 The Singapore Naval Base suffered little damage in the fighting and became the Imperial Japanese Navy 's most important facility outside of the Japanese home islands . The 15 @-@ inch guns were sabotaged by the British before the fall of Singapore , and four of them were deemed beyond repair and scrapped by the Japanese . The floating dry dock was scuttled by the British , but raised by the Japanese . It was damaged beyond repair by a raid by Boeing B @-@ 29 Superfortresses in February 1945 , and ultimately towed out to sea and dumped in 1946 . The Royal Navy took repossession of the Singapore base in 1945 . 
