A Japanese Christmas

Source: "Lifestyle"-The Star- 10 July 2005

BY OOI KEAT GIN

From the peninsula, Revisiting WWII moves over to Sarawak to find out how people there fared during the Occupation. In this first of a series of articles, OOI KEAT GIN recounts when simple, peaceful lives were subject to a scary new order.

AT 4.30pm on Christmas Eve, 1941, the Hinomaru (Japanese flag) fluttered from the flagpole of Fort Margherita in Kuching, the capital of Sarawak.

The Land of the White Rajah had become part of the Imperial Japanese Empire that would shortly stretch from the Japanese home islands westward as far as the Indo-Burmese border, southward to New Guinea, and eastward to the southwest Pacific.

The unfolding Rising Sun against the blue skies of Kuching signalled the beginning of a new era, a new world.

Sketches of Life in Batu Lintang, a drawing from Papers of Lieutenant S.E. Bagnall, depicted the tough conditions faced by European captives detained near Kuching.

The sombre scene of Imperial Japanese troops in battle fatigues escorting a line of disenchanted Europeans, many recognisable as officers of the fallen Brooke government, left a deep impression of despair amongst the Asian inhabitants.

Earlier, eight Japanese troop ships with an equal number of escort vessels carrying some 4,000 troops had made their way up the Sarawak River. Their landing was unopposed, there was no “Battle of Kuching”.

Their voyage had begun on Dec 13, when a Japanese convoy left Cam Ranh Bay in French Vietnam.

Major General Kawaguchi Kiyotake (hence the Kawaguchi Detachment) headed this task force, whose mission it was to seize the oilfields of north-west Borneo and the airfield outside Kuching. Two days later, this flotilla was off the coast of Miri, the centre of Sarawak’s oil industry.

The Japanese invasion and occupation of Sarawak went off like clockwork. Miri fell on Dec 16, and Japanese forces rapidly moved towards Sarawak’s administrative capital, Kuching.

In the absence of the promised anti-aircraft guns, Kuching was undefended when the town experienced its first aerial bombing on Dec 19, which claimed25 lives and 80 wounded, all civilians.

To Japanese military planners, Sarawak was of strategic importance. The Miri oilfield was a prime prize.

Japan needed oil to advance its imperial designs, hence the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) on the Chinese mainland. An American embargo on oil sales to Japan was one reason for Yamamoto's decision to strike Pearl Harbour.

The southward thrust towards South-East Asia was an attempt to secure strategic materials – oil, rubber and tin – to sustain the China campaign.

Sarawak’s other consideration was an airstrip located 11km to the south-east of Kuching. The Bukit Stabar or 7th Mile Airfield was one of two aerodromes on Borneo necessary for the invasion of Dutch Java. (The other was at Singkawang, some 95km from Kuching, in south-west Dutch Borneo).

Sarawak’s defence was in the hands of Britain. In 1888, Rajah Charles Brooke (1829-1917), the second White Rajah, had reluctantly penned a protectorate agreement under whichBritain would oversee Sarawak’s foreign relations and defence; internal administration remained the purview of the Brookes.

When war became imminent in the late 1930s, the defence of Sarawak came under the British Malaya command based at Singapore under Lieutenant General A. E. Percival, who made a hurried visit to Kuching in November 1941.

By then, the earlier plan of a mobile defensive strategy was replaced with a static form of defence. An Anglo-Dutch military conference in September had agreed that only the Bukit Stabar Airfield should be defended.

Subsequently, the 1,000-strong 2nd Battalion/15th Punjab Regiment under the command of Colonel C. M. Lane was redeployed with orders to defend the aerodrome and to act in the best interest of Dutch West Borneo.

A contingent of 100 men from 2/15 Punjab was at Miri to protect and assist employees of Sarawak Oilfields Limited in carrying out demolition of the oil installations.

On Dec 10, 1941, when news came of the sinking of HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales off Kuantan, the oil installations at Miri and Lutong (and Seria in Brunei) were destroyed, as planned earlier.

The demolition party, together with other European civilians, evacuated on Dec 14 to Singapore. Members of the 2/15 Punjab returned to Kuching.

The defence of Sarawak was entrusted to Sarfor, or Sarawak Force, which comprised the Iban-dominated Sarawak Rangers (the Brooke regime’s regular army), the Sarawak Volunteers (European civil officers), the Malay-dominated police, and the 2/15 Punjab.

Colonel Lane headed the 2,500 men Sarfor to defend a territory of almost three-quarter the size of the Malay Peninsula.

Much of the territory lay under thick jungle, with vast stretches of coastline drowned in mangrove swamps.

Failing to return to Kuching, Rajah Vyner Brooke (1874-1963), the then reigning ruler of Sarawak, headed a government-in-exile in Australia. When hostilities broke out, Rajah Vyner’s wife, Ranee Sylvia was in New York. In February 1942 she was in London, and later she joined the Rajah in Australia.

In the absence of the Rajah, the Chief Secretary and Officer Administrating the Government, Cyril Le Gros Clark instructed all Brooke officers to remain at their post to ensure a smooth transition of authority in the event of a Japanese victory. Most abided by the ruling.

Individually and in groups, officers of the Brooke government and their families, together with members of the small European community were rounded up and subsequently brought to the Batu Lintang, an internment camp on the outskirts of Kuching.

Despite the occasional heroic stand by squads of the 2/15 Punjab, poor communication that retarded co-ordination of SARFOR, coupled with the suddenness of the Japanese offensive, led to chaos in the defence of Sarawak.

While Japanese troops were on the streets of Kuching on Christmas day, the port town of Sibu in the Lower Rejang was bombed.

Within a week the Japanese occupied the north-eastern districts of Limbang and Lawas neighbouring Brunei. Towards the close of January 1942, Sibu and Kapit fell to the Japanese without resistance.

After deciding that their stance at Bukit Stabar aerodrome was untenable, remnants of the 2/15 Punjab crossed into West Borneo and finally surrendered in early April 1942.

The Sarawak Chinese community, having followed developments in the long-running Sino-Japanese War, feared a Japanese backlash but the indigenous people appeared to be more baffled than afraid of the invaders. Many of the upriver native communities were unaware of what was happening in the world beyond their longhouses and rivers.

All those in Kuching who looked on as members of the Imperial Japanese Forces marched along Gambier Road felt fear and uncertainty.

It seemed like only yesterday that Rajah Vyner had granted a constitution to the peoples of Sarawak to commemorate the centenary of Brooke rule. Back in 1841, a swashbuckling English gentleman-adventurer, James Brooke (1803-1868), was honoured by the Sultan of Brunei with a small fiefdom and the exotic title, “Rajah of Sarawak”.

Now, it was going to be a Japanese Christmas.

Next week, we look at ‘Musim Jipun’.

Ooi Keat Gin is associate professor in the School of Humanities, Universiti Sains Malaysia. He is author of ‘Rising Sun Over Borneo: The Japanese Occupation of Sarawak, 1941-1945’ (London and Basingstoke: Macmillan; New York: Saint Martin's Press, 1999). He is currently working on the Pacific War in southern Borneo (Kalimantan).

Recording a bygone age

Source: "Lifestyle"-The Star- 12 June 2005

BY PHILIP GOLINGAI

Here’s another first-time novelist who’s embarking on a literary career – at the ripe old age of 81! PHILIP GOLINGAI speaks to the engaging Chong Seck Chim, who has startlingly similar ideas about not writing ‘about our grandfather’ that a certain young first-time writer has.

“Everybody has a ‘life’, especially by the time you’ve become a senior citizen,” Chong explains. “You know people and their stories. You have your own. And you weave them together.”

Chong Seck Chim

And what the ex-Malaysian ambassador to Unesco (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) has woven is a 184-page novel set against the tumultuous backdrop of Japanese-occupied Malaya, and which follows the escapades of Ah Kiew.

He started weaving his tale a few years ago. As one who writes to amuse himself, he took his time because “I’m not beating any deadline.”

There’s no doubt, he adds, that being a former book reviewer for a local English daily helped.

“I’m my best critic. I’m a very impatient man. I don’t have time to stay with a book that goes on and on,” says Chong, who used to write Geography textbooks for the Oxford University Press.

Nevertheless, “just like cooking, you can read all the wonderful cookery books, but when it comes to the crunch, you must have the skill, aptitude and interest to put all the ingredients together.”

Is he Ah Kiew, the protagonist?

“Yes and no. The novel has facts mixed with fiction. It has to be, otherwise who cares about the ordinary life of Ah Kau and Chandra? Our lives are not that exciting after all.

“I wouldn’t say it is a historical book, but it’s a record of the past and will bring memories for people like me, who lived through the war.

“I belong to an age that has gone. There are so many things in my book that talk about the past, which obviously no one in your generation can know of as nobody talks about the old times.”

On his memory of the Japanese Occupation, Chong says: “I was in Kuala Lumpur and the war seemed so remote to us. It was peaceful, unlike the upheavals in Seremban and Johor Baru, where the Japanese had ‘cleaning up’ operations against the Chinese.”

