average. They fought 95 large and smaller battles doing so. Multiple lines of defense were erected one after another to try and halt the Japanese advance, to kill their momentum. Starting at the beach landings, to Jitra, then to Kampar, over the Slim river, then Johor. The British failed to employ “leave behind forces” to provide guerilla warfare in lost territories leading not only the Japanese to easily consolidate their gains, the Thai's also came down and grabbed some territory. At the battle of Muar Major General Gordon Bennet deployed the allied defenders south of the Muar River and it was widely believed here they would finally halt the Japanese. Then the Imperial Guards division outflanked them performing an amphibious landing and advancing down the coastal route. The 5th Japanese division followed a parallel route through the center and the 18th division landed near Endau. The allies were thus surrounded and took heavy casualties, countless were forced to flee through swamps and thick jungle abandoned their stuff. Gordons 45th brigade were absolutely shattered, effectively disbanded and left north of the Muar river as the rest of the allies fled south. The defeat at Muar broke the British belief they could hold even a toehold on Malay. Percivals strategy to fight delaying actions until the arrival of reinforcements to Singapore had fatally undermined his troops ability to hold onto defensive positions. As the British governor of the Johore straits settlement, Sir Shenton Thomas would say on January 6th ‘“We … have gone in for mechanized transport to the nth degree. It is a fearsomely cumbersome method. We have pinned our faith to the few roads but the enemy used tracks and paths, and gets round to our rear very much as he likes.”” Yet alongside the conquest came a series of atrocities.    At the Parit Sulong Bridge south of the Muar, Captain Rewi Snelling was left behind with 150 wounded Australian and Indian soldiers not able to trek south. The Imperial guards division herded them into buildings, denied them medical treatment, many of the Indians were beheaded, others shot. This become known as the parit sulong massacre. Its hard to saw what Yamashita would have known about this incident, it technically was under the command of Takuma nishimura. On January 22nd, Nishimura gave the orders for prisoners to be forced outside, doused with petrol and set on fire. Nishimura would be sentenced to life in prison by a Singapore court, but on a flight back to Japan he was hijacked by Australian military police in Hong Kong who grabbed him and held a trial for the Parit Sulong massacre, finding him guilty and hanging him on june 11th of 1951.    When the Japanese reached the straits of Johore, Yamashita took several days to perform reconnaissance, allowing his forces to regroup and prepare to attack the massive fortress. His plan for the invasion would see the Imperial guards perform a feint attack on the northeast side of Singapore, landing on the nearby Palau Ubin island on february 7th. The 5th and 18th division would remain concealed in the jungle until the night of the night of the 8th when they would cross the Johore and hit the northwest side of Singapore. The causeway to Singapore had been blown up by the retreating British, but the ability for Singapore to defend itself from a northern attack was lackluster. When Churchill was told by Wavell the Japanese sat on the other side of the Johore strait ready to attack the fortress he said ““I must confess to being staggered by Wavell's telegram. It never occurred to me for a moment that … Singapore … was not entirely fortified against an attack from the Northwards …””   With barely enough supplies or logistical support for his campaign, Yamashita's rapid advance down the Malay peninsula walked a tightrope of what was possible. His 70,000 men of which 30,000 were frontline troops had overcome a British force double their number. In Japan he garnered the epithet “Tiger of Malaya”, which ironically he was not too happy about. Later on in the war he would bark at a German attache “I am not a tiger. The tiger attacks its prey in stealth but I attack the enemy in a fair play”.   By this point Singapore had swollen from a population of 550,000to nearly a million. Percival had a total of 70,000 infantry of mixed experience plus 15,000 clerks and support staff to man lines if necessary. 