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My account is written from the viewpoint of one who lived through the war years 1941-1945 as an impressionable teenager. December 1941 — I had finished my tenth school year, and eagerly waiting to enter the “Senior Cambridge” school leaving year.
That year never came. December 8, 1941 changed everything for everybody in Singapore (and Malaya — at that time we were one British colonial territory). Out of the blue, Japanese bombs fell from the sky on Raffles Place, the British airbases at Seletar and Tengah. Suddenly we woke up to the reality— and horror — of war. For the next ten weeks (thank God, until the surrender came on February 15, 1942, and not a day sooner), we were subjected to bombardment from air and land. We learned to live in air raid shelters and sand-bagged bunkers, crammed with fellow humans, cowering in fear of bombs and shells.
Here may I share two thoughts. First, as a naive and innocent student brought up in the Anglo-Chinese School’s proud British tradition, it never occurred to me that anyone in his right mind would dare to attack the mighty British Empire, least of all the “Impregnable Fortress” Singapore. With the Union Jack proudly fluttering overhead, we were brought up to sing, “Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves! ”
Second, that of all people, it should be the Japanese to take on Great Britain in armed combat! Wonder of wonders! I never imagined that those “shorties” (the Japanese were not a tall people) from the Land of the Rising Sun, would be audacious enough to strike at the British Empire, whose vast territories span the globe. Over this Empire the sun never sets.
As for the “Japs, ” we knew them best for their “Ten Cent Stores, ” selling cheap toys and sundry goods, stationery and household articles — everything packaged to sell at 10 cents! Who would dream that these people could mobilize a war machine to topple the mighty British.
December 8, 1941, put an end to all such ignorance and childish thinking. Pearl Harbour’s debacle of the American Navy sent to the sea bottom by Japanese bombs and “kamikaze” fighter planes gave notice: a new world power had arisen in the Far East. Everybody wake up!
Thank God, the war lasted only ten weeks. We were spared the ordeal of what Europe and England were yet going through. The question naturally arises: how did the Japanese defeat the combined might of British, Indian and Australian forces?
Simply this: it was a case of “Brain versus Brawn” or “David versus Goliath. ” In either case, the outcome is not difficult to guess.
6, 000 spy-eyes. The British estimated that in 1940 there were some 6, 000 Japanese nationals resident in Malaya and Singapore, working in a variety of occupations. Many of these were part of an information gathering service for Japanese Intelligence.
While overtly, these were laundrymen, photographers and storekeepers, dentists and doctors, barbers and traders — a hidden agenda was preparing the way for the coming invasion and conquest, and the establishment of an ambitious “Great East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere. ”
Photographers would spend weekends surveying and photographing kampong roads, bridges and river crossings, strategic establishments and buildings, communications hubs, and whatever might help an invading force.
On the high seas, Japanese shipmasters and fisherfolk charted the sea lanes, harbours and coastline, in preparation for a future landing operation. This silent and unsuspected espionage activity had been going on for a good decade or more, before the first bombs fell on December 8, 1941. While the rest of the world slept, this vast network of underground agents quietly drew up a secret blueprint of communications in good time for General Yamashita’s army.
The British colonial rulers, on the other hand, had a different perspective of the situation. Together with the “top brass” — the commanders of the combined British, Indian, and Australian forces — they conceived of their master plan: Malaya and Singapore shall be defended by land and sea power. Any invading force must come from the sea. A landward attack from the North was considered unlikely: “Any army will be swallowed up by the thick Malayan jungle. ”
Following this strategic plan, Singapore’s big guns were sunk into the ground, pointing seaward toward the south. Machine-gun nests and “pill-boxes” were built at strategic road junctions throughout Malaya and Singapore. (These proved a total blunder and waste of money, only to stand as monuments to strategic miscalculation. Some remain to this day as WWII relics).
Little attention was paid to the build-up of airpower. This, the British were to discover to their cost, was their fatal mistake. As events turned out, air supremacy proved crucial to success in the war.
Firstly, the motivation and method behind the fighting men of the two sides differed as east is from west. The invading Japanese were on a “heaven-sent mission” for their Emperor, who they believed, had descended from a heavenly ancestor. They had been given the mandate to build a brand new world of peace and plenty the “Great East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere. ” It was an ideal and object worth fighting for.
On the other hand, the British had come from faraway Britain to colonise and exploit a foreign people, draining the wealth from the land. Why should they, even for the pride of their “Land of hope and glory” lay down their lives to save Malays and Chinese and Indians in a foreign land? And why should Indian and Australian soldiers shed their blood for the sake of the British Empire? Whatever the underlying reasons, the fortunes of war went against the British from the word go.
