During World War II, the Imperial Japanese Army invaded Malaya, culminating in the Battle of Singapore. The ill-prepared British were defeated in six days, and surrendered the supposedly impregnable "Bastion of the Empire" to General Tomoyuki Yamashita on 15 February 1942 in what is now known as the British Empire's greatest military defeat. The Japanese renamed Singapore Shōnantō (昭南島, Shōnantō?), from Japanese "Shōwa no jidai ni eta minami no shima" ("昭和の時代に得た南の島", "Shōwa no jidai ni eta minami no shima"?), or "southern island obtained in the age of Shōwa", and occupied it until the British repossessed the island on 12 September 1945, a month after the Japanese surrender.
The name Shōnantō was, at the time, romanized as "Syonan-to" or "Syonan".
The name Shōnantō was, at the time, romanized as "Syonan-to" or "Syonan".