Many of his contemporaries feel the urge to write a book, he notes. “They get it published on their own as they cannot find a publisher. No wonder ? because their stories are so self-centred. But one must be humble to realise that we do not belong to a momentous epoch, like in China.

“Our (Malaysian) experience is not that world-shaking. We could write about our grandfather, who we might think is one hell of a man. But the average reader might not agree. So, inevitably, you have to invent. That’s what I have done with my book.”

His next writing project?

“Time is running out,” says the man who reads French books to keep his mind sharp. “That alone is a big deterrent. And let’s face it, I don’t have the stamina and drive any more.”

Looks like Once Upon A Time in Malaya will be his one and only novel. “Unless I happen to get a fantastically good idea,” Chong says.

Then the old man’s face lights up as he adds, “What I would like to do is write a book like Harry Potter, but based on Chinese mythology.”

The big bluff that worked

Source: "Lifestyle"-The Star- 19 June 2005

BY: MENG YEW CHOONG

“My attack on Singapore was a bluff – a bluff that worked. I had 30,000 men and was outnumbered more than three to one. I knew if I had to fight long for Singapore I would be beaten. That is why the surrender had to be at once. I was frightened all the time that the British would discover our numerical weakness and lack of supplies and force me into disastrous street fighting.”– excerpt from Lt-Gen Tomoyuki Yamashita’s diary

YAMASHITA faced a dilemma. He was down to only 18 tanks and his troops were limited to 100 rounds of ammunition per man per day. Fuel stocks were held up by transportation breakdowns and traffics jams caused by the appalling infrastructure (a consequence, no doubt, of the retreating force’s “scorched earth” tactics).

Starvation loomed, apparently because the Tiger of Malaya had taken pride in the fact that his troops could keep winning on merely two bowls of rice daily.

Japanese troops moving their tanks across the Johor Straits into Singapore by floating them on rafts before the damaged causeway was repaired.

If he waited for reinforcements and supplies, the besieged Allied forces in Singapore could also receive fresh troops and equipment.

If there was a protracted battle for Singapore, Yamashita reckoned, the odds were against him.

The Japanese had sustained 4,515 casualties (1,793 killed and the rest wounded) since they started their Malayan campaign.

Yamashita could only muster 30,000 infantrymen. Fortunately for him, Japanese intelligence provided inaccurate information about the strength of the Allied forces preparing to confront him. He thought they numbered around 40,000 when, in fact, nearly 120,000 of them were holed up in Singapore. Had he known the truth, even so bold a general as Yamashita might have balked at taking on such overwhelming opposition.

Yamashita also had a personal goal to achieve: he had wanted to capture Singapore by Feb 11, the anniversary of the coronation of Jimmu (660-585BCE), the first emperor of Japan who was also revered as the founder of the country.

On Feb 10, a deeply troubled General Archibald Wavell, Allied Supreme Commander for the Far East, confessed to the Governor, Sir Shenton Thomas, that whatever misfortune that besieged them at the moment “shouldn’t have happened”, to which the Thomas replied, “we lacked leaders”.

On the same night, the elite Japanese Imperial Guards crossed the Johor Straits to battle the Australian 27th Brigade at the spot between the causeway and Kranji river. However, many of the assault crafts became bogged down by low tide when attempting to sail up the Kranji rivermouth. Some boats entered the wrong tributaries, and many soldiers died as a result of a freak incident when flaming oil gushed down the Kranji river from fuel tanks that the Allieds had destroyed.

About 30 minutes later, through a series of misunderstandings and miscommunication between the Australian forces and the Malaya Command, the former started to withdraw from the area, much to the amazement of the Imperial Guards. The initiative to hold off the Japanese was lost from this point onwards, and large numbers of Japanese started to land here and went on to pursue the retreating Australians.

The evacuation from the north also gave the Japanese a free hand in repairing the causeway which had been blown up earlier.

On, Feb 11, the Tengah airfield was captured. With ammunition supplies dangerously low, Yamashita decided to prod Percival to give up early.

Japanese tanks crossing the causeway after their engineers bridged the 20m gap blasted by the retreating defenders.

He dropped 20 copies of a personal letter over the Malaya Command HQ area. In the letter, Yamashita implored Percival to give up what he called a “meaningless and desperate resistance”.

The next day, fierce fighting took place at four spots surrounding the city area: Bukit Timah, Nee Soon Village in the north, Mandai Road and at Pasir Panjang.

Of interest today is the Pasir Panjang battle, where the 1st Malay Regiment and the 44th Indian Brigade really showed what they were made of when they held the 18th Division that was determined to capture the Alexandra military complex.

The Pasir Panjang ridge was staunchly defended because it was a strategic location, overlooking Singapore to the north and giving easy access to the vital Alexandra area which consisted of ammunition dumps and the Alexandra military hospital.

The 1st and 2nd battalions of the Malay Regiment were first bombarded from the air, artillery and mortar fire on the morning of Feb 13. The Malay Regiment’s stubborn resistance caused substantial losses on the Japanese side, and the invaders withdrew for the night.

That midnight, the C Company of the Regiment was assigned to defend an area known as Bukit Chandu, a site near a government opium factory (opium consumption was legal at that time).

Greatly outnumbered and outgunned, they held on with no thought of surrender or retreat, supported by artillery fire from the big guns of the Faber Fire Command that were still serviceable. And this was under severe conditions like the absence of trenches, no food and water, and limited ammunition.

On the afternoon of Feb 14, the Japanese began to show their impatience, and resorted to impersonating soldiers under the British command. A group of 20 Japanese soldiers dressed up to look like Punjabi troops and approached the hilltop from the north, all the time displaying friendly gestures.

Lt Adnan Saidi, who was in command of that sector, did not fall for the deception and ordered his men to open fire on the impostors, killing almost all of them.

Pasir Panjang today. It was on this hill in 1942 that the Malay Regiment displayed true grit, fighting until the last man fell.

Japanese soldiers then stormed the hill en masse, and overwhelmed the tiny fighting force. Lt Adnan was shot, bayoneted, and his body was hung on a tree. Six of his men were tied and bayoneted along with him. Only a few men managed to escape.

This near-total destruction of an entire regiment was to become the inspiration for the recent Malaysian movie, Leftenan Adnan. Today, the bravery of the Malay Regiment is commemorated at a WWII interpretative centre called Reflections at Bukit Chandu, next to the Kent Ridge Park.

The fall of the Pasir Panjang ridge meant the Japanese could charge down Alexandra area and they soon stormed the Alexandra Hospital.

Enraged by the substantial losses they suffered while battling the defenders of Pasir Panjang, the Japanese soldiers went on a frenzied killing spree, bayoneting everyone in sight, regardless of whether they were medical personnel or patients. Around 200 people were killed, including a young corporal who was being operated on.

Later accounts showed that Yamashita was not aware of the massacre. The following day, a general who toured the area tried to limit the damage to the Japanese army's image control by distributing some food to the survivors, in addition to executing some of the culprits right there in the hospital grounds. That was Sunday, which also marked the end of the Fortress of the East.

On that morning, Percival conferred with his staff in his underground bunker at Fort Canning, and actually contemplated a last-minute counterattack to retake vital food and fuel depots at MacRitchie reservoir and Bukit Timah. Every general there disagreed with him, and Percival had no choice but to capitulate.

Percival signed the surrender document at Bukit Timah at 6pm that day.

Then British Prime Minister Winston Churchill called the surrender of Singapore “the largest capitulation in British history”.

On this, Cornelli Barnett, former keeper of the Churchill archives, said: “Winston had a remarkable capacity for distancing himself from mistakes and disasters that had his name all over them.”

In his letters to the forum pages of The Straits Times in 1997/8, Singapore historian Dr Ong Chit Chung argued that Churchill consistently underestimated the Japanese threat.

“In retrospect, the battle for Malaya was lost – even before the first shot was fired – in Downing Street.

“The commanders in Malaya were not without fault. They were weak and indecisive. But the fact remains that Malaya and Singapore were starved of the necessary reinforcements, in particular, left without a fleet and without air power.

“The commanders were expected to make bricks without straw. The main responsibility must, therefore, rest squarely on the shoulders of Churchill. It was Churchill who placed Malaya below Europe, the Middle East and Russia in terms of priorities and the allocation of resources. Reading Churchill’s telegram (as published in his memoirs), one wonders why he was so gung-ho about defending Singapore, only at the 11th hour. It was too little, too late.”

Percival was sent to a camp in Manchuria, where he survived the war. The rest of his officers were incarcerated in various parts of the island, and some were eventually sent to work on the Death Railway project in northern Thailand.

The first day of surrender marked widespread chaos throughout the island, with widespread looting.

The surrender also marked the beginning of systematic efforts to root out anti-Japanese elements within the Chinese population, though by this time, it was a wonder if there was any Chinese who would be pro-Japanese or felt ambivalent about them.

