[4] Allied soldiers, under the command of Major General Gordon Bennett, inflicted severe losses on Japanese forces at the Gemensah Bridge ambush and in a second battle a few kilometres north of the town of Gemas.

The three subordinate sectors were: B Company of the 2/30th Australian Battalion, under Captain Desmond J. Duffy,[8] entrenched and concealed themselves on one side of the Gemensah Bridge, spanning a stream, as part of the ambush.

However, the bicycle infantry who had passed through the ambush area discovered the field telephone cable hidden in a patchy undergrowth which linked back to the gun positions, and promptly cut it.

[15] The ambush party, having done a substantial slaughter, duly fell back in several groups that same evening and by next day most of B Company had rejoined their battalion in a position near Gemas.

[16] The Japanese 9th Brigade war diary puts the casualties of the Mukaide Detachment at seventy dead and fifty-seven wounded but this does not include the other attached units.

[5] Six hours after the ambush the Japanese had repaired the bridge and were moving on their way towards Galleghan's main position at the 61-mile (98 km) peg on the Gemas-Tampin road.

[17] By 10:00 on 15 January, Japanese infantry clashed with the Allied defence lines, and as the day wore on they were supported by an increasing number of tanks.

[5] The 2/30th Battalion had inflicted heavy casualties on the Japanese with minimal loss to themselves, suffering in all seventeen killed, nine missing and fifty-five wounded.

Bennett, boosted by the initial success, was quoted in the Singapore Times as saying that his troops were confident that they would not only halt the Japanese advance, but compel them to be on the defensive.

[5] Packed barges and junks were making their way across the river mouth, meeting no resistance except a subsequent brush with an Indian patrol, which retired after a brief exchange of shots.

[5] At Muar itself, a Japanese attempt to land and seize the harbour was repulsed by Australian artillery, firing at packed barges and junks as they tried to make their way across the river mouth.

Japanese ambushes were soon deployed to repel any Allied counter-attack, while at the same time they continued their relentless charge towards Bakri, Parit Sulong and Batu Pahat.

The 2/29th, led by Lieutenant Colonel John Robertson MC VD, dug in around Bakri-Muar Road with anti-tank, anti-aircraft and mortar emplacements.

[5] At dawn of 20 January, the 3/16th Punjab Regiment, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Henry Moorhead (who took part in Operation Krohcol), was ordered to recapture the ridge.

With Duncan and Robertson dead, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Anderson assumed full command of the 45th Brigade and all other units around Bakri.

The guards which were placed there by the 6th Norfolks, cut off from all contact and without rations since the Japanese raiding force drove the battalion from the defile a few kilometres further on, had left their post and set off along the river bank to Batu Pahat.

[5] With ammunition for the mortars and 25 pounders nearly exhausted, Anderson sent a message to General Bennett requesting an airstrike at dawn on Japanese forces holding the far end of the bridge, and for food and morphine be airdropped on the column.

[27] After dark, Lieutenant Austin[28] and a driver, both of whom were themselves wounded, slipped the brakes of the ambulances, and let them run quietly backwards down the slope from the bridge.

[9] Some of the prisoners were let out of the bungalow to find their captors waiting for them with water and cigarettes which they held just out of reach while a party of Japanese war correspondents took pictures of the captives, about to receive them.

While most of the Australians, the majority roped together like a chain gang, were first shot, some of the Japanese officer decided it was time the samurai swords they carried – often family heirlooms – tasted blood, and practiced their skills on the Indians, perhaps because the average Asian's collar size tends to be smaller than a Caucasian's.

With kicks, clouts and curses, blows from rifle butts and bayonet jabs, their captors crammed them all into a couple of small rooms in a coolie hutment at Parit Sulong village on the Muar highway.

The sworn evidence of two sepoy survivors (Lance-Havildar John Benedict and Sapper Periasamy) were confirmed by the post-war discovery of the remains.

[9] On 23 January in the final act of the battle, the 2nd Loyals, covering the last men of Anderson's column to make it into British lines, had two companies positioned as rear guard facing the defile on the road to Yong Peng.

At 14:00, as they were about to withdraw, seven Japanese tanks supported by an estimated two battalions of infantry emerged rapidly from the defile and attempted to dismantle the Loyal's road block.

[5] Arthur Percival blamed the 45th Indian Brigade, who were handed the most important tasks despite their lack of training and experience prior to the war, for the failure of the defence of Muar.

While they fought on from Muar Harbour to Parit Sulong Bridge, stalling the Imperial Guards Division, strongly backed by air and tank support, the three brigades of Westforce in the Segamat area were able to withdraw safely down the central trunk road to Labis, and thence towards the key crossroads at Yong Peng.

The brigade had disembarked at Singapore on 13 January, just three days earlier before being sent to the front, after nearly three months at sea in crowded troopships, travelling from England to the east coast of Africa, where they had no exercise whatsoever.

Despite the defeat at Muar, Bakri and Parit Sulong, many Singaporeans thought the action at Gemensah was the long-awaited turning point and that the rout of the Japanese invasion force was not long in coming.

A commentator over a Singapore radio, announced flamboyantly that the news gave good reason to believe that the tide of battle was on the turn, "with the AIF as our seawall against the vicious flood".

[44] According to Alan Warren in his book Britain's Greatest Defeat; Tomoyuki Yamashita described the battle at Muar as the most "savage encounter" of the campaign.