What happened to AirAsia flight QZ8501?

Salvage teams are starting to try to raise the fuselage of AirAsia flight QZ8501, which crashed into the Java Sea last month killing all 162 people on board. The Airbus A320 left Surabaya in Indonesia for Singapore at 0535 local time on December 28, and vanished nearly half-way into the two hour flight.

The salvage operation has been delayed by bad weather, and so far only 69 bodies have been recovered. Indonesian officials believe the aircraft may have climbed too fast to try to avoid a storm, then stalled.

Transport Minister Ignasius Jonan said radar data showed the Airbus had climbed at a speed of 6,000ft a minute, a rate that could only be achieved by a fighter jet, and was at least three times what a commercial airliner would normally do.

Shortly before it disappeared, the pilot asked air traffic control for permission to climb from 32,000 to 38,000 feet to avoid some big storm clouds. Because of heavy traffic in the area, he was not immediately given permission, and when air traffic control tried to contact the crew again, there was no answer. The aircraft disappeared from radar screens soon afterwards, without sending a distress signal.

Britain's 20 Worst Military Disasters 20 - the Fall of Singapore

For Winston Churchill, it was ‘the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history’.   Before World War Two, Britain had spent the then vast sum of £60m turning the island of Singapore into a supposedly impregnable fortress at the end of the Malayan peninsula – at that time also a British colony.

On December 8, 1941, the Japanese landed at the northern end of the peninsula, and though they were heavily outnumbered, they fought their way down it remorselessly, until by the end of January 1942, they had conquered the whole peninsula without the British scoring a single significant victory.

Now the defenders blew up the causeway that linked Singapore to the mainland, but on February 8, the Japanese launched an invasion.   Just as they had in Malaya, they outfought and outmanoeuvred the defending forces, using their air supremacy to deadly effect.

Just a week later, 85,000 British and British Empire forces surrendered to the 35,000 Japanese invaders.    The Japanese had lost only 3,500 men in the conquest of Malaya and Singapore – then the greatest city in south-east Asia.

My new book

My new book, Britain’s 20 Worst Military Disaster: from the Roman Conquest to the Fall of Singapore, is just out.   Not surprisingly everyone in Britain seems to know about our great victories – Crecy, Agincourt, Blenheim, Trafalgar, Waterloo, El Alamein, etc, but when you have fought as many wars as the British, it’s not surprising that there’ve also been plenty of disasters. 

The book looks at famous ones, such as Hastings, and Yorktown, which sealed the loss of the American colonies, but it also tells the story of the forgotten defeats – like Castillon, the last battle of the 100 Years War.

Some, like the first Battle of the Medway, had far-reaching consequences, paving the way for the Roman conquest.    Others, like the second Battle of the Medway sixteen hundred years later, had little long-term impact, but was still regarded as ‘a dishonour never to be wiped off’.

There are stories of defeats by Afghans, Americans and Zulus, who had all been dismissed back home as no match for our boys, and of brilliant retreats that prevented even worse disasters as at Gallipoli and Dunkirk.

Britain’s 20 Worst Military Disasters ISBN: 9780752461977 is published by the History Press, and is offered for sale on their website

http://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/products/Britains-20-Worst-Military-Disasters.aspx

Iraq chaos continues Part 94

The carnage unleashed by Messrs Blair and Bush when they plotted their invasion of Iraq nearly 8 years ago still continues. The death toll from a suicide bomb yesterday aimed at Shi’ite pilgrims near the city of Samarra has risen to 48. Another 80 people have been injured.

The bomber detonated his explosives at a bus depot as Shi’ites were gathering to commemorate the death of one of their most revered imams. Some are blaming al-Qaeda.

Hardly a day goes by in Iraq without a bombing or some other terrorist attack. Last month, dozens of Shi’ite pilgrims were killed in attacks near the holy city of Kerbala, while last Wednesday, at least seven died in the northern city of Kirkuk.

* I was going to keep this under my hat a little longer, but the all-seeing internet has revealed that I’m writing a new book - Britain’s Worst Military Disasters: from the Roman Conquest to the fall of Singapore. Here are a couple of links:-

https://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/products/john+withington/britain27s+worst+military+disasters/8396464/

http://www.whsmith.co.uk/CatalogAndSearch/ProductDetails.aspx?ProductID=9780752461977