Early in July 1941, before the beginning of World War II, a Ceylonese Malay policeman serving under the British administration in Perak raised an alert. A Japanese business owner living in the same building had told him that Japanese troops were on their way, approaching not around Singapore from the sea, as expected by the British, but from Kota Bharu in Kelantan, with bicycle infantry and rubber boats. The policeman informed the British Chief Police Officer in Ipoh, but his claim was laughed off. By 26 December 1941, the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) had arrived in Ipoh, the capital, moving southwards from Thailand. The following day they went on to Taiping, leaving destruction and heavy casualties in their wake. The British forces, retreating from the north of the Malay Peninsula under Lieutenant-General Lewis Heath, had moved a further to the Perak River, damaging the route behind them to slow the Japanese advance. With the approval of Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival, the British mounted a defensive stand near the river mouth and in Kampar, leaving the towns of Ipoh, Kuala Kangsar and Taiping unguarded.