history AA

HISTORY AA 2009

THE JOURNEY THROUGH WORLD WAR II


“BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!” Ahmad was rudely awakened by the sounds of explosions. It was on the 30th January,1941, slightly after four in the morning. Ahmad was a local living in Singapore. He shares a room with seven other coolies which were his new-made-friends. They were also normal locals: exactly like him. It may sound unbearable living with seven other men whose size are as big as three to four babies. However, at Ahmads’ time, its already considered lucky and very very fortunate to have a proper place to stay, shelter and sleep.

Coming back to the explosions… Ahmad and his seven other sleepy headed friends, quickly scrambled out of their bed to see what was happening. People screaming. Bombs exploding. Babies crying. The atmosphere was a chaos. Warships and airplanes were zooming here and there. All of a sudden, he felt the shock of urgenness. He quickly packed and went out. Ignoring his friends. He dashed out of the dilapidated shophouse.

Meanwhile in the Singapore British Headquarters, “I believe that Japanese army, air force and navy are inferior! They wouldn’t be able to beat us in this war!” Lieutenant-Percival Adnan said. “Our warships are all out to date and those Japanese are cycling their bicycles down Malaya. So, what the hell are we to do now?” looking at all his sodiers.

As days goes by, more and more people die. Either purposely killed or accidently. The British had tried to fight the war. A lot of fights occur. On 11th of February, a war occurred at the Bukit Timah Hill and on the 13th of February, another war occurred at Pasir Panjang. Liuetenant Adnan bin Saidi of the Malay Regiment led the fight against the Japanese here. Then, the Malay Regiment make its last stand at Bukit Chandu.

On 15th of February 1942, which was the Chinese New Year, the British had a final conference at the Fort Canning bunker. Lieutenant-General Percival wanted to discuss ways to counter-attack but his commanders were against the idea. They felt that there were too many problems and the soldiers were tired. More men would be killed if they were to engage the Japanese in street fighting. Furthermore, their supplies of food and water were running out. To prevent further bloodshed, the British opted for surrender. On 15th February 1942, Japanese Lieutenant-Colonel Sugita led Percival and his delegation to the Ford Motor Factory to negotiate the surrender terms.

On the negotiating table, Percival met Lieutenant-General Tomoyuki Yamasita for the very first time. A sense of tense and uncomfortableness was strongly distributed around every part of the room. Percival’s heart skipped a beat.

“I want to hear whether you want to surrender or not. If you want to surrender, I insist on it being unconditional. What is your answer? Yes or no?”Yamashita spoke with an English which was as fluent as any Japanese.

“Will you give me until tomorrow morning?”Percival tried to hesitate.

“Tomorrow? I cannot wait and the Japanese force will have to attack tonight.”

“How about waiting until 11.30 p.m.. Tokyo time?”

“If that is to be the case, the Japanese forces will have to resume attacks until then. Will you say yes or no?” Yamshita said firmly.

For a moment, the room went dead silent.

“I want to hear a decisive answer and I insist on an unconditional surrender. What do you say?” Yamashita still insist on British surrender.

Having no other choice, Percival,” Yes.”

“All right then. The order to ceasefire must be issued exactly at 10 p.m. I will immediately send a thousang troops into the city area to maintain peace and order. You agree to that?”
“Yes.”

“If you violate these terms, the Japanese will lose no time in launching a general and final offensive against Singapore City.”

Hence, marked on Singapore’s history, Singapore was legally Japanese’s’ on 15th February 1942 after British had signed the surrender agreement.

After the surrender of the British, Ahmad had went back to his home. Life for Singaporeans had changed tremendously. Ahmad realized that there were no more ‘white’ people around. However, a lot more Chinese-like people present. They wore a green uniform complete with a cap that has a red star logo at the middle-front view of the hat. He had also learnt to bow ninety degrees towards the front whenever he sees any of these people around. And now,Singapore is known as Syonan-To. A group of Japanese military police, Kempetai, were sent to restore order in Singapore.

When the Japanese military took control of the island, they had plans to deal with the troops of Singapore. The Japanese interned the British, Australians and Allied Europeans in Singapore, including women and children. Allied soldiers were forced to march from the Padang to Selarang Barracks, which was 22 kilometres away. European civilians were marched to Katong first before going to Changi Prison.

To Ahmad, the Kempetai were cruel and they kept Singaporeans in a constant state of anxiety and fear. At the slightest offence, punishment was swift and severe. Many anti-Japanese suspects were subjected to terrible torture or decapitation at the Kempetai Centre. They hate the ‘white’ people and also the Chinese. However, they do not treat the Malays and Indians that badly. They told Ahmad and his Indian friends that they will try to fill Singapore from the British rule. They said to the Indians that they would free India from the British. However, these two races were not entirely spared because anyone who tried to disobeyed or displeased the Japanese would still be punished.some Malays were also drafted for forced labour at the ‘Death Railway’ camps.

An operation called Sook Ching was set up to identify and eliminate suspected anti-Japanese elements among the Chinese community.the Japanese also had certain strategy. For example propaganda. All Singaporeans were supposed to only learn the Japanese language and only Japanese printed newspapers were available.radio stations were also controlled by them. Anybody caught tuning to any other broadcasting stations except for Japanese, were severely punished or killed. In the cinemas, only Japanese movies and propaganda films were shown.

Each household was issued to a number of ration cards to purchase essential goods. And because of these, many lived in poverty and suffered from malnutrition and disease. Essential foodstuffs were sold for a very high price in the black market. The situation was made worst by the unlimited supplies of the ‘banana notes’. Life gets harder and harder each day.

After atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945 respectively, the Japanese surrendered shortly after. The British troops returned to Singapore on 5th September 1945. However, the people faced many problems in the post-war Singapore such as the overcrowded living conditions, poor sanitation. Lack of health services and unemployment. However, the most serious problems were the shortage of food and lack of housing. And then another dilemma in Singapore began.

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