in and throughout the night fierce fighting raged on the northern front. The following day, the remaining Commonwealth units fought on. Civilian casualties mounted as a million people crowded into the area still held by the Commonwealth and bombing and artillery-fire increased. The civilian authorities began to fear that the water supply would give out; Percival was advised that large amounts of water were being lost due to damaged pipes and that the water supply was on the verge of collapse. Alexandra Hospital massacre On 14 February 1942, the Japanese renewed their assault on the western part of the Southern Area's defences near the area that the 1st Malayan Brigade had fought desperately to hold the previous day. At about 13:00, the Japanese broke through and advanced towards the Alexandra Barracks Hospital. A British lieutenant—acting as an envoy with a white flag—approached Japanese forces but was killed with a bayonet. After Japanese troops entered the hospital, they killed up to 50 soldiers, including some undergoing surgery. Doctors and nurses were also killed. The next day, about 200 male staff members and patients who had been assembled and bound the previous day, many of them walking wounded, were ordered to walk about to an industrial area. Those who fell on the way were bayoneted. The men were forced into a series of small, badly ventilated rooms where they were held overnight without water. Some died during the night as a result of their treatment. The remainder were bayoneted the following morning. Several survivors were identified after the war, some of whom had survived by pretending to be dead. One survivor, Private Arthur Haines from the Wiltshire Regiment, wrote a four-page account of the massacre that was sold by his daughter by private auction in 2008. Fall of Singapore Throughout the night of 14/15 February, the Japanese continued to press against the Commonwealth perimeter, and though the line largely held, the military supply situation was rapidly deteriorating. The water system was badly damaged and supply was uncertain, rations were running low, petrol for military vehicles was all but exhausted, and there was little ammunition left for the field artillery and anti-aircraft guns, which were unable to disrupt the Japanese air attacks causing many casualties in the city centre. Little work had been done to build air raid shelters, and looting and desertion by Commonwealth troops further added to the chaos in the