38 battalions, 17 Indian, 13 British, 6 Australian and 2 Malayan. He placed his weakest troops west of the causeway, near the abandoned naval base rather than nearby the airfield which he considered was going to be Yamashita's thrust. He placed his best forces over there, which would prove fatally wrong as Yamashita hit west of the causeway. Yamashita meanwhile could only muster 30,000 troops, he was outnumbered 2:1 and amphibious assaults called for the attacker to hold a 2:1 advantage for success. Yamashita's men were exhausted, they had suffered 4565 casualties, roughly 1793 deaths in their 55 day advance south. Worse yet, Yamashita had a critical supply issue. He had greatly exceeded his supply lines and had been surviving on the abandoned churchill stores along the way. His ammunition was critical low, it is said he was down to 18 functional tanks, allowing his men to fire 100 rounds per day, the fuel ran out, and as Yamashita put it “My attack on Singapore was a bluff—a bluff that worked. I had 30,000 men and was outnumbered more than three to one. I knew that if I had to fight for long for Singapore, I would be beaten. That is why the surrender had to be at once. I was very frightened all the time that the British would discover our numerical weakness and lack of supplies and force me into disastrous street fighting.” He told his men of the 5th and 18th division not to build any cooking fires so they could conceal their positions in the jungle as he gathered hundreds of collapsible boats and other crafts to ford the strait. He gathered 40 divisional commanders and senior officers to a rubber plantation and with a flushed red face read out his attack orders while pouring them Kikumasamune (ceremonial wine). He made a traditional toast and said “It is a good place to die; surely we shall conquer”. He had to get the British to surrender quickly, he had to essentially ‘bluff” his enemy. He had to make the British think he was fully armed and supplied for a prolonged siege, how could he do so? He fired his artillery like a mad man, knowing full well they would run out of shells.   Starting on February 3rd,  Yamashita's artillery supported by aerial bombings hit Singapore for 5 days. On the night of the 7th, 400 Imperial Guards crossed to the Ibin island performing their feint attack. Percivals attention was grabbed to the east successfully, while on the night of the 8th the 5th and 18th divisions assembled carefully at the water's edge. At 8:30pm the first wave of 4000 Japanese troops crossed the Johore strait aboard 150 small vessels. The noise of their engines was drowned out by artillery. The thinly spread Australian lines, 3000 or so men led by Major General Bennet were breached fast leading to pockets of surrounded australian troops. As Lewis Gunner cliff olsen recalled “We were horribly spread out and it was pitch black and they [Japanese troops] were very hard to see. They walked through us half the time.” A beachhead was formed, a soon 14,000 Japanese had crossed by dawn.    Communications broke down for the allies, Percival unwilling to believe the Japanese's main thrust was in the west declined to send reinforcements there. When he did finally realize the main thrust was in the west he began to withdraw troops from quiet sectors and built up a reserve. The Japanese held air supremacy and their artillery was fierce. The big 15 inch guns of singapore held mostly armor piercing shells designed to hit ships, there were few HE shells available. When they fired upon the Japanese the shells would hit the ground they would embed deeply before exploding doing little damage. The defenders had no tanks, basically no more aircraft. The last departing ships fled the scene as everything was burning chaos around them. Morale was breaking for the defenders. By the 9th, Japanese bombers were raining bombs on allied positions unopposed. Bennet was forced to pull men back to a new line of defense from the east of the Tengah airfield to the north of Jurong. Poor communications hampered the northern sector of Brigadier Duncan Maxwell whose troops actually battered the hell out of the Imperial Guards who had landed at 10pm on the 9th. The Imperial guards gradually managed a foothold on a beach, but Maxwell feared encirclement and withdrew his men against direct orders of Bennet. The retreat opened up the flank of the 11th indian division who were overrun. All of the beaches west of the causeway fell to the enemy, when they did Yamashita brought over his tanks to smash the new Jurong line. The Japanese could have potentially stormed the city center at this point, but they held back, because in reality, Percival had created a formidable reserve in the middle. The Australian 22nd brigade took the brunt of the fighting.    Yamashita was running out of reserves and his attacks were reaching their limit, but he needed the battle to end swiftly. Yamashita was shocked and shaken when he received a report that the British troop strength within the city was twice what they believed. With covert desperation, Yamashita ordered his artillery to fire until their last rounds and sent Percival a demand for surrender. “In the spirit of chivalry we have the honour of advising your surrender. Your army, founded on the traditional spirit of Great Britain, is defending Singapore, which is completely isolated, and raising the fame of Great Britain by the ut¬ most exertions and heroic feelings. . . . From now on resistance is futile and merely increases the danger to the million civilian inhabitants without good reason, exposing them to infliction of pain by fire and sword. But the development of the general war situation has already sealed the fate of Singapore, and the continuation of futile resistance would only serve to inflict direct harm and in¬ juries to thousands of non-combatants living in the city, throwing them into further miseries and horrors of war. Furthermore we do not feel you will in¬ crease the fame of the British Army by further resistance.”   