Chinese men between 18 and 50 were forced to register themselves, and were then “interviewed”. Those who did not satisfy the interrogators were sent by the truckloads to the Punggol and Changi beaches where they were shot in a tragic massacre known as Sook Ching (which also took place in Penang).

Official estimates of the massacre put the figure at 6,000, though local felt that the death toll ranged from 25,000 to 50,000.

Shortly after the shock of Sook Ching, the Chinese community in Malaya was told to cough up S$50mil as a “gift”, a token of “appreciation for being left alive”. The money was badly needed to finance Japan's war effort, which by then had extended to India, Burma, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, and New Guinea.

Hiding out on Batam

Source: "Lifestyle"-The Star- 19 June 2005

BY DR WONG HECK SING

The war was going badly for the British. As more and more Singaporeans evacuated to Batam Island, all the news they brought was bad. This cast a deep despondency over us – there would be no hope of an early Allied victory.

The lunar new year, usually celebrated with much festivity, brought little cheer to us in Batam. We heard loud explosions coming from Singapore lasting for some hours, followed by an ominous silence.

Had Singapore fallen? Everybody had the same question. We refused to believe that this could possibly have happened. No less a person than Winston Churchill had said that Singapore would never be allowed to fall.

That evening, the first British troops arrived on Batam, confirming our worst fears. We met the soldiers, walking through Father’s rubber estate towards Sungei Panas village.

They were a dispirited lot and their faces told us a story of despair and defeat. They asked how they could get away from Batam. They hoped to sail to Java and they wanted a boat.

As they were walking, they were dislodging the firing pins from their guns. They threw the pins in one direction and the guns in the other. My brothers and I led them to the village headman, who told them to go to Big Company’s godown.

The soldiers numbering about 20 then parked themselves on the verandah of the godown. They were thoroughly worn out. When I inquired whether they had brought any food with them, they shook their heads.

I then went home, and asked Mother to prepare a large kettleful of hot coffee. I brought them the coffee and a tinful of Marie biscuits.

One of the soldiers asked me whether I could look after his pet dog, a fox terrier. I agreed. The dog was called Mickey. The dog was reluctant to follow me and I had to carry him home in my arms.

The British soldiers left Sungei Panas early the next morning. We heard that they had not managed to go very far, and were captured by the Japanese on Bum Island, which lay south of Batam. We also heard that they were sent back to Singapore as prisoners of war.

After the British soldiers left Sungei Panas, I noticed some of the younger villagers looking for something. I did not pay much attention to them until I was told they were looking for the guns the British had thrown away.

I thought it was very stupid of them to do such a thing. The news of British soldiers throwing away guns was bound to reach Japanese ears. They would surely come looking for the guns.

Anyway, I did not pay much attention as there was more pressing business. After Singapore fell, we knew that the Dutch army – Batam was part of the Dutch East Indies – would not be able to hold the Japanese back.

So for some time, we had been planning to move away from Sungei Panas village to a place less accessible to the Japanese. We heard the Ongs, the newly arrived Singaporeans staying at a brick bungalow, had similar plans to move. They were worried about the safety of their womenfolk.

They discussed the matter with a rubber estate supervisor who suggested they move to his boss’ other rubber estate, which lay next to Father’s rubber estate. That was the place where we had been doing the repairs to the hut, as it had not been occupied for some time.

We never expected the Japanese to come to Sungei Panas so soon, not to the village anyway. They must have had a well organised and efficient intelligence service. News of British soldiers throwing their guns away must have been relayed immediately to them.

When the Japanese came, the whole village was caught unawares. The Japanese were at our doorstep before we realised who they were.

There were two of them, accompanied by Indonesian guides. They appeared to be looking for something. We immediately guessed they were looking for the British guns.

They came to one of the bedrooms where we kept the books we had brought from Singapore. The books were mainly English books.

At once the Japanese faces changed. They looked grim and the leading man drew out his sword. I did not realise he was an officer until I saw that he had pips on his shoulders.

He ordered all of us out of the house. He then counted and found one of us missing. He shouted to me to get the missing person. I used sign language to indicate that the wanted person was ill.

Not believing me, the officer strode into the house to see for himself. Third Brother was in bed with a burning fever. At once the officer’s demeanour changed. His face which a moment ago was grim, now appeared kind and gentle

He bade me to fetch him a basin of cold water and proceeded to sponge Third Brother’s forehead. After a while he asked me to continue the sponging.

The officer left soon after, followed by the others. They were then seen sitting under a tree in the village, fanning themselves. The Indonesian guides pointed to Mr. Ong’s house and indicated that there were young women staying there.

The Japanese ignored the guides. They continued to sit under the tree. After a while they all left in their boat.

The Wongs and the Ongs had lucky breaks that day. The Japanese were known for their barbarism towards women in wartime. Fortunately the officer had a restraining influence on the other soldier and the Indonesian guides.

As to why the officer was so kind to Third Brother, we would never know. Perhaps he had a son in Japan.

The news of our luck soon spread, especially the news about the Ong womenfolk and people talked about it for a long time.

Following the visit by the Japanese, Father decided to shift as soon as possible to the rubber estate, even though the repairs to the hut were not completed. Father said, “The Japanese are unpredictable. They may come back to punish us for the English books. We can’t take any chances.”

We shifted that same day. So did the Ongs. They too thought the Japanese might return.

We completed the move in one day, locking up house at Sungei Panas village. The neighbours were curious, asking us the reason for our move. After our explanation, they agreed that it was the right thing to do. They never questioned the Ongs. They knew there were many women in the family.

Singaporean Dr Wong Heck Sing, 82, kept a journal while on Batam but lost it. This edited account was extracted from his self-published book, The Batam Years, which he wrote from memory 60 years later for his grandchildren.

Days of tapioca

Source: "Lifestyle"-The Star- 26 June 2005

BY PHILIP GOLINGAI

Tapioca, when combined with other ingredients, can be made into many types of delicious dishes and snacks. But, when these other ingredients are not readily available, PHILIP GOLINGAI discovers, a little dash of creativity can save the day, and please please the palate as well.

HOW many ways can you cook ubi kayu (tapioca)? One way is to boil it. Once cooked, you can dip it in raw sugar. Yummy!

73-year-old Chye Kooi Loong remembers when tapioca was a life-saving, if bland, staple during the grim days of the Japanese Occupation.

Take away the sugar and all you have is boiled tapioca and it tastes like the root of the cassava plant (which is exactly what it is) - tasteless.

Imagine having it as your main course for a week. How about a whole year, or the entire duration of the Japanese Occupation of Malaya?

And during the Occupation tapioca was available but sugar was scarce. So were meat, rice, vegetable, flour and most other food items.

To get a picture of what those who survived the Japanese Occupation ate, let's see what 75-year-old local historian Chye Kooi Loong had to eat day after day after day.

Breakfast: “In the morning, we had tapioca. It was cheap in the market. We ate it with salted fish or ikan kembong,” says Chye, who was in his teens when the Japanese ruled Malaya.

Lunch: It was porridge with sweet potatoes and sweet potato leaves thrown in. “Sometimes we had a little bit of sawi (leaf mustard) and some yam to go with it,” recalls the author of The History of the British Battalion – Malayan Campaign: 1941-42.

Dinner: “The same story. Porridge again,” he says. “We did not have enough rice so we could only cook porridge as we were only given 3 kati (1.8kg) of rice for a month for our family of eight.”

Rice was served on Chye's family table only four times a year, and these were the major festivals - the moon cake festival, Chinese New Year, Qing Ming (all souls day) and dumpling festival.

“And on those festival days we had a small chicken to be shared among us,” he says, adding “it (Japanese Occupation) was a very, very hard time.”

Before the Occupation, the Chyes ate well. Nearly every other day, they had chicken, pork, vegetables and soup for their meal. They lived comfortably because his father was an accountant in a French-owned tin mining company in Tapah, Perak.

Chye's diet changed when the Japanese occupied Malaya because his father's pay was a fifth of what he used to earn. The French company was taken over by the Japanese and his father was demoted to a clerk because he was deemed anti-Japanese.

“My mother used to tell us, ‘you must understand that now your father's income is lower and you have to learn to eat within his means.’

“And we were very understanding because our neighbours and friends were eating the same fare,” he explains.

There was no change in the diet of those who were rich - tin miners or rubber estate owners.

“On the black market, you could buy almost anything you wanted. But things were expensive,” says Chye, whose family was considered “lower middle class” during the Occupation.

As for the poor, there was not much on the menu other than tapioca.

“They simply could not afford other food items so there was a lack of variety in their diet and they suffered beri beri as they did not get enough vitamin C,” he explains.

Since a varied menu was not an option for many, they simply had to be creative to add some taste to the otherwise bland tapioca. Roasting and frying were alternative cooking methods, and any flavour enhancer that was available was pressed into service.

“Roasted tapioca is especially nice because when you roast it over a fire, it is tastier since the juices are kept inside the skin,” says Chye.

Belacan (shrimp paste) also worked well as a taste enhancer. “Cut the tapioca in small pieces and then fry them with belacan. It tasted wonderful and was a welcome change from the usual bland tapioca,” he recalls.

