These attacks inflicted extensive damage on the Central Railroad Repair Shops (present day KL Sentral).

[1] On 28 January that year, United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bombers operating from Palembang in the Dutch East Indies bombed Japanese-held airfields near the city.

As part of Operation Matterhorn, XX Bomber Command was based in India, and given the primary role of attacking targets in western Japan via airfields in central China.

[6] On 15 January 1945, XX Bomber Command was directed to stop flying missions via China, and instead make "limited operations" against targets in Japanese-occupied areas of South East Asia from its bases in India.

This was an interim use for the command, ahead of it being redeployed to the Marianas Islands in April where it would join the main strategic bombing effort against Japan.

The attack was successful, with 67 percent of buildings at the workshop being destroyed, along with railway tracks and rolling stock.

As no anti-aircraft guns fired on the bombers and few Japanese fighter aircraft were encountered, the B-29s descended to 8,700 feet (2,700 m).

A wartime bomb exploded outside Kuala Lumpur railway station in April 1949, leaving a 20-yard (18 m)-wide crater.