Singapore had received another order prior to this from Churchill “It is certain that our troops on Singapore Island greatly outnumber any Japanese that have crossed the Straits. We must defeat them. Our whole fighting reputation is at stake and the honour of the British Empire. The Americans have held out on the Bataan Peninsula against far greater odds, the Russians are turning back the picked strength of the Germans, the Chinese with almost complete lack of mod¬ ern equipment have held the Japanese for AVi years. It will be disgraceful if we yield our boasted fortress of Singapore to inferior enemy forces. There must be no thought ofsparing troops or the civil population and no mercy must be shown to weakness in any shape or form. Commanders and senior officers must lead their troops and if necessary die with them. There must be no question or thought of surrender. Every unit must fight it out to the end and in close contact with the enemy. ... I look to you and your men to fight to the end to prove that the fighting spirit that won our Empire still exists to enable us to defend it.”   What was Percival to do? The Japanese had seized control over Singapore water reservoirs, the population would die of thirst within 2-3 days. Japanese shells were causing fires and death everywhere. People were panicking, trying to get on the very last boats leaving the port, even though that surely meant death to the IJN. An American sailor recalled “There was a lot of chaos and people killed on the docks during these bombardments. Everywhere you looked there was death. Even in the water there were dead sharks and people floating all around.” Defeatism was endemic. Australian troops were overheard saying “Chum, to hell with Malaya and Singapore. Navy let us down, air force let us down. If the bungs [natives] won't fight for their bloody country, why pick on me?” Sensing a complete collapse Percival formed a tight defense arc in front of the city, and by the 13th his commanders were telling him they believed Singapore was already doomed. Wavell was asked for approval for surrender, but he replied  “to continue to inflict maximum damage on enemy for as long as possible by house-to-house fighting if necessary.” Percival then told him the water reservoirs were taken, so Wavell sent back “YOUR GALLANT STAND IS SERVING A PURPOSE AND MUST BE CONTINUED TO THE LIMIT OF ENDURANCE”   On the 15th, Percival held a morning conference reported there was no more fuel, field gun nor bofor ammunition. In 24 hours their water would be done. He told them he would ask for a ceasefire at 4pm, by the end of the day Wavell gave him permission to surrender. Over at his HQ on the Bukit Timah heights, Yamashita was staring at a Union Jack fluttering over Fort Canning. Then a field phone rang, and a frontline commander reported the British were sending out a flag of truce.   Meanwhile back on February the 14th, Japanese forces reached the Alexandra Barracks hospital at 1pm. At 1:40pm a British Lt greeting them waving a white flag and was bayoneted on the spot. The Japanese stormed the hospital and murdered the staff and patients. 200 male staff and patients, badly wounded were bound over night and marched to an industrial estate half a mile away. Anyone who collapsed was bayoneted. The survivors of the march were formed into small groups and hacked to death or bayoneted. For a few days over 320 men and women were massacred. Only 5 survivors would give recounts of the event. It is suspected by historians that Tsuji was the architect of the Alexandra hospital massacre. This is because he was the instigator of countless atrocities he ordered unbeknownst to his superior commanders such as Yamashita.    Percival was ordered to go to the Ford motor factory to where he met with Yamashita. Yamashita was hiding his surprise that the surrender party came and as he glanced at the surrender terms he said through his interpreter “The Japanese Army will consider nothing but surrender,” Yamashita knew his forces were on the verge of running out of ammunition and he still held half troops Percival did, he was anxious Percival would figure it out. Percival replied “I fear that we shall not be able to submit our final reply before ten-thirty p.m.,” Percival had no intention of fighting on he simply wanted to work out specific details before signing the surrender. Yamashita was sure Percival was stalling. “Reply to us only whether our terms are acceptable or not. Things must be settled swiftly. We are prepared to resume firing.Unless you do surrender, we will have to carry out our night attack as scheduled.”” Percival replied ““Cannot the Japanese Army remain in its present position? We can resume negotiations again tomorrow at five-thirty A.M”. Yamashita screamed “Nani! I want the hostilities to cease tonight and I want to remind you there can be no arguments.” Percival replied ““We shall discontinue firing by eight-thirty p.m. Had we better remain in our present positions tonight?” Yamashita said yes and that firing would cease at 8:30pm and that 1000 allied men could keep arms to maintain order within the city. Yamashita stated “You have agreed to the terms but you have not yet made yourself clear as to whether you agree to surrender or not.” Percival cleared his throat and gave a simple nod. Yamashita looked at his interpreter “There's no need for all this talk. It is a simple question and I want a simple answer.” He turned to Percival and shouted, “We want to hear ‘Yes' or ‘No' from you! Surrender or fight!” Percival finally blurted out  “Yes, I agree. I have a request to make. Will the Imperial Army protect the women and children and British civilians?”Yamashita replied  “We shall see to it. Please sign this truce agreement”. At 7:50 the surrender was signed off, 40 minutes later Singapore was in the hands of the Japanese. In 70 days Yamashita took at the cost of 9824 casualties, had seized Malaya and Singapore, nearly 120,000 British surrendered. It was the greatest land victory in Japanese history.   Churchill called the fall of Singapore to the Japanese "the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history" Churchills physician Lord Moran wrote The fall of Singapore on February 15 stupefied the Prime Minister. How came 100,000 men (half of them of our own race) to hold up their hands to inferior numbers of Japanese? Though his mind had been gradually prepared for its fall, the surrender of the fortress stunned him. He felt it was a disgrace. It left a scar on his mind. One evening, months later, when he was sitting in his bathroom enveloped in a towel, he stopped drying himself and gloomily surveyed the floor: 'I cannot get over Singapore', he said sadly   With the fall of singapore came another atrocity, the Sook Ching massacre. After February 18th, the Japanese military began mass killings of what they deemed undesirables, mostly ethnic Chinese. It was overseen by the Kempeitai and did not stop in Singapore, but spread to Malaya. It seems the aim of the purge was to intimidate the Chinese community from performing any resistance. According to postwar testimony taken from a war correspondent embedded with the 25th army, Colonel Hishakari Takafumi, he stated an order went out to kill 50,000 Chinese, of which 20 percent of the total was issued by senior officials on Yamashita's operations staff, most likely Tsuji. It is certain at the behest of Tsuji the orders were extended to Malay. The death toll is a tricky one, the Japanese went on the record to admit to 6000 murders, the Singaporean Chinese community and the Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew allege 70,000-100,000. Historians analyzing the scale of discovered mass graves after some decades think around 25,000-50,000. How much Yamashita knew of the massacre is debatable, the orders came from his office after all, but it seems Tsuji had orchestrated it. Many of Japan's generals wanted Yamashita to be appointed war minister, a move that obviously threatened then Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, who feared his rival. Tojo retaliated, ordering Japan's new war hero back to Manchuria. On the surface, the assignment appeared worthy as Yamashita would serve as the first line of defense against a possible Soviet invasion. But since the two nations had signed a neutrality pact in April 1941, and Soviets were bogged down fighting the Germans, immediate war appeared unlikely. In reality, Tojo had parked Yamashita on the war's sidelines. Tojo went even further, he barred Yamashita any leave in Tokyo, preventing him from visiting his wife as well as from delivering a speech he had written for the emperor. No worries though, an aide of Yamashita's sent him three geishas. Allegedly he said this “I know they want to please me with these girls. But send them back—and don't forget to tip them.” The Tiger of Malaya would maintain a low profile in Manchuria where he received a promotion to full General. As months fell to years Yamashita sat on the sidelines helpless to aid the Japanese forces. His exile would come to an end in 1944 when Tojo was outed and the Tiger was required to try and save the Philippines from General Douglas MacArthur.

