The most dangerous moment of the War, and the one which caused me the greatest alarm, was when the Japanese Fleet was heading for Ceylon and the naval base there. The capture of Ceylon, the consequent control of the Indian Ocean, and the possibility at the same time of a German conquest of Egypt would have closed the ring and the future would have been black.
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Remarks on the April 5, 1942) Easter Sunday Raid on Colombo, Ceylon (Sri Lanka) on 5 April 1942. From a conversation at the British Embassy, Washington D.C. in 1946, as described by Leonard Birchall, RCAF, in Battle for the Skies (2004), Michael Paterson, David & Charles, ISBN 0715318152