Fried tapioca was also popular but “good cooking oil was very expensive so we had to use red palm oil. And, in those days, it was not refined like the type that you buy in today's supermarket,” he says.

“The oil was thick and red. And you must eat the fried tapioca while hot or else the red palm oil would congeal,” he adds.

Bubur cha cha tapioca was a welcome, albeit rare, treat “but that was a luxury as sugar cane juice was expensive.”

Whenever Chye eats tapioca today, it reminds him of the “bad old days.”

However, he acknowledges, “without tapioca, I wouldn't be here today.”

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.

Never seen again

Source: "Lifestyle"-The Star- 29 May 2005

BY PHILIP GOLINGAI

Kuan Chin has some banana money to remind him of the bad old days but no knowledge of what fate befell his father. - Photo by ONG SOON HIN

THE first time Kuan Chin's father was arrested by the Kempetei (Japanese secret police), he was tortured and then released. The second time they took him away, he never returned home.

The story of the disappearance of his father, then a 42-year-old farmer in Kulai, Johor, starts with a wild boar.

“The (anti-Japanese) communist soldiers shot a wild boar and they asked my father to sell it in the (Kulai) market,” relates Kuan Chin, a 67-year-old owner of a traditional Chinese medicine shop in Kluang, Johor.

“He sold the meat at the market and a Chinese, who was collaborating with the Japanese, informed the Kempetei.”

The dreaded Kempetei arrested Kuan Chin's father and brought him to their headquarters. There, he was tortured in the usual Japanese fashion, having water forced down his throat and then his bloated stomach stomped on.

After a few days the farmer was released, to the joy of his family. His relatives and friends visited him to celebrate his freedom. Their joy was short-lived because the Japanese arrested him again, together with his male relatives and friends.

“Probably, the Japanese freed my father because they wanted to catch his friends and relatives,” speculates Kuan Chin, who was then just four years old.

The second time her husband was detained, his mother knew that she would be a widow.

To this day, his family does not know what happened to his father.

“Probably the Japanese must have chopped off his head. That is what the Japanese did, catch people and chop their heads off,” he says.

To understand what could have had happened to Kuan Chin's father, we can get an idea from history books. “In spite of the loudly-advertised might of the Imperial forces,” wrote the late Chin Keen Onn in Malaya Upside Down, “the Japanese had one chronic obsession - the communists”.

The obsession became “a disease which ate into their pride and wounded their vanity.”

“Exactly what sort of people were these communists? What was their actual strength? Where was their headquarters? What were their activities? Why were the Japanese afraid of them? ” Chin wrote.

“Every time a 'communist atrocity' occurred, the unfortunate people in the neighbourhood were immediately cordoned off and subjected to the most harrowing interrogation. Thousand of innocent men and women were lugged in, and hundreds succumbed to injuries and privations.”

Kuan Chin believes that his father's remains are buried in the Air Hitam cemetery in Johor. After the Japanese surrender in 1945, the Chinese associations collected the remains of those killed around Johor during the occupation and buried them in a mass grave about 12km from Kluang.

Asked how he felt about never knowing his father's fate, Kuan Chin retorts: “What do you think? Of course, I'm sad. But we couldn't do anything.”

The bride cried for four days

Source: "Lifestyle"-The Star- 29 May 2005

By PHILIP GOLINGAI

THE first time Soh Siew Eng saw her husband, she cried for four days. She cried because she was barely 14-year-old. And the moment she set her eyes on 15-year-old Toh Kim Keat, she was to marry him.

“Tak kena sama dia (I did not like him). Saya tengok dia, saya takut (When I looked at him, I became frightened),” were her explanations of her 96 hours of tears in 1942.

Soh had to marry Toh. “My parents did not have any work during the Japanese Occupation. We did not have any money or food. Life was very difficult. And to ease their burden, I was given away without dowry,’’ she explains.

“Our situation was so desperate that I was to be given away to any Chinese family that wanted me to be married to their son.”

Her parents were also worried that if she remained unmarried, the Japanese soldiers would rape her.

They have much to smile about these days but Soh Siew Eng wept when she first laid eyes on her husband-to-be Toh Kim Keat in the dark days of 1942. - Photo by ONG SOON HIN

“Jepun manyak jahat, manyak busuk hati (The Japanese are very cruel, they have an evil heart),” she says.

Her husband agrees, saying: “During the Japanese Occupation everybody knew that the Japanese raped women.''

Before Soh's marriage, she had to cut her hair short, blacken her face and cover the piercing on her ears so that the Japanese soldiers would mistake her for a boy.

“When the soldiers came to our village near Muar, I would run to the banana plantation near my house to hide from them,” says Soh, who lives in Bukit Bakri, in Johor.

She was packed to Bukit Bakri, about 20 km from Muar, to be married off.

“There was no wedding ceremony, no wedding gown. I entered his house and we became husband and wife,” she says.

On the fifth day of her marriage, she finally stopped crying. And she became a housewife, living with her husband and her parents-in-law, who owned a sundry shop in Bukit Bakri. About nine months after her marriage, she gave birth to her first child.

Asked whether she was delighted when she bore her first child, she says: “I was only 14 then, I did not know what joy was.”

What she knew that time was she had to feed her baby who was fed with yam that was pounded until it became soft. Rice was a luxury.

“I would only feed my baby porridge once or twice a week. None of the adults in the family ate rice as we could not afford to it,” she says. “We had to sacrifice (not eating rice) so that my baby could eat rice.”

By the time the Japanese surrender in 1945, Soh had borne three children.

“I was delighted when the Japanese ran away,” says Toh, who eventually had 17 children.

Does Toh love his wife? “I don’t have any feelings for her,” he declares.

One of his daughters-in-law explains that he is a conservative man who will never profess love for his wife.

“He started to love her after they got married. He really takes care of her,” she says.

And how does Soh feel? “Now that I’m old, I love him very much,” says the woman who wept for four days upon seeing her husband for the first time.

School’s out – forever

Source: "Lifestyle"-The Star- 29 May 2005

By PHILIP GOLINGAI

A FEW months before the Japanese attacked Malaya in December 1941, Sekolah Bukit Soga in Batu Pahat in Johor held a special assembly.

“The teacher told us that our school will be closed because there will be a world peace summit,” recalls Shamsudin Maksa, who is a 75-year-old trishaw operator in Batu Pahat town. “And we would be informed when the school reopened.''

Shamsudin Maksa is philosophical his fate even though he lost a chance for an education and a better life. - Photo by ONG SOON HIN

Recalling the extraordinary announcement, Shamsudin, with the benefit of hindsight, says: “The teacher did not want to tell us that the school was closing because war was approaching, probably because they did not want to frighten the students.”

That day was the primary one pupil's last day as a student. War came, the Japanese defeated the British and occupied Malaya.

“There were Japanese school which were opened but I did not enrol as my mother did not have enough money,” explains Shamsudin, whose father died during the Japanese Occupation.

Out of the classroom, Shamsudin learnt that life was tough and he was forced to be an adult.

“I had to help my mother who had to do odd jobs, like tapping rubber trees or collecting woods in the jungle, in order to feed her six children,” he recalls.

When the Japanese surrendered in 1945, Shamsudin did not return to school because he was too old to return to primary one.

He became a trishaw operator and continued to this day, seeing the number of trishaws dwindling from 400 in the 1960s to just 30 now. -

Asked what would have happened if the war in Malaya had not cut short his education, he says, “maybe I would have gone to secondary school and do something better than a trishaw pedaller.”

However, he has no regrets. “It is fated. What could I have done? During the Japanese time, I was not the only one who suffered. Even those who had the money to buy tapioca could not buy any because there was no one selling it,” he says, philosophically.

Don’t mention the war

Source: "Lifestyle"-The Star- 29 May 2005

By PHILIP GOLINGAI

IN the coffee shops of Yong Peng, Johor, the hot topic among elderly Chinamen is the recent spat between Tokyo and Beijing over the new Japanese textbooks that downplay Japan's wartime atrocities in China.

At Kedai Makanan dan Minuman Hua Kee, two friends of 30 years, Er Choon Bok and Wong Chong Ming were deep in discussion. Over Chinese tea, the 70-something men were expressed their views on China versus Japan. And, obviously they were pro-China.

“The Japanese shouldn't change history. If they had killed thousands of Chinese, then write that they killed thousands of Chinese,” says Wong.

Wong and Er were animated in their discussion on Japanese atrocities in China.

But, when it came to their personal experiences during the Japanese occupation, both were silent, claiming that they had not talked about it since World War II.

Er Choon Bok (left) and Wong Chong Ming love to discuss the Japanese atrocities in China but not their own memories of occupied Malaya. - Photo by ONG SOON HIN

“This is the first time I'm talking about the Japanese (occupation),” says Wong, when asked to relate his experience. “What's there to talk about? That is old story. There is no point of talking about it.”

