World: Across the Causeway

For a few hours one brilliantly moonlit night last week a strip of granite and concrete, 1,153 yards long and 20 yards wide, was the safety valve of the British Empire. The Battle of Malaya was lost; the Battle of Singapore was about to begin. Between the two battles there lay only the narrow strip connecting Johore and Singapore Island, known as the Causeway.

Britain's spindling Army commander, Lieut. General Arthur Ernest Percival, mindful of the hazard of trying to defend southern Johore with no avenue of escape but the Causeway, had decided to...