Profanity and the Matter of Britain. https://www.patreon.com/subterpod

Join us as we recap and chat about Once Upon a Time Episode 5x10 "Broken Heart"Did you know when they regain their memories Robin touches his side as he remembers getting stabbed by Percival, but he touches the wrong side of his body?Wiki page for the episode: https://onceuponatime.fandom.com/wiki/Broken_HeartLinks, articles, and videos mentioned in this episode:Bobby's trailer for Watson on CBSJoin our Book Club and get access to exclusive content on PatreonFollow us on InstagramFollow us on TiktokFollow us on Bluesky

Tasting Notes Include:  Reg becoming a ventriloquist, Percival becomes Jughead, Jughead becomes unable to turn off his powers, Cheryl becomes unseeable and called a hot witch by HER hot witch, Charles is released from jail, because jail thinks he's gonna die anyway, Veronica is a normal human person who can process blood, Betty Prevents Charles Murder and Archie asks nicely to be in a union please. We have socials that you can reach out to us on, or we have an email that we check more often! Our Socials: Bluesky-RiverdaleRuns /  Instagram-riverdale_runs Our Email: arrtipod@gmail.com  

From date-night plans to dodgy stag-do budgets, this week's SLMan team podcast covers a lot. Harvey, Harry and Frankie kick things off with what they're wearing – including not-yet-released Percival boots and the cord blazer everyone wants from ARKET – before sharing their latest wellness fixes, including ROWBOTS classes, a guided run on the Open app and a Bermondsey sauna/ice bath session for hangover-free Sundays. They also review a new London restaurant, Maset on Chiltern Street, and get into the Anthony Joshua versus Jake Paul fight – is it genuine or pure pantomime for pay-per-view? There's chat about chaotic Christmas shopping, tinfoil-wrapped presents, the product finally taming Harvey's hair and the earplugs that changed Frankie's sleep. Plus, the trio tackle your dilemmas: what to do when no one likes your mate's partner, whether to move in with your girlfriend when you're still loving bachelor life and how to handle earning less than your friends… NEW & NOTEWORTHYROWBOTS | https://rowbots.co.uk Innervisions Alchemy | https://www.innervisionsalchemy.co.uk Maset | https://www.maset.london Open | https://o-p-e-n.com FASHION FINDSPaul Smith Sweater | https://bit.ly/4p3Ab1g Thames Cashmere P.G. | https://bit.ly/48h2P7V Arket Corduroy Blazer | https://prf.hn/l/4PGj5yP/ Luchesse Boots | https://bit.ly/48miWB8 Dubarry Or Ireland Cotton Cap | https://bit.ly/4roUqYX HOT TOPICJo Malone Advent Calendar | https://bit.ly/49Eadg4 RIDE OR DIELoop Earplugs | https://amzn.to/3K8Kz8V Dr. Jart Moisturiser | https://tidd.ly/3KsyT0K Hanz De Fuko Claymation | https://amzn.to/4prMGn2 VO5 Matt Clay | https://tidd.ly/3M1q7Hz Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From date-night plans to dodgy stag-do budgets, this week's SLMan team podcast covers a lot. Harvey, Harry and Frankie kick things off with what they're wearing – including not-yet-released Percival boots and the cord blazer everyone wants from ARKET – before sharing their latest wellness fixes, including ROWBOTS classes, a guided run on the Open app and a Bermondsey sauna/ice bath session for hangover-free Sundays. They also review a new London restaurant, Maset on Chiltern Street, and get into the Anthony Joshua versus Jake Paul fight – is it genuine or pure pantomime for pay-per-view? There's chat about chaotic Christmas shopping, tinfoil-wrapped presents, the product finally taming Harvey's hair and the earplugs that changed Frankie's sleep. Plus, the trio tackle your dilemmas: what to do when no one likes your mate's partner, whether to move in with your girlfriend