Sunday, June 05, 2005

In love and in war

Source: "Lifestyle"-The Star-5 June 2005

BY PHILIP GOLINGAI

REVISITING WWII

PHILIP GOLINGAI speaks to the Dankers who remember youthful love and courtship in a world gone mad. They take us on a stroll down a Memory Lane that is pockmarked with bomb craters.

DEC 8, 1941. It was 4.15am and air raid sirens were wailing. In Johor Baru, the siren roused 19-year-old Peter James Danker and he rushed out of his house to stare at the Singapore night sky pierced by floodlights and pocked with shell bursts.

Swarms of Japanese bombers were pounding the island while British anti-aircraft weapons were trying to shoot them down.

“My goodness, the Japs have come,” Peter recalls telling his parents. “They did not believe me ? it was unbelievable that the Japs could be bombing Singapore.”

In Singapore, at around the same time, 16-year-old Maureen Audrey Gaudart was also abruptly awakened.

THEN AND NOW...Peter Danker and his bride Maureen Audrey posing for posterity in 1947 (below) and today, he talks about life in Singapore under Japanese rule while she looks back at the past.
“I was dead to the world and suddenly I heard bombing. I thought it was an air raid practice. Then I realised the Japanese were attacking Singapore,” she recollects.

When the first bombs fell on Singapore, Peter and Maureen were strangers to each other. But, months later, the Japanese Occupation of Singapore would bring them together.

At the end of 1942, in Singapore, they became acquainted, meeting for the first time at a party.

“Although it was the Japanese Occupation, life was not dull,” says Maureen. “We had a party where beer was served and we danced the waltz and fox trot.”

“In the beginning we felt it (the harshness of the Japanese Occupation) as these people were not kind. You had to bow to them. If not, they slapped you. But one thing about the Japanese was they did not disturb us during our party.”

Was it love at first sight?

“We did not know we liked each other. Those were very innocent days. You could not get married before you were 21,” says Maureen.

“As a matter of fact, I liked her,” says Peter, “She was quite pretty.”

Peter and Maureen grew closer as they usually got together with other friends for gatherings – badminton games and dance party. And he would take her for a ride on his bicycle with her sitting on the crossbar.

About six months after their first meeting, his mother, Petronella Marie, found out that Maureen’s grandmother was related to the Dankers. And, she encouraged Maureen to work at her son Herman’s dental clinic, where Peter was also working as a dental clerk, in Herron Building in Orchard Road.

Maureen agreed. And Petronella told her, “since you are travelling from Katong (south of Singapore), you had better stay with us in Emerald Hill (near Orchard Road).”

“So we were meeting everyday because we lived in the same house,” says Peter.

And their love blossomed. “During the occupation, we thought we were meant for each other,” he says, while his face beams as 62-year-old memories come flooding back.

“Of course we were not living in the same room,” he says. “My mother was quite strict. But we curi curi (secretly) kissed each other in the house.”

“But we respected each other,” he quickly adds. “We already had intentions to get married. It was not that I just wanted her as a girlfriend but I wanted to marry her. I did not have any feelings for anyone else.”

They did not get married during the Japanese Occupation because they did not have regular jobs.

“We were hoping and praying for the British to win,” Maureen explains. “And if the Americans did not get involved, we probably would still be under the Japanese.”

Life was tough in Syonan-to (the Japanese name for Singapore, pronounced shi-nan-to).

During the early days when the Japanese captured Singapore, Maureen remembers the Japanese visiting houses, looking for young girls. “We were very afraid. Mothers would ask their daughter to go to the attic to hide,” she says.

“I can still remember seeing a very scraggy, fierce-looking Japanese who looked like he just came out of the jungle coming into my aunt’s house. He had six watches on his arm, probably the spoils of war.”

The soldier saw a picture of Maureen’s aunt’s late husband – who was an American – and demanded to know where he was.

“My auntie told him ‘He’s dead’. The Japanese did not understand the word ‘dead’ so we had to demonstrate what dead was,” Maureen says, adding that her aunt was really a widow.

“Those who could not stand it, died. There was rationing. We could only get 3.5 kati (about 2.1kg) of rice per person a month. But we somehow managed ? we were middle-class as we had a dental clinic,” she explains, adding that Peter also sold watches.

“The good part about the Japanese Occupation,” she adds, “was there were no thieves. If you stole, the Japanese would cut your head off.”

The Japanese did not allow civilians to listen to the radio.

“We were hungry for news so some people listened to the BBC secretly to find out what was happening to the war in Europe and whether we would be liberated,” Maureen says.

About nine months before the war ended, the Japanese caught Herman listening to BBC. He was arrested and sent to jail.

“In prison he had little food to eat and he had to drink water from the toilet,” says Maureen, adding that the dentist was freed only after the Japanese surrendered.

When the Japanese surrendered on Sept 12, 1945, Peter was “very happy the war was over.” And a few months later, he was happier still as he got engaged to his sweetheart. On April 7, 1947, they tied the knot in Singapore.

Soon after, the Dankers left Singapore because Peter had to return to Kluang in Johor to re-open the Government English School, which is now Sekolah Menegah Tengku Mahmud (2).

“Being from Singapore, I felt that Kluang was all jungle but I eventually got used to living here,” says Maureen, who bore seven children, the eldest being her 57-year-old daughter.

The couple whose romance survived the Japanese Occupation live happily ever after in Kluang today.

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