Er agrees. “The past is the past. Right now, we have food to eat and we do not want to be reminded of the days when we had nothing to eat,” he explains.

In the next few years, the men, who do not want to talk about the past, will probably have fewer friends to talk to about their days under the Japanese yoke.

“It is difficult ? most of them are dead,” says Wong, when asked if he could recommend friends who can share their experiences between 1941 and 1945.

However, when persuaded that their oral history might hold useful lessons for the generations born after World War II, they relived – just a little bit – the past.

“I do remember when the Japanese attacked the British in Yong Peng,” says Wong. “On that day, we had to run to the jungle because we were afraid the Japanese would catch us if we did not. My father told me that if we were caught by the Japanese, they would hit us until we died.”

Er's memory of the Japanese is that “when they caught a woman, they would rape her. The Japanese were evil. When they came to a house they would definitely look for women and when they got hold of one, they would rape her.”

He recalls, however, an incident in his village where 20 Japanese soldiers caught hold of a young Chinese woman and were about to rape her but, when a higher-ranking officer appeared, he ordered them to release the woman.

“Not all Japanese were evil,” he concludes.

Safe from crime but ...

Source: "Lifestyle"-The Star- 29 May 2005


There was good news – albeit just a little – and there was bad news, plenty of it. PHILIP GOLINGAI talks to old-timers who remember the nearly non-existent crime rate during the Japanese Occupation, and the ever present fear of losing one’s head.

IN 2003, Thye Onn Pajak Gadai, a pawnshop in Johor Baru, was robbed twice. During the Japanese Occupation, however, the owner of the pawnshop, which was then located about 300m away from the present shop, was more worried about faltering business than robbery.

“The Japanese dealt very harshly with robbers. Who dares to commit crimes when they chop your head off for stealing?” says Ho Choo Wing, the now 79-year-old owner of Thye Onn.

“Security cameras were unheard of. We did not have these grills,” he says, pointing to the iron barrier that now separates him from his customers. “In the old days, you just walked in. Nowadays, you dare not take any risk.”

However, when the Japanese chased the British out of Johor Baru in 1942, the pawnshop was looted.

Pawnbroker Ho Choo Wing felt safer, at least from robbers, during the Japanese Occupation. - Photo by ONG SOON HIN

“When the Japanese took over Johor Baru, they ordered the Chinese to evacuate to north Johor because the soldiers were preparing to attack Singapore, so my family closed the pawnshop and moved to Pontian,” recalls Ho, who was then 16 years old.

About three weeks later, his family returned to Johor Baru, only to find that their pawnshop had been partially looted. Pawned items, such as a sewing machine, clothes and musical instruments, which they could not take along on their exodus, had been stolen. Even the safe had been broken into.

However, the Hos were lucky that their loss was only material.

“The first batch of Chinese families that returned to Johor Baru before us disappeared. We never knew what happened to them,” he says.

During the Japanese Occupation, the pawnshop opened for business even though there were few customers.

“Maybe one or two customers a month if we were lucky. People did not have anything to pawn because they did not have any income,” he says. “They were more into gambling games like Chap Ji Ki (a guessing game based on the 12 pieces in Chinese chess) and four-digit.”

His teenage years during Japanese rule were spent helping out at the pawnshop and loitering. And, wondering what was happening to Malaya and the world.

“We did not know anything about the outside world (beyond Johor Baru) since all forms of communication were controlled by the Japanese,” he recalls.

Ho’s face breaks into a smile when asked what were the items pawned during the 1940s.

“Bicycles, frying pans, tapak serih (betelnut paraphernalia), sarongs, sewing machines, guitars, pen, watches ? anything that people could bring to the shop. But no cars or motorcycles as we did not have any space to keep them,” he says.

Transactions were in Japanese “banana money” and after the Japanese surrendered in 1945, Ho’s family holdings became valueless.

“When the British returned, I did not go back to school because I had to work in the pawnshop ? we had to start from scratch,” he says.

The Japanese Occupation may have been safe in terms of robbery but, still, Ho remembers it as “terrible”.

“We did not know whether there would be a tomorrow or not. Our lives were not safe. The Japanese could have come to slaughter us at any time,” he explains.

Rumblings of war

Source: "Lifestyle"-The Star- 22 May 2005

BY PHILIP GOLINGAI

THE rumblings of war came through the rumour mill in the mosque for the villagers in Serendah, Selangor, as 1941 drew to a close.

The Japanese had landed in the northern part of Malaya early in December and were advancing steadily south towards Singapore.

And soon – according to rumours – the Japanese were coming through Serendah.

A few metres away from the mosque stood the bridge spanning Sungai Serendah. Here, British soldiers were fortifying their defences around the bridge, bracing for the inevitable.

Ismail recalling the way soldiers marched across the bridge at Serendah.

``The story my father heard in the mosque was that if the Japanese came, they would be carry the Japanese flag, they would fire a few rounds of bullets and then continue their march towards Singapore,’’ recalls Ismail Baba, who was seven years old then.

Believing that the battle for the Serendah bridge would be a quick affair and to avoid getting caught in a crossfire since their family house in Serendah town was located next to the road that connected Ipoh to Kuala Lumpur, Ismail’s Baba Yahya, then 50, built a wooden shed about a kilometre away.

A week after the shed was completed, the fighting began. The day before, Baba had dug holes near his house to hide money, rice and other foodstuff like soy sauce so that it would be not be stolen when he abandoned his home to take shelter in the foothills.

At about 7am on the day of the battle, which was in January, 1942, Ismail was playing with his brother and sister in a field near the shed.

“Suddenly we saw a plane swooping. And it was spraying bullets at us. My brother took off his yellow shirt because he was afraid that the Japanese thought he was a British soldier,’’ recalls Ismail, who now lives in Kampung Melaka, Serendah.

They ran to the shed but bullets continued to rain around them. Their father had been mistaken in thinking his family would be safe sheltering one kilometre away from their house, which was another kilometre from the Serendah Bridge.

Ismail’s memories of that day are like snapshots. He remembers his family running further into the jungle to avoid the bullets and mortars. He remembers not knowing fear as they ran further.

“All I knew was that we had to run faster,” explains the Serendah-born man.

He remembers seeing a dead Japanese soldier near in a house in the Chinese village close to the shed his father had built.

The British, he says, lost the fight to defend the Serendah bridge and, in an attempt to stall the Japanese southward advance, they demolished the bridge and retreated.

“The Japanese engineers were quick to repair the bridge. They dismantled destroyed lorries and used the frames to build a temporary bridge,” he says.

A few days after the British’s retreat, Ismail’s family returned to their house to find it looted and soiled with faeces.

He saw several bodies that were war casualties around Serendah town. He also saw a Japanese column – about six tanks and several lorries – rumbling through, heading for Kuala Lumpur.

Ismail does not remember much of the Japanese during its occupation of Malaya.

“There was not many Japanese in Serendah as their administrative centre was in Rasah, about 20km away,” he says.

He recalls spending half a year at a Japanese-run school where he learnt basic Japanese. Another memory is of a Japanese soldier who slapped his mother because Ismail’s brother had failed to report for duty to patrol the town. And, of course, a diet comprising mainly tapioca. – By Philip Golingai

Massaging information

Source: "Lifestyle"-The Star- 22 May 2005

BY PHILIP GOLINGAI

SANDWICHED between the Chop Kam Woh gift shop and wholesalers Hoong Hing Penjual Borong on Jalan Idris in Kampar, Perak, is an abandoned shop lot.

No. 135 is forlorn now but, 63 years ago, it was a hotbed of intrigue. It was a Japanese massage parlour then. Established in the early 1920s, the parlour was above a Japanese restaurant.

“Under British colonial rule, the town council enactment stated that a ‘prostitute shop’ should be located on two floors with the top floor used for servicing customers,” says 75-year-old local historian Chye Kooi Loong.

Chye Kooi Loong in front of what used to be a Japanese massage parlour cum intelligence gathering effort in Kampar.

“The Chinese, too, had their massage parlours in five cheap hotels in Kampar. They were really brothels if you ask me. But they (the Chinese massage parlours) could not compete with the Japanese one because the Japanese masseurs gave better service and charged cheaper as they were subsidised by Tokyo.”

The Japanese establishment was “very well patronised, from morning to night,” according to Chye, author of The History of the British Battalion – Malayan Campaign: 1941-42.

In 1940, Chye actually visited the restaurant. He was 11 years old when a family friend, a tin miner, told him, “Okay, young man, I will take you to see a Japanese restaurant.”

“What I remember is there were Japanese women singing and male customers drinking heated sake or Japanese tea. There was a dining area where you could eat Japanese dishes, like sukiyaki,” says the Kampar-born historian.

Did he see the massage girls?

“Oh, yes. They behaved very well. They knew we were children and they couldn’t be bothered with us,” he recalls. “Their faces were heavily painted with powder and cosmetics. They wore red lipstick and had Japanese-style hairdos. And they wore kimonos.”

The establishment was popular with British officers as it served “very good Japanese food” and they often took their wives along for dinner. That was on the ground floor.