when you're still loving bachelor life and how to handle earning less than your friends… NEW & NOTEWORTHYROWBOTS | https://rowbots.co.uk Innervisions Alchemy | https://www.innervisionsalchemy.co.uk Maset | https://www.maset.london Open | https://o-p-e-n.com FASHION FINDSPaul Smith Sweater | https://bit.ly/4p3Ab1g Thames Cashmere P.G. | https://bit.ly/48h2P7V Arket Corduroy Blazer | https://prf.hn/l/4PGj5yP/ Luchesse Boots | https://bit.ly/48miWB8 Dubarry Or Ireland Cotton Cap | https://bit.ly/4roUqYX HOT TOPICJo Malone Advent Calendar | https://bit.ly/49Eadg4 RIDE OR DIELoop Earplugs | https://amzn.to/3K8Kz8V Dr. Jart Moisturiser | https://tidd.ly/3KsyT0K Hanz De Fuko Claymation | https://amzn.to/4prMGn2 VO5 Matt Clay | https://tidd.ly/3M1q7Hz Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week Seth Paridon and Jon Parshall take a look at the preparation for the Japanese invasion of Malaya in December 1941. The guys dig into the Japanese outlook on the region, the reasons for invasion, as well as the invasion plans. Digging into the personalities involved, Jon dishes out the goods on Brooke-Popham, Percival, Yamashita and others. A fascinating discussion on the Japanese plan of attack and lack of British preparedness (and why that was) follows. Dig into this one as we set up the greatest disaster in British military history. #wwiihistory #ww2 #usnavy #usa #usarmy #medalofhonor #enterprise #aircraft #aircraftcarrier #cv6 #midway #wwii #wwiihistory #ww2 #worldwar2 #usnavy #usnavyseals #usmc #usmarines #saipan #usa #usarmy #aircraft #aircraftcarrier #battleship #battleships #ussenterprise #aircraftcarriers #museum #essex #halsey #taskforce38 #wwii #wwiihistory #ww2 #usnavy #usa #usarmy #medalofhonor #enterprise #aircraft #aircraftcarrier #cv6 #midway #wwii #wwiihistory #ww2 #worldwar2 #usnavy #usnavyseals #usmc #usmarines #saipan #usa #usarmy #aircraft #aircraftcarrier #battleship #battleships #ussenterprise #aircraftcarriers #museum #hollywood #movie #movies #books #mastersoftheair #8thairforce #mightyeighth #100thbombgroup #bloodyhundredth #b17 #boeing #airforce wwii #wwiihistory #ww2 #usnavy #usa #usarmy #medalofhonor #enterprise #aircraft #aircraftcarrier #cv6 #midway #wwii #wwiihistory #ww2 #worldwar2 #usnavy #usnavyseals #usmc #usmarines #saipan #usa #usarmy #aircraft #aircraftcarrier #battleship #battleships #ussenterprise #aircraftcarriers #museum #hollywood #movie #movies #books #oldbreed #1stMarineDivision #thepacific #Peleliu #army #marines #marinecorps #worldwar2 #worldwar #worldwarii #leytegulf #battleofleytegulf #rodserling #twilightzone #liberation #blacksheep #power #prisoner #prisonerofwar #typhoon #hurricane #weather #iwojima#bullhalsey #ace #p47 #p38 #fighter #fighterpilot #b29 #strategicstudying #tokyo #boeing #incendiary #usa #franklin #okinawa #yamato #kamikaze #Q&A #questions #questionsandanswers #history #jaws #atomicbomb #nuclear #nationalarchives #nara #johnford #hollywood #fdr #president #roosevelt #doolittle #doolittleraid #pearlharborattack #salvaged #medalofhonor #british #raf #royalairforce

Percival Everett has made a career out of exploring the nature of absurdity. You may have become aware of Everett in the last few years when his novel “Erasure” was adapted into the movie “American Fiction” in 2023, or when his book “James” won the Pulitzer prize last year. But Everett has written 24 novels since 1983 along with several books of poetry and short story collections, each of them tackling a different genre of writing and a different angle on nonsense, absurdity or irony. As he says, “to accept the absurdity of a situation is to accept the humanness of it.” We talk to Percival Everett in front of an audience of students at McDaniel High School in Portland.

