Major-General Takumi and his Brigade was in three Transports and faced heavy weather on the way to Malaya. In the early morning of 8th December The Takumi Brigade landed on the coast of Kota Bharu, Malaya, 2000 yards south of the desired position. As he recalled later: "A stiff breeze was blowing and i could hear it whistling in the radio aerials. The waves were now up to six feet". Then the men were crawling in to the landing crafts and faced some difficulties as Takumi wrote: "They were not only encumbered with life-jackets, but with rifles, light machine guns, ammunition and equipment. It was very hard to jump into the landing craft and even harder to move forward to our places. At intervals a soldier would fall screaming into the sea, and the sappers would fish him out." They landed directly in front of the 8th Indian Brigade and faced fierce opposition. Because the heavy weather he needed some runs to succeed in landing all his men. It was a big chaos but they succeeded in landing all the mens. After some hour of fighting the 8th Brigade was outflanked and retired to back positions and then to Jitra. So the long retreat began... Yamashita landed at Singora with no opposition and moved immediately to south to cross the border one day later. In the morning Sir Shenton Thomas heard that war had really come. From his headquarters in Fort Canning, General Percival was ringing up to give news that landings had commenced at Kota Bharu. According to one account, Thomas replied somewhat casually, "Well, I suppose you'll shove the little men off". What a overconfidence... The Japanese uniforms are from Poserworld, the uniform in foreground is from Khaki Drill Package from the fabulous talented Tryphon