LEE KIP LEE'S DIARY: A KALEIDOSCOPE OF LIFE IN SYONAN (selected entries)
February 1942
Our three days of forced sojourn in Telok Kurau had reinforced our fears of the hard times ahead. We would have to start from scratch as my Pa had lost his thriving business as a result of the war. We would have to live on our savings and Pa would have to look for a job. What about our education?
March 1942
Horrendous stories reached us of the display of decapitated heads of looters at Dhoby Ghaut in front of the Cathay cinema and at the Kallang Bridge. After hearing alarming reports of young men being forcibly taken off the streets into waiting army lorries, my parents naturally refused to accede to Kip Lin's and my request for permission to go to town. Besides, marauding soldiers were still roaming around. The town was getting filthy, but fortunately the night-soil carriers had returned to work... Rubbish littered the roadside with flies buzzing around in hordes. The debris of bombed buildings remained uncleared and scavengers were rummaging amidst the charred timber for firewood... Along Rochor Canal Road, covered-up corpses were still lying around and mounds of earth along the banks looked like hastily-dug graves. This was the last time we saw our cousin Victor before he presented himself to the dreaded Kempeitai at the YMCA in response to their notification that all members of the Singapore Volunteer Corps should report to them. He never returned. After months of waiting in anguish, we finally realised that he and his batch of volunteers had been killed by the Japanese.
May 1942
Pa got a job as a manager of an estate and rent collection agency. He was so overjoyed because he needed money to pay the 81/2 per cent tax which the Japanese military government had imposed on properties. The euphemism for this tax was "a voluntary donation" of $50 million from the Chinese community of Malaya to the Japanese government who had made the Overseas Chinese Association responsible for the collection of this "gift"... This form of extortion caused considerable hardship as nobody had much cash in hand. Consequently people either mortgaged their properties to borrow from the bank or sold them to raise the tax levied on them.
September 1942
Almost everyone was a broker, buying or selling something or other - Klim milk, Ovaltine, cigarettes, whiskey, soap, bicycles - in the black market... One of my cousins became a big time dealer in jewellery and gold ornaments and she was literally rolling in Japanese banana money... Little boys too had turned into petty traders, pestering Japanese soldiers for their cigarettes with - "Master, master, tabako aru ka?" (meaning "Sir, sir, have you any cigarettes/") - leaving them no peace... These packets of cigarettes would then be sold to the cigarette lady who operated a stall made up of a soap box.
August 1943
Uncle Chim Tuan received a letter from the Overseas Chinese Association (Straits-Born Section) stating that "the Chinese Community in Syonan-to has decided to present one Fighter Plane to the Nippon Government for service on this island. It is expected that every Chinese resident here will do his or her bit by subscribing towards the funds for the purchase of this plane." ...The next letter from the Overseas Chinese Association on the subject of the "Endau Self Sufficiency New Syonan Development Scheme" (this was a project to ease the food situation in Singapore by encouraging the Chinese to settle in Endau in east Johor) specified the sum of money to be paid. The Association's new pitch was that it "requests the payment of $113 being your share of contribution towards the contribution".
September 1943
The talk of the town was the impending visit of the Japanese Prime Minister General Hideki Tojo to inspect the troops of the Indian National Army... Indian National Army military policemen were all along Kallang and Geylang Roads. Their presence supported the rumour that Subhas Chandra Bose would also be in Singapore at the same time. The streets were bare of people and at every street corner there were fully-armed Japanese sentries... There were widespread arrests of "subversive elements" at Keong Saik Road in Chinatown and Lim Teck Boo Road in Serangoon. Included in this category were former members of the Singapore Volunteer Corps...
January 1944
There was evidence of much greater feasting than before in the celebration of Chinese New Year despite a further reduction in the rice rations from 12, 9 and 6 katis to 8, 6 and 4 katis per month for men, women and children respectively. The rationale behind this extravagance was a spirit of abandonment behind the urge to splurge and have a last fling before the storm broke out.
June 1944
Rice was distributed to the public at $3 a kati. Only the hardy would attempt to queue with their beddings at 6 pm outside the distribution centre, waiting for morning to come when they would be issued with their rations. They were mostly women who, when it came to the distribution of cigarettes, would sell their places in the queue to smokers who would make an appearance around sunrise.
July 1944
It was my first outing as a night patrolman under a system whereby each household provided a male member of the family to form a group of six men to patrol a ward which was in the charge of a ward leader, identified by a two-star badge on his chest. The whole exercise was a farce because after some time, we would search for a cosy corner to sit down and chat or go to sleep. If we saw any Japanese coming we would avoid him, more so if he was drunk as there had been instances of night patrolmen being beaten up with their own night sticks!
August 1944
The Japanese penchant for forming associations as a means of regulating government policy resulted in the establishment of an association of bullock cart owners. The idea was to mobilise their transport potential as fuel oil was getting scarce. Gambling had become a lucrative source of revenue for the government and the Great World and New World amusement parks were veritable gambling farms. There were no restrictions governing the admissions of patrons who included children and housewives who ruined themselves at the gambling tables, taking their chances at fan tan, chap ji kee and a dice game called see gor lak. There was a market for all sorts of commodities. Human excreta was fetching good prices in the rural areas where they were used as fertilisers. In Amber Road, the municipal night-soil lorry had stopped coming. It had been replaced by an enterprising individual who collected the night-soil from the various houses and from the kampong and disposed of them to the farmers.
November 1944
Of all things, two "comfort houses" - army brothels - had been set up in Katong; one at East Coast Road, (where the Katong Shopping Centre is now located) between Haig Road and Ean Kiam Place; and the other at the seaward side of Joo Chiat Road. They were all Indonesian women who had been mercilessly dragged from their homes and brought to Syonan to submit to the brutal desires of Japanese soldiers. There were sad, blank expressions on the faces of these unfortunate women some of whom were only 14 or 15 years old. There were also Japanese prostitutes in Cairnhill Road where the Japanese had requisitioned all the terrace houses...and converted them into "comfort houses". This brothel area stretched from the Scotts Road end to the Cairnhill Circle end of Cairnhill, and wooden barricades at both entrances ensured that only Japanese soldiers were admitted.
January 1945
Since the previous year when the fortunes of war had turned against them, there had been indications that the Japanese were "digging in" in preparation for the allied air offensive in Singapore. There were warnings of the grave food situation; there was also the introduction of an extensive land cultivation scheme resulted in the clearing of rubber plantations and the disposal of rubber trees as firewood; the forced migration of families of Chinese to Endau in east Johor and of Catholics and Eurasians to Bahau in Negri Sembilan; the revival of Air-Raid Precaution exercises; the construction of public air-raid shelters which the Japanese, in the flush of victory in 1942, confidently told us we could demolish; and the sight of Japanese soldiers donning steel helmets instead of their usual soft cloth caps. Since November 1944, there had been sporadic air raids by a solitary reconnaissance B29 American bomber or by small groups of twenty aircraft aiming for military installations in Changi or the Naval Base... However, on 11 January 1945 the US bombers hit at civilian targets for the first time. Kip Lin and I followed the flight of the first formation of five Chittagong-based American B29 Flying Fortresses (bombers). We could see their silver-coloured bellies glistening in the sunlight. The raid lasted from 8:30am to 10:30am. Several houses received direct hits including those in Clyde Street, between North Bridge Road and Beach Road. Other buildings which suffered damage were in Dickson Road, Dunlop Street, Fraser Street, Rowell Road and Hindoo Road in the Jalan Besar area. Japanese soldiers were helping rescue squads and the fire brigade in clearing the debris... By evening, huge throngs of curious sightseers had descended on Jalan Besar to view the ravages of the US Air Force raid. Their presence there was also a demonstration of the quiet display of satisfaction they felt that after three years, the Japanese were finally on the receiving end of the stick.
February 1945
The biggest air raid ever was on 1 February 1945. I counted 120 B29 bombers which flew over us from 9am to 10:30am. Their objective was the Tanjong Pagar dock area on which they hurled down incendiary bombs. They flew in triangular formation in packs of three - three planes leading, three on each side and a single plane at the rear in line with the leader. Opposition from Japanese fighter planes and anti-aircraft batteries were[sic] minimal. The bombers were beyond the reach of the black puffs of smoke of the ack-ack shells. Whilst watching and enjoying the spectacle of this mighty air armada over our skies, we had to remind ourselves of the fear and suffering of our fellow Singaporeans held up in the target areas where pillars of black smoke were rising from buildings hit by the fire bombs. Early one morning, the wailing of the siren at 1:30am summoned us to the MAS post for duty. This time the objective was the Asiatic Petroleum Company (Shell) oil installation at Pulau Sambu, which was opposite Katong and just an hour by launch from Clifford Pier. The bombers flew low as they glistened in the moonlight, and as their bombs descended on the oil tanks, the latter immediately went up in flames. Palls of thick, black smoke spiralled upwards. On the third day, the fire erupted anew. Flames leapt high into the orange-red sky lighting up the sea as well as our garden in Amber Road from where, spellbound, we watched this awesome spectacle.
April 1945
The quality of Pa's mode of transportation to the office was gradually deteriorating. In the early days he had a lift in our neighbour's car. When that vehicle was requisitioned by the Japanese, he had to resort to a trishaw pedalled by Ralph, an Eurasian who formerly worked in a bank. Then the trishaw fare became too expensive and he had to travel in the dirty, sooty, charcoal taxi which was fueled by a charcoal burner attached to the rear of the vehicle as gasoline was getting scarce. ...Soon he secured a seat as a regular passenger in a proper petrol-engine taxi owned by Ah Kee, a friend from the kampong, who would also bring him home. ...But when petrol prices skyrocketed, it put an end to their camaraderie as well as Ah Kee's business. But Pa's luck returned when his doctor friend living in Grove Road (Mountbatten Road) heard of his problem and very kindly offered him a lift to and from office in his car until Doc was arrested for secretly listening to the BBC on the radio. (We were in consternation but Doc never revealed to the Kempeitai that Pa was one of those to whom he had spread the forbidden news.) ...However, Eileen stepped in and solved the problem. She was employed in the timber department of the MSK (Mitsubishi Shoji Kaisha) and, through the chief clerk, secured permission for Pa to travel in the company's lorry. This entailed him having to walk to the pick-up point at East Coast Road, clamber up the vehicle and stand there with other office workers until he disembarked. When it rained, he would get soaking wet as it was an open lorry.
July 1945
The entire absence of air raids for so many months gave us the creeps. The lull before the storm was so unnatural, especially since General MacArthur's forces were only 500 miles from Labuan. People were getting the jitters, more so since the Japanese Military Administration advised the citizens of Singapore to evacuate the city. The message was clear: the Japanese wanted to clear the decks for action, to rid the population of its non-essential elements in order to give plenty of room for the defence of Syonan. The tone of the official statement left us to assume that heavy fighting was expected. They were even encouraging people to settle in the Rhio Islands of Bintan and Batam. Most people opted to stay put as they did not have enough money to bring with them. Also, having heard of the large number of Singaporeans who had died of malaria in Endau and Bahau, ...they had no wish to suffer the same fate and to be stranded in a foreign land. A few of my friends fled to the safety of Cameron Highlands instead.
August 1945
August 12, 1945 was a day that would forever remain in our memories. ...Kip Lin suddenly burst into the room with the ecstatic news that the Japanese had surrendered! The war was over! We were dumbfounded but not entirely convinced until a succession of friends arrived with the same good tidings. We still had our doubts until a neighbour appeared at 4:30pm to confirm that it was a "dead cert" - he himself had broken the seal of his short-wave radio band and heard the announcement ...That night, on 15 August 1945, Charlie was in a despondent mood. He solemnly told us that "the Armistice had been declared". We had to suppress our jubilation. Thank God that the war was really over! Charlie said that all Japanese had been ordered to assemble at noon, Tokyo time, the next day to listen to Tenno Heika's (the Emperor's) broadcast announcing the end of hostilities. Meanwhile in town, there was an air of tension and uncertainty. Despite the broadcast of the Emperor's Imperial Rescript, the hardcore element in the military were balking at the very thought of surrender especially as the army was an intact fighting force, ready to the last man to deny Syonan to the enemy. The situation was so serious that the Emperor had to send his personal representative to Syonan to convince the stubborn commander General Itagaki that it was the Emperor's wish and command that he and his men should lay down their arms. If Itagaki had had his way, Singapore would have been devastated by allied carpet bombing and fierce Japanese resistance. But most people were throwing caution to the wind in a reckless display of their feelings. All eyes were turned to the Cathay Building, where the Japanese had taken over the studios of the British Malay Broadcasting Corporation, to anxiously observe when the Hinomaru (the Japanese flag) would be lowered and replaced by the Union Jack. The number of Chinese flags on sale was alarming. Even bicycles and trishaws were sporting them! These misguided ones were needlessly courting trouble as Japanese troops were still around. There were a few incidents when the Japanese ordered these flags to be removed. It was only after exhortation from the newspapers that the flags finally disappeared before the Japanese lost control of themselves. And that would have spelt disaster for all of us! Allied prisoners of war in lorries were singing, cheering, making "V" and thumbs-up signs along the roads they passed. This time the population waved back without fear. The rumours that the Kempeitai had been disbanded gave us the courage to take the first step towards liberation. We broke the seal of our short-wave radio at home and had it repaired for the first time since 1941. Now we no longer needed to forage hungrily for news. According to the radio, the British East India Fleet, consisting of two task forces, had already arrived in Penang and Sabang in north Sumatra from their base in Trincomalee, Ceylon. They were heading for Singapore where the formal surrender to Lord Mountbatten would take place. There would, however, be no landing of the British and Indian forces in Singapore until after General MacArthur had accepted the formal surrender of the Japanese on board the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. In the meantime, those who had suffered at the hands of collaborators gave vent to their feelings by settling old scores. A Chinese informer to the Military Police was set upon and beaten by an angry mob at Cuppage Road. In Emerald Hill, a woman was begging for mercy from a vengeful crowd besieging her house in which her husband was cowering in fear. The three amusement parks - the Great World, New World and Happy World - were ablaze with lights and flashing neon lights. The cabaret bands were striking up jazz music and such popular tunes as "The Beer Barrel Polka" and other Andrew Sisters' hits like "The Ferryboat Serenade". Announcements were made in English again. With such attractions, thousands flocked to these parks to celebrate and spend. On the ugly side, looting started. At Raffles Place a man was loading some goods into a rickshaw whilst a crowd looked on. Before it could travel any distance, the crowd rushed at the rickshaw. The man tried in vain to beat them off before they overturned the rickshaw and absconded with their loot. Not far off in Cecil Street, I saw another mob in front of a store where a lorry full of textile was about to move off when it developed engine trouble. The rowdy bunch of hooligans surged forward, shouting and demanding that the goods be surrendered to them. To their surprise, the driver and his two attendants came out armed with iron bars. Whilst two men kept the predators at bay, the driver succeeded in starting the engine and making their escape to the jeers of the frustrated criminals who pelted them with stones. The Japanese were more cautious. All their military trucks carrying goods had armed escorts with guns at the ready.
September 1945
The 5th of September was Liberation Day. Kip Lin and I cycled to the Keppel Harbour area to watch the British forces landing and caught our first sight of a jeep. In Clemenceau Avenue, a contingent of Gurkhas marched past an excited but not demonstrative crowd.
As the Japanese mustered at several locations in Jurong, Changi and Bedok, Singaporeans were cheered by the visible signs of their final departure. Syonan and all the unhappiness, fear and suffering it represented, was experiencing its last day. For us, we revelled in the freedom we had regained. ^^^