Tim Percival – the communications strategist behind England Rugby and the British & Irish Lions – joins Inside The Mind of Champions to unpack how elite leaders manage the media when the pressure is on.From shaping the narrative in high-stakes moments to handling crises, social media storms, and those curve-ball questions that can derail a reputation, Jeremy and Tim reveal the playbook used by world-class coaches like Jürgen Klopp, Emma Hayes, Eddie Jones, and Tony Pulis. It's a sharp, behind-the-scenes look at how top performers influence perception, protect their team, and keep control of the story, with practical lessons you can use in any boardroom or briefing.Read Tim's book here https://www.amazon.co.uk/Record-Ball-elite-coaches-master/dp/1915237661Learn more about Sporting Edge's Winning Mindset for Leaders Programme here Winning Mindset for Leaders Programme - Sporting EdgeConnect with JeremyContact hello@sportingedge.com LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremysnape/ Website https://www.sportingedge.com/

durée : 00:45:05 - La 20e heure - par : Eva Bester - L'écrivain, professeur américain Percival Everett, dont les écrits se situent à la frontière de plusieurs genres littéraires, vient nous parler de son livre "James" sorti aux Éditions de l'Olivier pour lequel il fut lauréat du prix Pulitzer de la fiction cette année. - invités : Percival EVERETT - Percival Everett : romancier américain - réalisé par : Lola COSTANTINI Vous aimez ce podcast ? Pour écouter tous les autres épisodes sans limite, rendez-vous sur Radio France.

"The Eau Claire PEA scenarios each demonstrate an exceptional internal rate of return and net present value," commented Tim Clark, CEO of Fury. "The results validate our belief that the market has significantly undervalued the project within Fury's broader asset portfolio. With strong infrastructure in place, including access to hydro power and roads, combined with favourable metallurgy, Eau Claire stands out as a highly attractive development opportunity with substantial exploration upside, presently hosting a combined Eau Claire and Percival resource of 6.39 Mt at 5.64 g/t gold containing 1.16Moz gold Measured and Indicated plus 5.45 Mt at 4.13 g/t gold containing 723koz gold Inferred." Sponsor: https://furygoldmines.com/ Ticker: FURY Press Releases discussed: https://furygoldmines.com/fury-announces-results-of-preliminary-economic-assessment-for-the-eau-claire-gold-deposit-with-a-base-case-after-tax-npv5-of-554m-and-after-tax-irr-of-41/ 0:00 Intro 0:57 Three PEA scenarios 3:23 CEO commentary 6:03 New PEA vs old PEA 8:11 Toll milling partner 10:03 Base case vs toll milling timeline 11:08 Sensitivities 12:09 76% ounces M&I 13:41 Explorer to Developer Sign up for our free newsletter and receive interview transcripts, stock profiles and investment ideas: http://eepurl.com/cHxJ39 Sponsor Fury Gold Mines pays MSE a United States dollar seven thousand per month coverage fee. The forward-looking statement found in Fury Gold's most-recent presentation found at www.FuryGoldMines.com applies to everything discussed in this interview. Mining Stock Education (MSE) offers informational content based on available data but it does not constitute investment, tax, or legal advice. It may not be appropriate for all situations or objectives. Readers and listeners should seek professional advice, make independent investigations and assessments before investing. MSE does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of its content and should not be solely relied upon for investment decisions. MSE and its owner may hold financial interests in the companies discussed and can trade such securities without notice. MSE is biased towards its advertising sponsors which make this platform possible. MSE is not liable for representations, warranties, or omissions in its content. By accessing MSE content, users agree that MSE and its affiliates bear no liability related to the information provided or the investment decisions you make. Full disclaimer: https://www.miningstockeducation.com/disclaimer/

durée : 00:07:55 - Le Masque et la Plume - Qu'ont pensé les critiques littéraires du nouveau roman de l'américain Percival Everett, "James", une réécriture audacieuse des "Aventures de Huckleberry Finn" de Mark Twain (1884) publié aux éditions de l'Olivier dans une traduction d'Anne-Laure Tissut ? Vous aimez ce podcast ? Pour écouter tous les autres épisodes sans limite, rendez-vous sur Radio France.

