sentences:  Despite maritime-salvage efforts organized by Robert W. Rankin, all the military equipment and other crucial and vital supplies were lost and declared irrecoverable.Singapore would eventually fall to and come under the rule of Imperial Japan only ten days later (on 15 February 1942), which makes it difficult to speculate about what differences or changes to the outcome of the battle the "Empress of Asia" could have made if the ship had not been sunk.It was said that much of the vital military materiel and aid-supplies lost in the sinking of the ship would have been supplied and provided to the badly-equipped Singapore Chinese Anti-Japanese Volunteer Battalion as well as reinforcing and strengthening the rest of the poorly-equipped and ill-supplied British-commanded defending troops, aside from British troops, comprising Australian, Indian and Malayan soldiers.