Most Dangerous Moment of the War

"In early April 1942, a little-known chapter of World War II took place, said by Sir Winston Churchill to be 'the most dangerous moment of the war' when the Japanese swept westwards into the Indian Ocean, brushing aside any opposition. It was their only major offensive westwards during the war. Having destroyed much of the American fleet at Pearl Harbour, the Japanese plan was to attack and destroy the British Eastern Fleet based at Ceylon (Sri Lanka). Had they been successful, the Japanese would have gained total control of the southern oceans, a perfect springboard for an invasion of India. It was expected that Ceylon, a crucial source of raw materials for the Allies, would be next to fall. No one in history in such a short space of time and the Allied naval strength in the Far East was at a dangerously low level. It was a situation aggravated by the possibility that at the same time the Germans could have captured Egypt and closed our routes to the Middle East. John Clancy tells the story of the events of this dramatic episode which could have altered the entire course of the war, in which a major catastrophe was only narrowly averted, but in which over a thousand mainly British lives were lost, including the sinking of HMS Cornwall and HMS Dorsetshire." -- Book jacket.