THE JAPANESE OCCUPATION: THE RULE of FEAR and TERROR
When the "Gibraltar of the East" crumbled into the sea, Syonan-To ("The Light of the South") rose in its place. The respite from the military campaign brought not peace to the conquered but more days of fears and uncertainty. The conquered British military faced life ahead as Prisoners of War (POWs), the conquered civilian population anxiously awaited the governmental initiatives from their new Asian colonial master....
1. Sook Ching
When the British finally capitulated and surrendered to the Japanese at the Ford Motor Factory off Upper Bukit Timah Road, the dust of war did not settle. Sook Ching (which means, "to cleanse through purging") was planned with the objective of weeding out anti-Japanese elements in Singapore. It was confined only to the Chinese because the Japanese perceived them to be the most "hostile and rebellious" of the local groups due to their pre-war activities. Within the first week of the Japanese Occupation, Sook Ching was mounted and scores of Chinese disappeared from their families never to be seen again. Officially, Japanese war criminals admitted in the Singapore war crime trials that the number of Chinese killed amounted to "more than 5,000". However, estimates by the local populace after the war placed this figure at around one tenth of the population at that time (the number being approximately 50,000) .
2. The Sook Ching Sites and the Order to Report
A week after the British capitulation, Yamashita issued orders to "cleanse" the local Chinese population within three days from 21 February to 23 February, 1942. Under the Sook Ching operation, the areas in Singapore that were viewed as potentially troublesome were divided into five regions commanded by five kempeitei units. The regions were:
1. Marine Unit
North Bridge Rd, Dhoby Ghaut and Hill St
2. Goshi Unit
Fort Canning, Pulau Saigon, the Great World Amusement Park, Tanglin, and Mt Pleasant
3. Oishi Unit
New World Amusement Park , Jln Besar, and Serangoon Rd
4.Kamizono Unit
Maxwell Rd, Ellenborough Mkt
5.Hisamatsu
Tanjong Pagar and Tiong Bahru
Beyond the urban centres, Sook Ching was also carried out in suburban areas such as Katong, Geylang, Upper Serangoon, Bukit Timah, and Sembawang. The order to report was as follows:
1. All overseas Chinese were to assemble at their respective designated places.
2. They were to bring along 4-day rations.
3. The aged, women and children were to be released.
4. Traitors, convicts and informers were to be used to identify those in the name list.
5. Various sectors were to determine their own policy of inspection.
3. Sook Ching - Criteria to be on the Death List
In his memoirs, Colonel Chuang Hui-Tsang of Force 136, indicated that according to the plan of the General Staff (Japanese invasion forces), about 50,000 overseas Chinese were to be eliminated. This record was compiled by pre-war Japanese espionage agents as well as local informers. Supposedly, one third of this record contained biographies and photographs while the rest of it was a list of names and addresses of known leaders, committee members, and ordinary members of 100 anti-Japanese organizations. The categories of Chinese to be detained and eliminated were as follows:
1. Communists
2. Anti-Japanese elements
3. Volunteers and other military personnel who had discarded their uniforms
4. Those still in possession of arms and in opposition to the Japanese
5. Those who constituted a threat to public security
However, from the ground, this ostensible order of categories soon broke down into chaos. Since the various inspection centres were left to determine their own policy of inspection, abuses arose. Reports from survivors indicated that selection was left to the whims of the inspectors and the local informers. Personal biases seemingly ruled the order of the day. For many of the Sook Ching survivors, the scariest experience was the identification parade where one's life was dependent on the choices of hooded informers whose single finger would condemn them to the grave. Those who were deemed to have failed the acceptance test, were carted off to be killed. Syonan-To had 28 mass-screening centres and 11 documented massacre sites (identified by the Historic Sites Unit of Singapore). But perhaps, somewhere out there, there were countless others that were not documented. Even though children and women were supposed to be spared, ex-POW Jack Edwards reported that he cleared the corpses of women and children when he was part of a work party. Accounts from escapees of these massacre sites and soldiers revealed the true, hidden horrors of the Syonan-To period. For the survivors of the Sook Ching operation, their lot was to contend with the silence from their missing relatives. For these survivors, Sook Ching ushered in not an emancipating Rising Sun, but an eclipse casting shadows of fear for over three and a half years....^^^
