THE JAPANESE OCCUPATION OF

SINGAPORE, 1942 -1945

 WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS UNIT
• How did the Japanese Occupation affect the
lives of people in Singapore?
• What was the Occupation about?
• How were the lives of the people like?
 MILITARY GOVT.
Imagine that you are a
conqueror who has just
taken over an enemy’s land.

What policies will you

introduce? Why will you
introduce these policies?
IS THIS AN ACCURATE DESCRIPTION OF HOW THE
JAPANESE INTENDED TO RULE SINGAPORE?
WHY OR WHY NOT?
POLITICAL CONTROL
 POLITICAL CONTROL - JAPANESE
MILITARY ADMINISTRATION
• Occupied territories in Southeast Asia were
ruled by the Japanese Military
Administration (M.A.D) with its HQ located
at the Fullerton Building.
• Its objectives were
• Secure resources
• Support provisions for the needs of local troops
• Maintain law and order
• Establish local self-sufficiency
• Establish local rapport for co-operation in case of
an Allied counter-offensive

• Which of these objectives do you think

would have been the most important? Why?
MANAGING POWS
150,000 POWS
 PRISONERS OF WAR
• Japanese captured a large number of
POWs following the British surrender.
They were housed mainly in Changi
Prison and Selarang Barracks.
• In Selarang, 40,000 men were crowded into
premises meant for 4,000

• POWs were subject to overcrowding,

disease, malnutrition and random acts
of sadism from Japanese guards
• Some of them were sent to build the
Death Railway
• Built in 16 months instead of 5 years as
projected by Japanese engineers
• More than 100,000 POWs died in the
construction
 ON THE MENTALITY OF POWS
“Some of the men… found themselves
living in malaria-ridden sandpits. Some
lived in ambulances, some in shacks which
they built with attap leaves and corrugate
iron, and others made themselves a home
by upturning lorries and old motor cars…
The enormity of our defeat had its effect
on us all. A miserably ungenerous spirit
ran through the camp. Instead of
becoming united in adversity, bickering
and a frantic search for scapegoats tore us
apart.”

- Captain Denis Russell-Roberts

JAPANESE BRUTALITY

JAPANESE BRUTALITY
THE DEATH RAILWAY
SOCIAL CONTROL
SOCIAL CONTROL AS THE
“VELVET GLOVE”
• Propaganda
• Indoctrination to influence the minds
• Censorship of the press (newspapers, radio, films)

• ‘Nipponisation’—promotion of Japanese
culture & values
• Renamed Syonan-to (“Light of the South”)
• English names replaced by Japanese ones
• Japanese language classes organised
• Cult of the Emperor promoted

• Education system
• Aim was to create loyalty to Japan
• Rejected British emphasis on academic subjects
• Favoured character building, physical education, and
vocational education.
Chart of routine communal exercises done in synchrony with radio broadcasts
 SOCIAL CONTROL AS “THE IRON FIST”
Q: What would the main aim of the
Japanese be?
• A: To remove threats to Japanese
rule
Q: Who was singled out as a
particular threat?
• A: The Chinese

Q: Why did the Japanese perceive

them as threats?
• A: Anti-Japanese elements who
aided China’s war effort against
Japan
 CONTEXT - SINGAPORE ANTI-JAPANESE
MOVEMENT
• Most of the overseas Chinese in Singapore
remained loyal to their homeland, China.
• Showed their anti-Japanese feelings by
boycotting Japanese goods, refusing to shop
at Japanese shops.
• Generous contributions were made to
support China’s war efforts through the
China Relief Fund Committees.
• Anti-Japanese demonstrations were
organised.
• Some Chinese also volunteered to serve in
China, mainly as drivers or motor
mechanics.
 KEMPEITAI
• Military Police of the Imperial
Japanese Army
• Informers all over the island who
would supply them with
information about anti-Japanese
elements.
• Brutal torture of suspects at
Kempeitai buildings
• Permeated an atmosphere of fear
• Often employed use of fear and torture
to maintain law and order
THE OLD KEMPEITAI HEADQUARTERS IN
SINGAPORE -- GUESS WHERE THIS IS?
SOOK CHING
 SOOK CHING
• Sook Ching = “purification through
elimination”
• Official aim to root out anti-Japanese
elements in Singapore
• All Chinese between the ages of 18-
50 told to report to specific
checkpoints where they were
screened.
• Arbitrary process; black hooded
informants
• Those identified as dangerous were
detained or killed
• Number of people killed ranged
between 6,000-50,000
SOOK CHING
• Two prominent Japanese officers
heavily involved in Sook Ching:
• Masanobu Tsuji – Mastermind and
organiser of Sook Ching
• To Tsuji, the local Chinese population in
Singapore deserved to be punished en-
masse, for either they had supplied with
money and men in the war against Japan, or
they were stooges and puppets of the British.
• Takuma Nishimura – Oversaw the
Eastern half of Singapore, where the
killings from Sook Ching took place
• Responsibility and Involvement of
Tomoyuki Yamashita
 SOOK CHING – PRE-MEDIATED?
The purge was planned before
Japanese troops landed in
Singapore. The military
government section of the 25th Army
had already drawn up a plan
entitled "Implementation
Guideline for Manipulating
Overseas Chinese" on or around 28
December 1941…
This guideline stated that anyone
who failed to obey or co-operate
with the occupation authorities
should be eliminated. It is clear that
the headquarters of the 25th
Army had decided on a harsh
policy toward the Chinese
population of Singapore and
Malaya from the beginning of the
war…
- Hirofumi Hayashi, historian
 SOOK CHING – PRE-MEDIATED?
According to Onishi Satoru, the Kempeitai officer in
charge of the Jalan Besar screening centre,
Kempeitai commander Oishi Masayuki was
instructed by the chief of staff, Suzuki Sosaku, at
Keluang, Johor, to prepare for a purge following the
capture of Singapore. Although the exact date of
this instruction is not known, the Army
headquarters was stationed in Keluang from 28
January to 4 February 1942...

Clearly, then, the Singapore Massacre was not the

conduct of a few evil people, but was consistent with
approaches honed and applied in the course of a
long period of Japanese aggression against China
and subsequently applied to other Asian countries.
To sum up the points developed above, the Japanese
military, in particular the 25th Army, made use of
the purge to remove prospective anti-Japanese
elements and to threaten local Chinese and
others to swiftly impose military
administration.

- Hirofumi Hayashi, historian

SOOK CHING – TARGET LIST
• Teachers
• Journalists
• Former British employees
• Dalforce/Singapore
Volunteer Unit Members
• Communists
• Active anti-Japanese
supporters
 SOOK CHING – ARBITRARY METHODS OF
SCREENING
• Through interviews
• Dialect
• Tattoos
• Glasses
• Clothing
• Signature
• Detained without explanation
• Looks
• Use of Informants
 SOOK CHING – ORAL HISTORY ACCOUNT
On the third day, the Japanese
soldiers asked three questions:
“Where were you working? For
whom were you working? What
was your work like?”
“Quite a number of people
expecting the worst to come had
either lied or just described their
jobs as something unimportant.
And they were just let off. In my
case, I was silly to say that I was
doing mapping work. On that
information I was detained.”
 SOOK CHING – ORAL HISTORY ACCOUNT
(CONT’D)

“We were standing up in the lorry

and we were told by three soldiers
guarding us to squat down. This
was to prevent the civilians from
seeing us.. It was then that we
began to worry as to what would
happen… After we passed Changi
Prison and the lorries didn’t stop,
we began to worry.”
 SOOK CHING (CONT’D)
I swam outwards regardless of what was
happening. It was then that I heard a whistle.
And after the whistle, the machine gun opened
up. I took a deep breath and went underwater
and I could hear the bullets ricocheting above
me…
When the firing stopped I was telling myself,
“These people will come out to find those who
are still wounded to finish them off. They will
not leave any wounded. And I was right. I
heard the chug-chug of a motor boat. And then
I just swam underwater, not outwards towards
the sea but towards my right, towards Bedok
area.
- Yap Yan Hong, survivor
SOOK CHING – LIVING TO TELL
THE TALE
• Sheer Luck or Divine intervention?
• Grandfather A was on the lorry headed for
Changi Beach but fell out of the lorry during a
bump – survived by hiding in the drain
• Grandfather B lied during Sook Ching
screening by pretending to be illiterate –
passed the checks
• Grandmother B hid in attic of the roof to
avoid Japanese soldiers who poked the roof
with bayonets to check for stowaways – saved
by the cat who jumped out
• Stories underline the climate of fear
and confusion but life goes on.
 SOCIAL CONTROL – DIVIDE & RULE
• Chinese were treated the most harshly
• Sook Ching
• $50 million forced contribution
through the Overseas Chinese
Association
• Tried to win the support of the Malays
and convince them that Japan was there
to free them from British rule.
• Wanted Indians to join the Indian
National Army (INA) which was supposed
to liberate India.
• Some enthusiastic response, but
also some resistance
• Eurasians also regarded as suspect
because of their employment under the
British as clerks and civil servants.
 SOCIAL CONTROL – PREFERENTIAL
TREATMENT?
“The Japanese had camps in Farrer
Park. My brother-in-law, myself, used to
visit those camps. And we were
welcomed, that’s the funny thing. And
they were very friendly with us, not
Chinese but Indians. And I used to go
there every two, three days and mixed
with them. They would show us
photographs of the Campaign, they
went through Malaysia, They used to
show us secret photographs and all.
And sometimes they would give us
Japanese food.”
- Recount by Ronendra Karmakar
 SOCIAL CONTROL – PREFERENTIAL
TREATMENT?
“And that was for these reasons, because
they were trying to get the Indians to
form a co-operative group to side them.
So naturally they had to be nice with us.
And they even came to our house to check
what things we had. But they never
touched our things. We were not
bothered about the Japanese because
they didn’t bully us. And we thought that
good times had come again because
things were quite cheap because things
were looted.”
- Recount by Ronendra Karmakar
 SOCIAL CONTROL – PREFERENTIAL
TREATMENT?
“He offered no sweet talk. There was no
cajoling, no persuasion. Stark facts:
hunger, suffering, great privation—
extreme privation—and even death. This
was what he offered to us when we came
into the INA. Because we would be
soldiers of freedom; and we would be
moving to [the] battleground, against
the Allies in India.”
- Rasamma Bupalan, part
of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment (the
women's wing of the Indian National
Army)
ECONOMIC CONTROL
ECONOMIC CONDITIONS
• All shops to reopen and public utilities
repaired and maintained by skilled
workers.
• Shops were all taken over by Japanese companies
and a permit system was implemented to regulate
businesses and industries.
• The market was essentially monopolised by the
Japanese.

• Food shortage
• Shortage of fuel  few ships brought foodstuff to
Singapore
• Allied ships not allowed to trade in Singapore
• Food kept for the Japanese army
ON SHOPS
“My factory people came down and said the Japanese have come
in to take stocks. And I remember we had some friends who kept
their tin ingots up there. The whole lot was confiscated. He was
in the pineapple business. In fact, there was a military notice
asking people to declare whatever stocks they have. So we
declared and then one of the Japanese called me up to his office.
They called them up by trade, you see. So sago factory people
were asked to go up one day. And they just said they are
taking over and you’ll be paid your rents, that’s all.”
- Recount by Lim Kim San, on his family business Soon Hin Sago Factory
ECONOMIC CONDITIONS
Eat to Live: Wartime Recipes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRCtNXIBBpU
1:17 – 8:36
 ECONOMIC CONDITIONS

• Rationing: essential foodstuffs

controlled e.g. rice, salt, sugar
• From April 1942, Syonan
residents had to purchase their
food supplies in rationed
amounts using the certificate of
identity issued to them.
• “Grow More Food Campaign”
• encouraged people to plant their
own food with the goal of making
Singapore self-sufficient
• Tapioca, sweet potato, yam
• Malnutrition and starvation
ON RATIONING
“Once or twice a month, they have a ration for
pork, meat or fishes. Certain day ration for
sugar, certain day ration for rice, for pork, for
fish, at a certain market where you queue up…
Even if ration comes, you got to queue up in
the markets. You got to go early, hours ahead
and it’s up to the whims and fancies of the
fishmonger to give you the type of fish.
Sometimes they give you good, sometimes bad.
But those who worked with the Japanese, in
the police or the government office, they got
the best. They get direct from the supplier and
so we are left we crumbs, even with the ration
card. You can’t protest, you can’t complain.
They can arrest you and put you in a lock up
and maybe bash you for no reason.”
 ON RATIONING
“Whatever rations you got, take
it. If you can’t use it, give it to
some friend, give it to some
neighbours. So one day, when he
doesn’t want it, he gives you
when he gets it. That was the
way things were going on.”
WARTIME RECIPE MEE HOON KUAY
ECONOMIC CONDITIONS
• Rampant black market activities
• Illegal buying and selling of goods at very high prices
• But opportunities for some to get wealthy

• Inflation
• Banana notes
• Authorities simply printed more money when they needed
• Printed on poor quality paper and easy to forge
• As a result, their value dropped

• Not co-prosperity sphere, but “co-poverty fear”

 BANANA MONEY
• First introduced on 23rd February
1942
• Original worth when introduced
was roughly equivalent to the value
of the defunct Straits Dollars.
• However, as the economic
conditions deteriorated, more
money was printed by the
Administration so much so that
banana money came to be equated
as worthless.
 BANANA MONEY
The Japanese said all the British currency notes
had to be handed over and changed to the new
currency. So at that time everyone had to make a
decision, to change all their British notes or to keep
a part of it. From what I know, many people did not
have much confidence in the Japanese notes at that
time, so a portion was kept (hidden) at home, for
use when needed.
Secondly, some of these banana notes didn’t seem
to have serial numbers. At that time, the general
opinion especially among the elderly would be
that, upon comparison, the British note seemed to
be of better quality. The Japanese notes was just
like normal paper and that was a psychological
effect. Moreover, the public in general would think
that these being distribute during a war, it might
not be reliable, don’t change all your money.
HYPERINFLATION DUE TO OVERPRINTING
• By the end of the Japanese Occupation, so much
money had been printed that the banana money
had become valueless.
• One kati (604.8 grams) of pork cost 400¥ and
onions cost 225¥ towards the end of the
Japanese occupation. Even then, prices often
changed throughout the day. One could often
expect to have to pay more as the day went by.
• What other alternative solutions could people
turn to?
• Barter Trade
FOOD PRICES 10 SEPT 1945
Item Pre-war Straits Dollar Black Market
Pork (per kati) 30 cts 400 ¥
Fish 20 cts 320 ¥
Beef 20 cts 150 ¥
Sugar 4 cts 60 ¥
Eggs 3 cts 15 ¥
Coffee 10 cts 45 ¥
Onions 7 cts 225 ¥
Sauce 10 cts 40 ¥
Prawns 60 cts 250 ¥
Mutton 30 cts 125 ¥
Coconut oil 12 cts (1 bottle) 120 ¥
Fresh Chilies 14 cts 100 ¥
Bean Curd 1 ct 4¥
Beansprouts 2 ct 25 ¥
 RESISTANCE AND
OPPOSITION
• Force 136
• Dalforce (pre-war)
• MPAJA
• Selarang Barracks Incident
• Operation Jaywick
• Double Tenth Incident
SELARANG INCIDENT 30 Aug 1942
OPERATION JAYWICK (SEPT 1943) & RIMAU (OCT
1944)
• Operation Jaywick: • Operation Rimau:
• Replication of the same
• The Allies, 14 men led by Maj mission
Ivan Lyon successfully bombed • 21 men led by Maj Ivan
7 out of 20 ships in Singapore Lyon, successfully sunk
harbour. 3 ships.

• Sailed out from Australia • Mission was

compromised as
under disguise of Japanese their cover was
fishing trawler blown when their
ship was met with a
• Not suspecting an Allied Japanese patrol.
attack; • 10 members were
• Led to reprisal against local captured and
civilians leading to the Double executed.
Tenth Incident
 RESISTANCE MOVEMENTS
• Malayan People’s Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA)
• Hid in the Malayan jungles and carried out attacks on Japanese soldiers
• Tried to stir up anti-Japanese feelings among the people by distributing
newspapers and organising gatherings
• Majority Chinese recruits
• Provided with weapons and training by the British

• Force 136
• Secret organisation set up by the British to gather information about the
Japanese and organise sabotage activities
• Trained in India and sent secretly into Malaya to help the MPAJA
• Lim Bo Seng was one of its leaders

• Ordinary Civilians
• Elizabeth Choy
• Imprisoned in a tiny cell with other prisoners
• Subject to brutal beatings, electric shock, water torture, starvation diet
STORIES OF COURAGE
LIM BO SENG MEMORIAL
JAMES BOND BEFORE HE WAS COOL

