Singapore was Britain's most humiliating defeat of World War II and diminished Australia's relationship with the British Empire. A hundred and thirty thousand British and Commonwealth troops were captured, including 15 000 Australians. The siege was brief but bloody. In February 1942 Japanese troops surged across the narrow strait separating Singapore and Malaya. Australian forces were caught in bitter fighting in the north-west of the island, where they were hampered by waterways that bisected their positions, inadequate communications, and poor command and tactical decisions. From Singapore the Japanese raised work contingents for Borneo, Thailand and other parts of their empire. Tens of thousands had been reassigned from the island by 1943; many would never return.