“If you sought the services of the massage girls, they took you upstairs,” says Chye, adding that Kampar at that time was a big town as it also served the people of Gopeng and Tapah.

Payment for the massage, plus “further services”, was made in Straits dollars; the amount would be equivalent to RM100 today. The clientele ran the gamut from British government servants to tin miners and businessmen.

The Chinese, however, stopped patronising the massage parlour during the Sino-Japanese war that started on July 7, 1937.

“The Chinese hated the Japanese because they had attacked China. No Chinese dared to go into the shop. If you went in, you became a ‘running dog’. You would be stoned by the Chinese waiting outside.”

The parlour, Chye says, was one of the best places to get information.

“You go to a massage parlour, a girl will encourage you to get drunk on sake, and then say ‘marilah tuan, pergi mandi' (sir, let’s go for a bath). That’s how they got information out of you,” he explains.

These Japanese Mata Haris would go through the pockets of drunken British officers, photographing whatever they thought useful.

The officers never suspected they were being pumped for information as the girls were subtle, says Chye.

“For example, they would ask a police inspector, ‘Where are you from?’ and, ‘How many policemen are there in Kampar?’ It was all vital information needed by the Japanese military in planning (the invasion of Malaya),” he explains.

Tokyo was, of course, more than happy to subsidise the parlours as long as the stream of information kept flowing.

The parlour’s Japanese proprietor would also take the girls “fishing”.

“Actually, they were taking photos of the shoreline,” Chye says. “The British were not suspicious, they just thought the Japanese loved photography.”

Two months before the Japanese military launched its attack against Malaya, the massage parlour closed its doors, as did most of the other Japanese-owned shops in town.

Amusement in grim times

Source: "Lifestyle"-The Star- 22 May 2005

LIM Liou Wong's face wrinkles with amusement when he recalls the funfair where he used to spend his time during the Japanese occupation.

Sitting on a lazy chair at a sundry shop in Gemas town, Negri Sembilan, the 74-year-old man points towards an empty lot about 100m away says, “There used to be an amusement park there.”

“It had a funfair, wayang (movie) kung fu, bangsawan (Malay stage opera) and Chinese opera. And there was gambling ... all kinds of gambling, except roulette,” recalls Lim, whose family owns a laundry shop next door.

“The Japanese did not disturb the Chinese who operated the amusement park. Probably they hoped that the Chinese would be harmless if allowed to gamble and drink alcohol. The Japanese would only trouble you if they suspected you were a spy working for the communists or British.”

Lim Liou Wong remembers being terrified of the Japanese soldiers.

Gambling went on in full swing in all the amusement parks throughout Malaya, according to Chin Kee Onn in Malaya Upside Down.

“Under the guise of 'amusement' and 'games of skill', open gambling was carried on under the very noses of the authorities,” Chin wrote. “But, of course, the military police and civil police had been bribed.”

Before the Japanese occupation of Malaya, Lim's family lived next door to a Japanese couple who operated a photo studio. At that time (in the 1930s), it was the only Japanese-owned shop in Gemas.

“They took many photographs of Gemas town. Now when you think of it, they were actually spies. They were very interested in the Gemas railway station,” he recalls, adding the town had strategic importance in terms of transportation because Gemas was the crucial railway junction between Singapore, the east coast and the north of Malaya.

“I also remember them taking pictures of me. They were very friendly and polite. And sometimes they gave me Japanese cakes,” he says.

Some months before the invasion of Malaya, the Japanese shop closed.

The Japanese he remembered during the occupation were not so friendly. In fact, they terrified him.

“When the Japanese soldiers caught members of the Bintang Tiga (communist army), they chopped their heads off or lined them up to be shot by a firing squad. Even innocents were not spared,” he recalls.

The laundry shop run by Lim's father was also not spared, financially.

“Business was bad because everyone was poor. People were more worried about putting food in their stomach than whether their clothes were clean,” he explains. – By P.G.

Desperate rearguard actions

Source: "Lifestyle"-The Star- 22 May 2005

BY PAUL SI

THE British did not put up a significant fight for Kuala Lumpur because the city was deemed indefensible once the Japanese forces had broken through at Slim River.

Although the British troops actually outnumbered the Japanese nearly two-to-one, the invaders had overwhelming superiority in the air and tanks on the ground. The Japanese troops were also experienced, well trained and highly motivated whereas the defending forces were ill equipped and trained.

Therefore, the only realistic defensive plans the British had were centred on relying on rivers to serve as natural barriers and blocking the Japanese advance at key bridges, such as the spans over Slim River and Serendah.

The Japanese, however, attacked with incredible speed. They overwhelmed many of the under-trained an demoralised defenders in a matter of minutes.

In addition to poor training, the British and Indian defenders suffered from exhaustion because constant aerial strafing and bombing meant rest was impossible.

Furthermore, communications was chaotic because much of the British army's irreplaceable radio equipment had been lost in the retreat from Jitra, Kedah, and telephone lines were frequently cut or damaged. Attempts were made to communicate by sending runners but the situation was changing so fast that messages were often outdated by the time they arrived.

Often, Japanese tanks surprised and shot British troop columns lined up on the road. The troops had not been trained to deal with enemy tanks.

After brushing aside weak opposition at Serendah and quickly rebuilding the demolished bridge, the Japanese took Kuala Lumpur and found many stores of useful materials left intact, although the fleeing British had destroyed some fuel depots and airport buildings.

Lt Gen Yamashita believed the last British defensive line before Singapore would be at Sungai Muar.

He planned to overcome it by sending his main attacking force, the 5th Division, down the trunk road to tackle the British defences. At the same time, the Imperial Guards Division would head from Malacca down the coast to outflank the defences.

Bitter memories, sweet revenge

Source: "Lifestyle"-The Star- 22 May 2005

Last week, Revisiting WWII talked to people who remembered the hard times as the Japanese army swept southward through Perak on their way to their ultimate objective of Singapore. PHILIP GOLINGAI follows events as the invaders marched across Selangor, first as conquerors and then as occupiers.

HASHIM Salleh longed for revenge against the Japanese, whose brutality during the war years still fill him with bitterness decades later.

As a 10-year-old boy, he spent just 20 days in a Japanese-run school because “the only thing I learnt was to sing Japanese patriotic songs.”

Asked if he remembered any tunes, Hashim sang something that sounded like mi yoto kiano with a marching beat. Although he still remembers the lyrics after 60 years, he never learned what they meant.

Hashim (right) showing how Japanese soldiers used to slap anyone who failed to bow to them.– All photos by ONG SOON HIN

But the songs stuck in his head, along with the thirst for vengeance in his heart.

In the 1970s, as a taxi driver, he hummed the tune when driving a middle-aged Japanese man from Ipoh to Kuala Lumpur.

“The Japanese passenger laughed heartily when I sang,” he says.

When he reached Rasah, half way between Ipoh and Kuala Lumpur, Hashim pulled into a petrol station for a brief stop.

“The Japanese man asked 'Kuala Lumpur?’ and I just nodded ? he got out of the taxi, thinking that he had arrived,” Hashim recalls with glee.

Not only did he let the passenger make the mistake but Hashim also charged the man double the normal fare.

Asked why he did that, Hashim said, “He (Japanese) did worse things to me in the past, so I took my revenge. But at least my revenge was not that cruel.”

What Hashim remembers about the Japanese reign in Malai (ma-rai-ee, the Japanese name for Malaya) is cruelty.

“What do I remember? My father, Salleh Ali, urging a Japanese soldier to shoot him when he could no longer bear their torture,” says Hashim, who is from Kampung Kurnia, Slim River, Perak.

Japanese soldiers had earlier seized a double-barrelled shotgun from Salleh during a mopping-up operation in their village. “A few days later, another group of soldiers came to our house and demanded that my father hand over his gun,” recalls Hashim.

“My father told them that he had already surrendered it,” Hashim continued, “but the soldiers did not believe him.”

They dragged Salleh off to the Slim River headquarters of the dreaded kempetei (Japanese secret police).

They pumped soap water into the 60-year-old man's stomach using a hose through his mouth. And when his stomach became bloated, a soldier placed a plank on his abdomen and then jumped on it, causing water to squirt out of Salleh's ear, eyes, nose and mouth.

Then a soldier placed Salleh's head on a washbasin and threatened to chop it off. That was when he broke down and pleaded with the soldiers to finish him off with a bullet. Eventually, he was sent to Tanjung Malim police station and later released.

To this day, Hashim has not forgiven the Japanese.

“Benci, cukup benci (I hate them, I really hate them),” says Hashim, who was 10 years old when the Japanese overran the town of Slim River.

The Japanese victory in the battle for the Slim River bridge opened the gateway to central Malaya and Kuala Lumpur.

Other examples of the Japanese cruelty that linger in Hashim's memory include a Japanese soldier slapping his 30-year-old brother, Idris, until blood spewed from his mouth.

Idris failed to bow when a Japanese soldier marched by him.