durée : 00:50:57 - Le Masque et la Plume - par : Laurent Goumarre - Une confrontation avec une mère toxique et une enfance chaotique ; un héritage familial lourd de silences et de drames ; une amitié homme-femme et le pouvoir du dialogue ; un esclave lettré défie le racisme et forge son destin et un roman qui mêle abandon paternel, jeux vidéo et chronique sociale. - invités : Arnaud Viviant, Patricia Martin, Raphaelle Leyris, Hubert ARTUS - Arnaud Viviant : Critique littéraire (Revue Regards), Patricia Martin : Journaliste, critique littéraire et productrice chez France Inter, Raphaëlle Leyris : Journaliste au Monde, critique littéraire, Hubert Artus : Journaliste et chroniqueur littéraire (Lire, L'Optimum) - réalisé par : Guillaume Girault Vous aimez ce podcast ? Pour écouter tous les autres épisodes sans limite, rendez-vous sur Radio France.

The Drunk Guys drink the Fuck out of some beer this week when they read Erasure by Percival Everett, the book that was turned into the film American Fiction (2023). They erase cans of: Parrots of the Caribbean by KCBC and One Dimensional Man by Root + Branch. Join the

In this captivating episode of Truth Be Told, host Tony Sweet sits down with renowned historian and author John Matthews to explore The Prophecies of Merlin: The First English Translation of the 15th-Century Text. Together, they unravel the legendary tales of Merlin's demonic origins, his early speech as a newborn, magical survival, and his storied affair with the Lady of the Lake.John also shares rare insights into King Arthur's mystical connection with Prester John, the Grail quests of Percival, and the ancient Welsh prophecies that shaped the Arthurian world. We dive deep into how this obscure manuscript—unearthed and translated after centuries—may change the way we understand Merlin's role as prophet, magician, and mythic figure.Don't miss this powerful conversation that blends scholarship, spirituality, and the supernatural. 

James isn't so much a retelling or corrective of Huck Finn as it is an expansion, a conversation with, a delving -- or so says Pulitzer Prize winner Percival Everett. Tune in to find out what happens when an authors reads Huck Finn 15 times and then starts putting pen to paper.This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/overdue and get on your way to being your best self.Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis.Follow @overduepod on Instagram and BlueskyAdvertise on OverdueSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A year ago, Percival Everett published his twenty-fourth novel, “James,” and it became a literary phenomenon. It won the National Book Award, and, just this week, was announced as the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. “James” offers a radically different perspective on the classic Mark Twain novel “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”: Everett centers his story on the character of Jim, who is escaping slavery. The New Yorker staff writer Julian Lucas is a longtime Everett fan, and talked with the novelist just after “James” was released. “My Jim—he's not simple,” Everett tells Julian Lucas. “The Jim that's represented in ‘Huck Finn' is simple.” This segment originally aired on March 22, 2024.