Two days after war was declared, the British sent the pride of their Navy, HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse up the east coast of Malaya in a show of strength. “Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves. ” Off Kuantan, on December 10, the two ships were sent to the bottom of the South China Sea by Japanese torpedo bombers.
This was a disastrous setback to the war, a devastating blow to British pride and a humiliating deflation of the aura of the mighty Empire.
While the British had primed their 15-inch guns on Belakang Mati (now Pulau Sentosa) ready to pound any approaching Japanese vessels, came by the back-door, Japanese forces landing on the east coast of North Malaya and came pouring southwards from the north. Besides using armoured vehicles and trucks, the wily Japanese also came on bicycles by kampong roads, through rubber estates, jungle paths and country lanes, by-passing and outflanking the British pill-boxes and concrete fortifications. Against the bicycling invaders, the British had no answer.
While we in Singapore lived through bombing and shelling, air raids and wailing sirens, the Japanese advanced with lightning speed, covering the 500 miles of the Malay Peninsula in ten weeks.
Thank God, the surrender came on February 15, the first day of the Lunar New Year. General Percival meekly surrendered to General Yamashita in a historic ceremony. The pride of Great Britain was humbled before the commander of an invading army, pictured as happy soldiers with rifles slung on their backs, advancing on bicycles.
For us in Singapore and Malaya, our three-and-a-half years of Japanese rule had begun, years marked initially by terror and ruthless suppression, later by hunger, shortages and privation, and finally with some semblance of a return to normality.
Looking at the world scene and the “big picture” the Pacific War signaled the beginning of the disintegration of the British Empire and the rise of American supremacy and the New World Order. This course of world history was beyond human prediction, but clearly foretold 2000 years ago in prophetic scripture. The final chapter of world history had begun.
For the first time, most of us tasted the horrors of war, initially “conventional, ” but its final phase “atomic and nuclear” with the potential of total global destruction and human extinction.
War exposed the hidden evil of the human heart, which Jeremiah says is “desperately wicked” (Jer 17:9 ). Such savagery and hatred can never be eradicated except men turn in repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, and have their hearts cleansed in the fountain which flows from Calvary.
The change of regime underlines the fact that power and “promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another" (Ps 75:6,7 ). Man really is not in charge of the world stage: God is.
On earth no regime is for ever. Each ruling power has its time and day. Only our God remains unchanged, the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever (Heb 13:8 ). Ours is an ever-changing world, full of uncertainty. Apart from abiding in Jesus Christ our Lord, there is no security on earth.
The endtime, before our Lord’s return, is a time of wars and rumours of war. As foretold by our Lord, nation shall rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom. When war erupts, the risk to life and limb comes upon all flesh, without exception.
For the believer in Jesus Christ, war is the acid test of faith and trust in the Lord. Do we have sufficient faith to put all our trust in God, and say, "If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that" (James 4:15 ).
During the war, all our family naturally took to air raid shelters and underground bunkers, except for Grandfather. During times of shelling and air raids, the old saint went about his normal business without a care. To those who urged him to take shelter, he replied: “You trust in sandbags, I trust in the Lord! ” He came through it all without a care or a scratch.
Through all the weeks of war, we learnt the lesson of trust. Our Lord is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think (Eph 3:20 ). Our times are in His hand (Ps 31:15 ). Fear is natural but our faith in the ever living God drives away fear. Psalm 46 was our daily diet. We literally lived each day on the assurance and comfort of this excellent song.
We learned the lesson of patience and obedient waiting on the Lord. Naturally we prayed daily without ceasing for the British to return. We also listened to the Voice of America (VOA) shortwave radio transmission at the risk of being caught by the Japanese secret police and being sent to the Kempeitai torture chambers.
After months of patient waiting, secretly following the American forces’ “island hopping” strategy and slow advance through the Pacific, the stunning news came through.
Hiroshima! One American bomb on August 6, 1945, in the twinkling of an eye, incinerated and vaporised one hundred thousand Japanese in the ancient city of Hiroshima. Three days later, on August 9, a repeat performance over Nagasaki brought the Japanese Emperor to his knees.
The nuclear age had begun!
The Pacific War was over. Japan’s ambitious “Great East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere”, like a super bubble, burst. Malaya and Singapore were set free, free at last to breathe more easily and look to a better day and to the British return.
Through it all, our God proved faithful, unchanging and unchanged. He only is our trust. Amen.