This work has the usual set of characteristics one finds in a Grub Street publication. On one hand you get day-by-day coverage of events and unique source material. On the other you wish that there was more attention paid to editing and documentary apparatus; the need for orders of battle and a better index particularly come to mind. Some of the sources are a little dubious too, such as accepting the claim from Peter Elphick's controversial "Singapore: The Pregnable Fortress" that there were German officers serving in the Imperial Japanese Army; oh really? It makes one wonder why Louis Allen's "Singapore" or Bayly & Harper's "Forgotten Armies" aren't included in the sources.

That said, this is a great story that I really enjoyed reading, as a band of mostly Aussie and Kiwi pilots find themselves stuck with the impossible task of defending the propaganda mirage of Fortress Singapore against the Japanese military at its peak, in obsolete equipment, while led by the indifferent cast-offs of the British military. If you want a telling anecdote there is the case of Pilot Officer Tom Watson, RCAF who apparently flew the last Brewster Buffalo out of Singapore, and for his trouble was "reprimanded...for flying an airplane on which I had not officially been checked out." Even if you start to wonder if the authors are laying on the varnish of Commonwealth lions being led by British donkeys a little too thick, there is no lack of documented incompetance at Singapore not to make you shake your head at the waste of it all. ( )