Arthur Ernest Percival

In 1942 he surrendered Singapore to the Japanese.

• 1914 at the outbreak of WWI at the age of 27 he volunteered in the army joining as a private.
• 1916 As a first lieutenant he goes with the Bedfordshire Regiment to France for the battle of the Somme. He wins the Military Cross.
• 1917 promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and given command of a battalion shortly after a brigade.
• 1918 He was recommended for the staff of Sandhurst
• 1919 volunteered to serve in the north of Russia
• 1920 he served with the Essex Regiment in Ireland
• Served in Nigeria
• 1930 Enterd the Staff College, whose commander was General Sir John Dill.
• Spent the next ten years working for General Dill.
• 1939 command the 43rd Division of the British Expeditionary Force .
• 1940 after the Dunkirk evacuation he commandwd the 44th Division protecting the English coast.
• 1941 spring, placed in command of British forces in Malaya.
• Tuesday December 8 1941 Japanese Army lands on the Malay peninsula (about a day after Perl Harbour, but +24h because of international date line).
• January 25 1942 he ordered a general retreat across the Johore Strait to the island of Singapore.
• February 8 13000 Japanese troops landed on the northwest corner of the island.
• February 9 17000 Japanese troops landed in the west.
• February 15 1942 Percival surrendered Singapore to Lieutenant-General Tomoyuki Yamashita of the Imperial Japanese Army. 130,000 Allied personnel surrendered to less than 30,000 Japanese. He was held prisoner in Manchuria until the end of World War II.
• 1949 His book "The War in Malaysia" was published
• January 31 1966 died.