My father in law told a story of his time in Singapore immediately prior to its fall. He was somewhere on the north side of the Island, or possibly at the Naval Base, when the Japanese sent a tank onto the causeway to inspect the damage caused by the British when they blew it up. Apparently, a gun from a merchant ship opened fire and blew the tank to smithereens - to quote him "cogs went flying everywhere." Has anyone else heard this story? Does anyone know which ship opened fire? I have read a description of this in a book, but unfortunately cannot remember which one! Any information about this appreciated.
The only case of a Japanese tank that I've read concerning the Invasion of Singapore is at the Battle of Bukit Timah. But in this case the Japanese sent a tank down the road but the British knocked it out with an anti-tank gun. Battle of Bukit Timah - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
HI, Thanks for that. I can check it out. The story of the tank on the causeway was also confirmed by the author Louis Allen, who used to correspond with one of the Japanese commanders of the Singapore invasion force. He had heard of the same story but was not able to tell me where to look and unfortunately, when I contacted Mr Allen (about 1990) the japanese gentleman had died shortly beforehand. This meant that this line of research came to an end.