During the Nipponisation of Malai, bowing became an institution. According to Chin Kee Onn in Malaya Upside Down, there were several types of bows - Rei (ordinary bow), Saikeirei (deep bow) and Kokumin Girei (deep obeisance by the entire assembly).

Holding the fort

Source: "Lifestyle"-The Star- 8 May 2005

Back in Alor Star, things were tense, too. TUNKU ISMAIL JEWA, grandson of the Sultan of Kedah at the time the Japanese advanced into the town, shares his memories of those troubled times.

THE first indication the people of Alor Star had that war had broken out was when Japanese planes bombed the Alor Star aerodrome on the morning of Dec 8, 1941.

After the bombing, civil and military authorities in Kedah began to step up air raid precautions and people in town were advised to seek shelter in rural areas.

On Dec 11, news reached Alor Star that Japanese troops had attacked troops stationed at Changloon, near the Kedah/Thai border.

By then, most Government officers in the north, including the Chief Secretary to the Government, Haji Mohammad Shariff, had left Alor Star to seek refuge in Kulim District in south-east Kedah. Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra was the District Officer in this area at that time.

Meanwhile, the ailing Sultan of Kedah, Sultan Abdul Hamid, and the Regent, Tunku Badlishah, had already been accommodated in Kulim by Tunku Abdul Rahman when they arrived the previous day.

Tunku Ismail Jewa points to what is believed to be remnants of the concrete structure of the Wan Mohammad Saman Bridge, which was blown up by retreating British troops. In the background is the present bridge.

However, my father, Tunku Mohammad Jewa, also of the Kedah royal family, refused to leave Alor Star as he believed strongly that he should remain with the people.

I remember well the day the Japanese Army entered the town: it was on Dec 13, and my parents and other members of my family were stranded on the southern side of Sungai Kedah at Simpang Kuala.

My father got up early as usual that morning and pretended nothing had happened although he knew that the Japanese Army had already entered Alor Star. He decided to go for a walk in the coconut plantation with Pai Rat, an ex-convict of Punjabi and Thai parentage who had earlier asked my father for asylum after all the prisoners from Alor Star prison were released ahead of the Japanese Army’s advance into Alor Star.

During the walk, my father and Pai Rat were suddenly confronted by two Punjabi soldiers and one of them levelled his rifle at my father. Luckily for my father, Pai Rat intervened and told the soldier in Punjabi that my father was the son of the Sultan of Kedah. The soldier apologised before he and his colleagues left to join British troops in Gurun.

After that frightening incident, my father decided that we should leave Simpang Kuala for his mansion at Bakar Bata in northern Alor Star. After we heard that the Wan Mohammad Saman Bridge across Sungai Kedah had been blown up by the retreating troops – and when our driver, Pak Man, did not turn up for work – my father decided that we should all walk to Bakar Bata.

When we arrived on Sungai Kedah’s bank near the present Sultan Badlishah Bridge on the Seberang Perak side, my father had to pay several people to ferry us across to Jalan Pekan Melayu (now renamed Persiaran Sultan Mohammad Jiwa) in their sampan.

As we reached the street, I saw many people running helter-skelter carrying bales of cloth and other items they had looted from shops. Apparently, they had been frightened by the sight of Japanese soldiers aiming rifles at them from the road.

From Jalan Pekan Melayu, we detoured to Jalan Raja where I saw a British soldier in his khaki uniform lying dead on the five-foot way outside a toy shop near the former Royal theatre. He had been bayoneted to death. On the other side of the street, at Jalan Nagor, which was then an open space, I saw a young Chinese man lying dead on the ground. Gruesome sights, indeed....When Japanese military leaders arrived in Alor Star on Dec 13, they found conditions chaotic as there was no law and order. There was widespread looting of shops, private homes and offices by both civilians and Japanese soldiers.

The next day, my father received a visit from Maj-Gen Manaki, commander of the battalion that first entered Kedah; Major Iwaichi Fujiwara, head of the Japanese Intelligence Corps; and K. Shiba, the manager of a toy shop in town and also a secret agent of the Fujiwara Kikan or Intelligence Unit. They had come to seek his co-operation to restore law and order in Alor Star.

My father took the opportunity to complain to the Japanese leaders that his home had been ransacked by their soldiers and expressed shock at the barbarous behaviour of the soldiers.

Fujiwara ordered an immediate investigation, which resulted in the arrest of three soldiers. They were ordered by Fujiwara to commit hara-kiri (ritual suicide) in front of my father. Their bodies were later buried in a plot of land on which the Holiday Villa now stands.

As an initial step towards maintaining law and order, Manaki appointed my elder brother, Tunku Nong Jiwa – then 23 years old and a graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, and a Kedah civil service officer – as Commissioner of Police.

Later, when Lt Gen Tomayuki Yamashita, the Commander-in-Chief of the Japanese forces, arrived in Alor Star, he appointed my father as Officer Administrating the State during the absence of the Sultan, the Regent and the Chief Secretary to the Government from the State capital.

By Dec 14, all troops under British command had left Alor Star and the Japanese forces were in full control of the urban centre.

After his appointment, my father addressed a large gathering of people near the Zahir mosque. He appealed to the people not to leave their homes, to remain calm, and to carry on with their normal duties.

A new State Council was formed with my father as its President. The other members of the council were Tunku Kassim, Tunku Abdullah, Tunku Aizuddin, Syed Omar Shahabudin and Syed Ali. Colonel Ohyama was appointed the Japanese Occupation Governor.

When conditions began to improve towards the end of December, my father requested Tunku Abdul Rahman to bring back the Sultan from Kulim.

Once the Sultan was back in Alor Star, my father formally handed back the administration of the state to the Regent, Tunku Badlishah, before resuming his position as Superintendent of Monopolies and Customs.

Alor Star did not suffer much damage during the Japanese invasion. Except for the destruction of the beautiful Wan Mohammad Saman bridge and a couple of shophouses along Titi Batu, opposite the Central Police Station, as well as the disappearance of all the cannons displayed at the Balai Besar, everything remained intact.

War-time memories

Source: "Lifestyle"-The Star- 1 May 2005

Written by: Bulbir Singh, Seremban

THERE were interesting tales in Revisiting WWII (Insight, StarMag, April 24). There is always some good and bad in any event!

I was five years old during the war but I can vividly remember watching several Japanese men on horseback riding through my parents' wooden house, from the kitchen to the main door. My mum had to grab me from their path. Had she not, I might not be telling this today!

They did not harm anyone but my mum scolded them in Punjabi. Luckily, they did not understand.

My late dad told me about the need to salute the Japanese soldiers as they passed by and if one did not, he would be in hot water.

Dad also told me that he picked up the rudiments of the Japanese language. He had to because he was a bus driver and had to interact with them as he ferried them about.

When the Japanese were about to leave Malaya, my dad tried to purchase a van from them. When they saw he had so much Japanese currency, they beat him up! Dad lived with the marks till his dying day.

I recollect the sad face of my dad when former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad showed his keenness for Japanese work ethics in the Look East Policy.

It was not that my father does not like the Japanese but he abhorred the way they treated many innocent people during the war. He said that was unwarranted and brutal.

Fan of a hero

Source: "Lifestyle"-The Star- 1 May 2005

HAROLD Speldewinde’s tales of World War II are often tributes to the late M. Saravanamuttu, former editor of the Straits Echo, who took charge of restoring order in the aftermath of the Japanese bombings of Penang in December 1941.

A former student of Penang Free School, Speldewinde had completed his Senior Cambridge examinations when war broke out.

He was then boarding at the home of the Quays, a Eurasian family that lived on Barracks Road while his Dutch Burgher parents from Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) were in Taiping, Perak.

“After the bombings, I joined E Company of the Straits Settlement Volunteers Force (SSVF),” the 81-year-old president of the Penang Veterans Association reminisces while visiting the Penang War Museum in Batu Maung.

In the initial pandemonium after the wave of bombings, rotting bodies littered the streets of George Town and looting was rampant as the British retreated from Penang.

The Straits Echo’s was one of the few offices that remained open under the leadership of Saravanamuttu, affectionately known as Uncle Sara; the editor had been a classmate of Speldewinde’s father back in Ceylon.

Harold Speldewinde in the War Museum Penang looking over a torture chamber used by Japanese to break prisoners they interrogated during their Occupation of Penang.

Sara set up the Penang Service Committee comprising elected members from Penang’s different communities to run the town on Dec 16; he also made the hefty Speldewinde, then 17, his personal bodyguard.

The E Company Eurasian volunteers who gave up their arms after the British retreat were called into service as Volunteer Police to keep peace and prevent looting under the leadership of a Eurasian, Lieutenant Willweber, who was later asked by the Japanese to become manager of Penang Hill Railway.

“Armed but not in uniform, I took part in preventing looting,” remembers Speldewinde. “Confiscated loot, comprising mainly food and clothing, was kept at E Company’s headquarters at the Francis Light School on Perak Road and was later distributed to the needy,” says Speldewinde who accompanied Sara on welfare visits.

