SINCE the dawn of electronic entertainment, the battles of World War Two (WW2) have been featured front-and-centre in all sorts of video games ranging from arcade-style flight simulators to those that try to replicate the tough decisions made by world leaders of that era.
And when it comes to WW2, many games tend to focus on certain areas such as the battles on the Eastern Front between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union or the island-hopping campaign conducted by the United States to drive Japan out of the Pacific.
As such, certain campaigns of WW2 such as the Japanese invasion of British Malaya are not featured prominently - if at all - in most video games that touch on the war, making any mention of it more noticeable.
With that said, it has been said online occasionally over the last six years that an arcade-style game called “Flying Tigers: Shadows over China” featured the initial invasion of Kota Baru in its in-game campaign. Is there any truth to this?
Verdict:
TRUE
Yes, this is true as the game in question has a level simply titled - “Invasion of Malaya” - which is focused on the immediate prelude to the December 1941 landing of Japanese forces in Kota Baru, Kelantan.
This level is one of 12 in the game, in which a person takes up the role of a pilot or aerial gunner to experience combat against the Japanese invasion in the early stages of the China Burma India Theatre of WW2 and South-East Asia.
Having said that, what makes it interesting is that the Swedish developers of the game - Ace Maddox - not only mentions the invasion of Kota Baru, it gets several key facts in the level right even though the entire game is focused on arcade-style action as opposed to total historical realism.
The first thing it gets right is that when the game puts the player in the controls of a Bristol Blenheim light bomber to sink Japanese ships before they can land their troops in Malaya, the dialogue mentions that the aircraft is from No. 62 Squadron of the UK's Royal Air Force.
This line in a cutscene is correct because the squadron in question was flying the Blenheim in Malaya at the start of WW2.
However, it has to be said that the inclusion of a flight of Blenheims of this squadron in the level is in itself inaccurate as No. 62 Squadron was actually based in Butterworth, Penang at the time and had been tasked with raids on Japanese airfields in Singora, Thailand at the outbreak of war.
Another key fact that Ace Maddox gets right in the “Invasion of Malaya” level is that it has players attacking a Japanese ship, which the game identifies as the light cruiser Sendai.
This is correct because the Sendai was in fact tasked with supporting the landing of Japanese soldiers to attack Kota Baru.
Additionally, it is also noteworthy that the game stops the attack on the Sendai before a player can sink it; this is historically accurate as the Sendai was not sunk in the South China Sea in 1941, but off Papua New Guinea in the Nov 2, 1943 Battle of Empress Augusta Bay.
Sources:
1. Flying Tigers: Shadows over China, Steam Edition
2. Gillison, Douglas. "Chapter 11: The Price of Hesitation". Australia in the War of 1939–1945: Series Three – Air: Volume I: Royal Australian Air Force 1939–1942 https://web.archive.org/web/20121022010820/http://www.awm.gov.au/collection/records/awmohww2/air/vol1/awmohww2-air-vol1-ch11.pdf
3. IJN SENDAI: Tabular Record of Movement
http://www.combinedfleet.com/sendai_t.htm
