Union flag captured from a government building in Singapore, 1942

The flag was taken by Sergeant Major Uchiyama of the Imperial Japanese Army and inscribed by him. He removed it from a British building during the fall of Singapore in February 1942.

Singapore had been Britain's major military base in the Far East and the keystone of its regional defence system. Its capture by the Japanese was one of the worse British defeats of World War Two (1939-1945).

The flag was recaptured by Captain John Nunneley of 3/6th (Tanganyika Territory) Battalion The King's African Rifles in the Kabaw Valley in Burma during October 1944.