Even after the British had evacuated by Dec 16, the bombings continued and the committee that met twice daily at No. 10, Scott Road, decided that the Union Jack at Fort Cornwallis had to be taken down and replaced with a white flag of surrender.

“As there were no volunteers, Sara and R.S Gopal, his sub-editor, carried out this mission,” says Speldewinde.

Local Japanese who had been imprisoned by the British before the war were released; with the help of one of them, Sara broadcast an appeal on Dec 19 from the Penang Wireless Station, urging the Japanese air force to stop bombing the island because the British had left Penang.

“Tribute must also be paid to a young Penangite by the name of Ivan Allan who bravely went to Sungai Petani on Dec 18 with a Japanese named Izumi to convey the news that the British had evacuated Penang,” says Speldewinde.

When two companies of Japanese troops arrived in sampans at the Church Street Pier at 4pm on Dec 19, Sara, as the committee chairman, appealed to the Commander not to molest the local population.

“The next day, the Japanese Civil Administrator, Hiroyasu, arrived and formed four different committees comprising Malays, Chinese, Indians and Eurasians. These committees were known as the Peace Preservation Committee.”

While the Japanese troops put up temporarily at the Convent Datuk Keramat, several British officers who arrived from the northern states were secretly put up at the Residency (now the Yang di-Pertua Negri’s residence, Seri Mutiara) and fed for three days by Sara.

Speldewinde’s hero, M. Saravanamuttu, meets Lord Louis Mounbatten, South-East Asia Supreme Allied Commander, at the Bayan Lepas aerodrome in 1945. In the centre is Straits Echo chief reporter Chia Po Teik.

Speldewinde recalls the dangerous mission to help the officers escape under the cover of darkness: “Together with another SSVF volunteer, Oswald Foley, who was driving the truck, Sara and I went to pick up the British officers and take them to the mouth of Sungai Pinang where a tongkang (boat) was waiting to take them to Singapore.

“Had we been caught, our heads would have been chopped off,” says Speldewinde grimly.

Sara’s committee was disbanded on Dec 23 when the Japanese-elected Penang Preservation Committee began functioning. Sara himself was jailed on Christmas Day; he ended up spending nine months incarcerated. Speldewinde left to work on his family’s tea plantation in Cameron Highlands, Pahang, returning to Penang in May 1943 to marry Molly McIntyre, a relative of the Quays family whom he had met before the war.

The couple returned to Cameron Highlands before moving to the Gunung Batu Puteh forest near Tapah, Perak, to join a band of orang asli in a guerrilla resistance. Dressed like the natives, the armed Speldewinde and his men patrolled the area and met fighters from the Malayan Peoples Anti-Japanese Army and, later, the famed Force 136. Due to his association with the communists who smuggled food to his family, the Japanese put up a poster offering a $500 reward for Speldewinde’s capture on the suspicion of him being a communist. The war ended without any combat in the jungle.

As for Sara, the post-war period saw his meteoric rise in diplomatic service as Ceylon’s Commissioner in Singapore and Malaya from 1950 to 1957, Ceylon Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary to Indonesia from 1954 to 1957, and Honorary Consul-General for Ceylon in Bangkok from 1958 to 1961.

Before his death in 1970 at the age of 75, Sara wrote and published a book on his life’s experiences entitled The Sara Saga that includes accounts of life in Penang during the Japanese Occupation. The book also describes the role of the short-lived Penang Service Committee in keeping peace, saving rice from looting and distributing it, clearing and disposing of corpses, safeguarding petrol and issuing it only to those involved in essential work, like doctors.

“Uncle Sara was a newspaperman who expressed his opinions freely and was the bravest man I have ever met,” concludes Speldewinde. – By CHOONG KWEE KIM

When barbers became police chiefs

Source: "Lifestyle"-The Star- 1 May 2005

AS a volunteer with the 3rd Battalion of the Straits Settlement Volunteer Force (SSVF), Mushir Ariff was called to arms when the bombing of Penang started in December 1941 – but the island was lost without combat.

“Those of us from the transport section were on standby at two expatriate officers’ residence at No. 1, Wright Road, awaiting orders. The officers then told us to go back – and the British just scooted off without telling anyone and with no goodbyes,” recalls the now 87-year-old Datuk Mushir at his home in Batu Feringghi, still sounding indignant after all this time.

The volunteers disbanded and Mushir’s family evacuated to Air Itam.

After the late M. Saravanamuttu, former editor of the Straits Echo, conveyed to the Japanese that the British had left, Mushir says the invaders arrived and proceeded to organise community leaders to head the Peace Preservation Committee that met with the Japanese once a week to deal with local issues of governance.

Datuk Mushir Ariff and his father, the late Sir Dr Kamil, were on the Peace Preservation Committee that dealt with local issues of governance during the Occupation.

The Malay community was headed by Mushir’s father, Dr Kamil Ariff (later Sir Dr Kamil); other members on the committee included Mushir’s father-in-law, C.M. Hashim (later Tan Sri Hashim), and his uncle, A. Carrim. Also on the committee were Capt Mohd Noor, Yusoff Izzuddin, Datuk Haji Ali Rouse, and Haji Murshid, among others. Mushir himself was on a sub-committee.

He recalls that the Chinese community was led by Heah Joo Seang, the Indian by Dr N.K. Menon, and the Eurasian by Lieutenants Willweber and Shelly (he doesn’t remember their full names), among others.

Mushir’s father and Willweber were also on the earlier Penang Service Committee that Saravanamuttu had set up; it was taken over by the Peace Preservation Committee.

The latter’s leaders were based at Convent Datuk Keramat to record the local population’s reports on break-ins, arson, theft or loss of title deeds of property.

“We just took down notes for further action but nothing came of it until the committee was dissolved after two or three months. That’s when the Japanese brought in their own High Court judges, civil servants, and officers to form a civil government,” Mushir says.

He remembers vividly that a Japanese barber called Ando-san who had a barbershop in Argyll Road later became the Chief Police Officer!

As for Mushir, from the rank of a private in the SSVF, he later became the first Malaysian to become the national president of the Ex-Services Association after taking over from Brigadier-Gen I.C.C. Lauder in 1959. – By C.K.K.

History preserved

Source: "Lifestyle"-The Star- 1 May 2005

THE mighty British military fortress at Batu Maung was rendered impotent when the British retreated in the face of advancing Japanese troops that arrived from the northern part of Malaya during World War II.

Upon their arrival in Penang in December 1941, the Japanese soldiers found the fort abandoned and used it as an interrogation camp for prisoners of war and civilians.

This is where the Japanese used to chop people’s heads off at the Batu Maung fort that has now been converted into the War Museum Penang.

The 1930 fortress in south-east Penang, now turned into the War Museum Penang, was equipped with two 15-inch Howitzer guns that could swivel 180°. According to museum founder Johari Shafie, the guns had a range of 30km to 50km, which them to cover the Mata Kuching Royal Air Force base in Butterworth (now a Royal Malaysian Air Force base) in the event the base was attacked.

“But the British dynamited the guns before leaving Penang because they did not have time to remove them for use in the defence of Singapore,” he says.

Johari adds that the British spent £40mil to construct its defence system in Penang at the Batu Maung fort, Fort Auchery in Batu Feringghi, the mobile base observation tower in Tanjung Tokong, and at the Swettenham Pier; they were all incapacitated during their retreat.

The Batu Maung fortress, abandoned and reclaimed by the jungle after the war, was rediscovered by Johari who applied to lease 7.8ha of land around it to develop it into an outdoor living war museum; the museum opened in 2002.

It features underground military tunnels, an ammunition store, observation tower, an intelligence and logistic centre, a generator room, halls, offices, canon firing bays, sleeping quarters, cook houses and a medical infirmary.

Johari Shafie standing where one of the Howitzers had been positioned facing the sea at the British fort at Batu Maung.

Johari says a Col Kobayashi’s battalion of the Japanese 5th division stormed in from Muka Head in small boats in the early hours of Dec 17.

“According to the late Malay volunteer Datuk Capt Mohd Noor, the Japanese troops first entered from Muka Head camouflaged as fishermen and bandits. That was before the official arrival by ship at the Church Street Pier,” he explains.

When the commander of the Malayan campaign, General Tomoyuki Yamashita – the famed “Tiger of Malaya” –arrived, Johari says Col Kobayashi was instructed to turn the Batu Maung fortress into a camp for prisoners of war.

Johari says the Tiger of Malaya was a brilliant military commander who instantly took swift and severe action when he learnt of Japanese troops plundering and raping.

“Three Japanese soldiers convicted of rape by a court martial were executed by a firing squad at the Penang police headquarters,” adds Johari.

After the war, Yamashita himself was convicted by an American military commission in Manila for atrocities committed by soldiers under his command.

He was hanged on Bataan Island in the Philippines on Feb 23, 1946, and an exact replica of his gallows is recreated at the War Museum Penang.

The museum, offering night tours and dormitory stays, is open daily. For details, call 016-421 3606 or 04-626 5142. – By C.K.K.