In the early hours of 8 February 1942 the Japanese Army's 5 and 18 divisions, who had been awaiting their opportunity to invade the Island's North coast by The Straits at Johore, crossed The Straits in the dark in small boats and made a decisive landing in the face of the enemy, a landing achieved bit-by-bit under enemy shell-fire. The Straits echoed with their voices encouraging one another. Their campaign to take Singapore Island was beginning.

The surviving British, Indian and Australians were now all on the Island, and the GOC commanding its defence, Lt-General Percival, had been strengthening its defence-works, but part of the British 18 Division reinforcement had still not arrived. The Island had lost mastery of the air and day-after-day the streets of the City were exposed to bombing, bombing on streets which sustained damage and had no military equipment.

An officer of a British reinforcement group landed on the Island on 5 February. His company was in the supply and barracks corps (the Royal Army Service Corps). He was Lieutenant Geoffrey Pharaoh Adams, and in his book, No Time for Geishas (1973) he tries to recount how it happened. I quote from it: