Sir Winston Churchill's doctor has recalled the “stupefying” effect which the fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942 had upon his patient. Britain's wartime leader, Lord Moran suggests, knew that the surrender was “something more than a reverse. I think he wondered if it were a portent”. The spectre of one of the worst defeats in British military history was to return to haunt Churchill in later years. His torment was, perhaps, not solely portentous but also recollective for in the years 1924–29 Churchill himself, while serving in Stanley Baldwin's second government, had played the major role in delaying the building and defence of the Singapore naval base and in disparaging its associated strategy.