With the sinking of the Prince of Wales and Repulse, the last obstacle was removed from the advance of the Japanese into Borneo. This thinly inhabited island, the third largest in the world, at 260,000 square miles the size of Texas and two and a half times the area of the United Kingdom, holds a central position from which it is possible to dominate the sea lanes to Singapore and to threaten Java, Sumatra, the Celebes, Malaya, Indo-China and the southern Philippines. It was, indeed, the security of Borneo that led Britain to consider, however briefly, proposals that emanated from President Quezon of the American Commonwealth of the Philippines in the mid-thirties for Britain to take possession of the Philippines in order to guarantee its defence against Japan in the event of an American withdrawal. Now, as dawn broke on 13 December, three days after the extinction of British naval power in the East, an absurdly small force of three destroyers, a sub chaser and ten transport vessels set sail from Camranh Bay in French Indo-China and put out to sea, bound for Borneo. Shortly afterwards, it was reinforced by a more substantial force of three cruisers, a further pair of destroyers and a solitary seaplane tender. The operation was regarded as a necessary adjunct to the Malayan campaign. With British forces fully occupied in the defence of Malaya, the Japanese were quick to exploit their opportunities. It was, by all accounts, a relatively laid-back invasion. Thanks to the Dutch, two Japanese destroyers and two transports were sunk and a further three other transports were damaged. The Anglo-Dutch oil denial schemes in Miri and elsewhere, secretly planned years ahead by London without Dutch foreknowledge, operated relatively smoothly. Nevertheless, the outcome of the campaign was never in doubt: the bulk of the British defence forces fled across the border into the Netherlands East Indies and on 19 January the remaining British forces on Borneo surrendered.