undertake garrison duties there following a British request for more troops. This was initially a temporary move, with plans for the brigade to rejoin the division, which would then be transferred to the Middle East. Meanwhile, the 23rd Brigade moved to Darwin in April 1941. The 2/22nd Battalion was detached from it and deployed to Rabaul, New Britain that month, as part of plans to deploy to the islands to Australia's north in the event of war with Japan; ill-prepared, poorly equipped and hastily deployed, they would ultimately be destroyed. The 27th Brigade joined the 22nd Brigade in Malaya, in August. The remainder of the 23rd Brigade was split into another two detachments: the 2/40th Battalion to Timor, while the 2/21st Battalion went to Ambon in the Dutch East Indies. In October 1941, the 23rd Brigade officially taken off the division's order of battle, to simplify command arrangements, which had been strained by the splitting of the division's brigades. Malaya As war broke out in the Pacific Japanese forces based in Vichy French-controlled Indochina quickly overran Thailand and invaded Malaya. The loss of two British capital ships, HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales, off Malaya on 10 December 1941, neutralised Allied naval superiority, allowing the Japanese to perform amphibious assaults on the Malayan coast with much less resistance. Japanese forces met stiff resistance from III Corps of the Indian Army and British units in northern Malaya, but Japan's superiority in air power, tanks and infantry tactics forced the British and Indian units, who had very few tanks and remained vulnerable to isolation and encirclement, back along the west coast towards Gemas and on the east coast towards Endau. On 14 January 1942, parts of the division went into action for the first time south of Kuala Lumpur, at Gemas and Muar. The 2/30th Battalion had some early success at the Gemencheh River Bridge, carrying out a large-scale ambush which destroyed a Japanese battalion. Following this, the Japanese attempted a flanking towards Muar. The 2/29th and the 2/19th Battalions were detached as reinforcements for the 45th Indian Infantry Brigade, which was in danger of being overrun near the Muar River. By 22 January, a mixed force from the two battalions, with some Indian troops, had been isolated and forced to fight their way south to Yong Peng. Members of the Imperial Japanese Guards Division massacred about 135 Allied prisoners at