In 1934, Sir Shenton Thomas was appointed governor of the Straits Settlements and high commissioner for the Malay states. Although due to retire in 1939, he agreed to remain in post when the Second World War began. He chaired the local defence committee and organised civilian support for the armed forces. After the surrender of Singapore, Thomas was interned first in Changi prison before being moved to Taiwan, and then Manchuria. Thomas was liberated in 1945 and he was reunited with his wife, who had been interned in Singapore. Following the war, he devoted considerable energy to refuting criticisms of the civil government in the official service dispatches of the campaign and the official history of the war, S. W. Kirby and others, ‘The war against Japan, 1: The loss of Singapore’ (1957).