THE ORIGINAL BOND LAI TECK

OCCUPATION AMBIGUITIES
“We were all, of course, terribly pro-
Allies and all definitely anti-
Japanese. But it’s a matter of
manifesting your feelings. You know,
being reasonable about it, being
realistic about it and being cautious
about it… The thing was to keep quiet
about it; keep your feelings pent up…
What else could you do? How could
you say no to these masters who had
come and occupied Singapore?”
- Dr Farleigh Oehlers
OCCUPATION AMBIGUITIES
“I explained to him what was at the back of
my mind---the formation of a Chinese
organisation to cooperate with the Japanese
Imperial Army. That would appear on the
surface to be the objective. But the real
objective would be to protect the Chinese
community.”
“I did not bother to find out if those asking
for passes were good citizens or bad hats.
My only concern was to help as many
people as I could in this confusion. The
passes read: ‘The bearer of this pass is a
good citizen. Please look after him and
protect him, and let him go about his
business without hindrance.’”
- Shinozaki Mamoru
 THE BEGINNING
OF THE END
• Battle of Coral Sea
• First Japanese setback
• Battle of Midway
• Turning point
• 1944: Re-invasion of the
Philippines
• Kamikaze pilots
• Mar 1945: Battle of Iwo
Jima and Okinawa
BEGINNING OF THE END – IMPACT ON S’PORE
• Late 1944 - Allied bombers and planes
could be seen flying above Singapore
• Air of uncertainty and anticipation
• Japanese conscripted local civilians
• Ordered POWs to construct defences
• POWs feared being slaughtered if the British
attacked
• Rumours went around that those suspected of
being sympathetic towards the British were
marked to be murdered
• All believed that the Japanese would
fight till the last man
• How would the lives of the people change?
THE BATTLE OF IWO JIMA
JAPAN’S SURRENDER

• The Atomic Bomb

• Deadliest weapon ever used by
men till then
• 6 August: Hiroshima (Little Boy)
90,000 – 166,000 killed
• 9 August: Nagasaki (Fat Man)
60,000 – 80,000 killed
• 15 August: Japan surrendered
• Were the bombings justified?
SENSE OF IRONY?
“… Sook Ching had been carried
out by an infantry from the 5th
Division of the Hiroshima Area
which had acted as a
supplementary Kempei Tai during
the massacres. The 18th Division,
noted for its ferocity during the
massacres, came from the
Nagasaki area.”
- Mamoru Shinozaki
 END OF JAPANESE RULE IN SINGAPORE
• 12 Sep: Surrender Ceremony held
at the Municipal building
• “Whispering terror” in the weeks
before the arrival of Allied forces
• Chinese youths sought out and
killed collaborators
• Breakdown of law and order
• Widespread looting
• Copycat reprisals against
Japanese soldiers
Allied prisoners of war piling out of the main gate of the
Changi Prison after the British liberation of Singapore in
September of 1945
 END OF JAPANESE RULE IN SINGAPORE
“I said it then, and I still say it
today—that day was the end of
the Dark Age of Singapore.”
- Heng Chiang Ki
Straits Times, 11 Sep 1995
“We cheered the British and jeered
at the Japanese. I felt great. It was
as if I had started living all over
again.”
- Ngui Jim Chiang
Straits Times, 11 Sep 1995
IMPACT OF OCCUPATION
• Desire for independence
• Loss of respect for British rule because of their failure to
protect Malaya.
• Myth of white superiority collapsed: quick victory of the
Japanese showed that Europeans were not superior to Asians.
• Effect of Japanese propaganda claiming to liberate Asia from
colonial rule and encouraging ‘Asia for Asians’
• Banding together of different races against common enemy in
a time of adversity.
• Some people therefore believed in the need to rid Singapore of
foreign masters and rule their own nation.
IMPACT OF OCCUPATION
• Expansion of Malayan Communist Party (MCP)
• Most MPAJA members were supporters of the MCP
• Posed as people’s heroes after the Japanese surrender and
so managed to win supporters
• Given men, training, weapons which they hid after the war
• Made a legal party after the war in recognition of their
efforts
• British needed to fulfill their mandate to restore order
and living conditions
IMPACT OF OCCUPATION
“The regime was welcomed back with genuine relief
because it was benign, its weaknesses were sins of
omission, its memory was not marred by cruelty, or
dragooning the population. Nevertheless, the only
ultimate justification for a colonial power was its
ability to protect, and in this the British colonial
regime had been tried and found wanting. The old
unquestioning trust in British protection had been
shattered forever.”
- C.M. Turnbull
IMPACT OF OCCUPATION
“The halo of victory must shine on
the Union Jack, but today there
remains little vestige of its glory
of former times.”

“The bronze statue of Raffles

appeared on its pedestal for the
second time; but without anyone
knowing the reason, its colour
appeared to have faded.”
- COL Masanobu Tsuji
 IMPACT OF OCCUPATION
“The prestige of the white man per se
has gone. He can now be natural and
himself, for he is seen to be a human
being, who can be defeated, who can
make mistakes, who is often arrogant
and crude and yet who has his
points… Asia has awakened to its
shame and arisen to take its destiny
into its own hands… In the new era
there will be an end of Empire.”
- Tan Cheng Lock
IMPACT OF OCCUPATION
Question:

Why do we need to study the Japanese Occupation?