~ Pan Shou, written in 1965 (translated by C. M. Wong)
1 The Turn of Fortune for Japan War Efforts
In 1944, Japan lost Philippines to the Americans and Singapore came under Allied bombings and raids. The local population had to be mobilized to defend Singapore. Japan's misfortune would have been altered if Germany and Italy had remained strong to keep the Allied forces busy. Yet this was not to be so as these two countries also suffered major military setbacks beginning from 1942 onwards. Italy surrendered in June 1944 when Mussolini was overthrown. Germany surrendered to the Allied forces on 7 March 1945 as she was cornered when the Allies, together with the Russians, launched a combined attack from the east and the west. War thus came to an end in the European theatre and the Allies turned their full attention to the Japanese in the Pacific theatre.
2 Approaching the "Setting Sun"
Besides having to deal with the defeat in the various battles with the Allies in the Asia Pacific region, the Japanese troops had to divert their attention and war effort to defend their homeland at the same time. By early 1945, war came close to home as the Americans began their attacks on Japan. Their initial targets were Okinawa and Iwo Jima. Japan put up fierce resistance by sending suicide pilots (Kamikazes) that crashed bomb-laden planes into the Allied ships. Despite this, the Americans emerged victorious and conquered the two islands by mid-1945. Japan had also faced acute food and material shortages since late 1944. This problem, coupled with the increasingly frequent aerial bombing on Japan by the Americans, made the Japanese Cabinet apprehensive of Japan's capacity to fight a prolonged war. However, military hardliners were not prepared to give up as yet. In view of this, America had to use their ultimate weapons, the atomic bombs, namely "Little Boy" and "Fat Man," on Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively on 6 August 1945 and 9 August 1945 to put an end to the war. The 20 kilo-tonne "Little Boy" killed 80,000 people and the 22 kilo-tonne "Fat Man" killed 70,000 people. The intensity of the destruction and the potential threat of more to come were so great that Japan had to surrender unconditionally.
3 And Syonan is no more ....
As with the Japanese invasion of Singapore in 1942, the Japanese surrender in 1945 was swift. Overnight, the Japanese Occupation and the three and a half years of hardship came to an end. The local population cheered the end and celebrated the British return. Crowds of Chinese lined up to cheer the victorious Allied forces while waving Kuomintang (KMT) flags. However, the cheer was a reflection of anti -Japanese feelings, the immense relief that the worst was over and the hope that the sufferings would end with the British reoccupation of the island. In Japan, the Japanese and Allied leaders signed the Surrender Document aboard the USS Missouri at Tokyo Bay on 2nd September 1945 to mark the formal surrender of Japan to the Allies. In Singapore, the Japanese surrender document was signed on 12th September 1945 at City Hall. A Japanese delegation led by General Itagaki Seishiro formally surrendered to Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander in Southeast Asia. The local population gathered to view the ceremony. It was an emotional day for all who had lived through the Occupation as they were finally released from fear and suffering. The defeated Japanese soldiers were retained in Singapore as POWs. They were kept in Singapore to clean up the wreckage from the war. War crime trials in Singapore began in January 1946 and lasted until April 1948, during which a total of 1,101 men were prosecuted for war crimes committed during Sook Ching and the Double Tenth Incident in Singapore. At the end of the trials in Singapore, 135 men imprisoned in Changi Prison were executed together with another 79 men in Malaya. Others were imprisoned and later sent back to Tokyo.
4 Singapore After The Japanese Occupation
The people were grateful to the British for rescuing them from the misery suffered during the Japanese Occupation and they were hopeful that life would be normal again. However, things were never the same again. People realized that there was to be no return to the old peaceful, stable, free-and-easy Singapore. There were shortages of food, proper housing, water, electricity and schools. People were jobless. The greater consideration besides these problems was the fact that the Occupation had altered the mind-set of the local population. This change was to have an enormous impact on the future of the small island struggling to recover from the devastation suffered. Before the war, the superior status of the British in government and society was simply a fact of life as they were seen as the greatest people in the world with the biggest empire that history had ever known. Challenging their authority was unthinkable. Yet they were defeated by the Japanese. In the face of a war threat from an Asiatic race, they had abandoned the defenseless people to fend for themselves. The local population became painfully aware that in the face of adversity, they had to depend on themselves to defend their home and their livelihood.
The Japanese Occupation had shattered the myth of British invincibility and convinced politically conscious Singaporeans that a new political order had to be established. For the first time, perhaps, Singapore residents learnt a valuable lesson, that one must become one's own master in order to control one's own destiny. Mr Lee Kuan Yew's words in 1961, urged one and all to fight for a country where all Singapore residents "could govern ourselves and bring up our children in a country where we can be proud to be self-respecting people." With this in the minds of the people, the foundation for independence was laid.^^^
