Kuala Lumpur at War 1939-1945 Page 6

  Cracking Down

  For some days after the Japanese arrival many shops and businesses remained closed. Central Market, Kuala Lumpur’s main market for vegetables, fruit, fish and meat, largely stopped operating. In a society where most food was purchased and consumed the same day, the collapse of market and distribution mechanisms brought in its wake severe shortages, hardship and price rises. It took some weeks for the markets to recover, and this was only achieved after the Japanese issued a threat of dire consequences if normal business was not resumed. The rising cost of food was a major concern and while establishing a set of agreed prices for daily items, the Japanese noted that ‘Profiteering springs from avarice and avarice is one of those despicable human traits which the New Order is out to exterminate.’ Such emotive and threatening language would not have been lost on Kuala Lumpur’s many Chinese food-stall and shop owners.

  Another pressing concern for the new authorities was a decline in public health and sanitation. ‘Night soil’ or the use of latrines cleared by ‘coolies’, was the main method of sanitation for many of Kuala Lumpur’s citizens, particularly those living in noisy, cheek-by-jowl, Chinatown. Shortly after their arrival the Japanese were forced to appeal for senior local officers of the Kuala Lumpur ‘scavenging night soil removal’ department to return to work. They also requested that ‘inspectors, overseers, madatores and labourers’ from the ‘waterworks, anti-malarial and roads’ departments report for duty, while noting that ‘punishment’ will follow if they do not do so. The threat of disease and illness, notably dengue and malaria, was acute once the clearing of drains and mosquito breeding grounds had been disrupted. Meanwhile the new authorities requested the return of looted medical supplies and stores, noting too that ‘those who fail to comply will be severely punished’.

  The Japanese were quick to crack down on rumour-mongering and negative talk, particularly from the Chinese. In late January, following reports from Malacca that one Tiam Kiam Aik had been spreading ‘false rumours’, three Kempetei officers from Kuala Lumpur - Giichi Osaki, Isa Kigenta and Shozo Hatakayama - were dispatched to ‘interview’ him. They detained him at the local police station and having established his ‘guilt’ (he had reportedly been listening to British radio broadcasts and spreading the ‘false news’ that the British had returned to Penang) Lt. Osaki and his two colleagues took Tiam Kiam Aik to nearby jungle where he was made to kneel before being decapitated by a single cut from Osaki’s sword. Tiam’s head was then cleaned and put inside a specially made wooden box. The next day it was removed and placed on top of a pole sited at a nearby crossroads; a grim warning to all passers-by. Just weeks before, when faced by a similar problem of rumour-mongering, the British sent the culprit to hospital for a week for ‘assessment’.

  In contrast to the fear felt by the Chinese, many in Kuala Lumpur’s Malay and Indian communities welcomed the victorious Japanese. Indian traders and businesses were the first to throw in their lot with the ‘New Order’. The Malay Mail paraded one trader, Din, for being the first ‘to cooperate with Japanese troops and to supply them with cigarettes’. Dal Singh’s fabric shop quickly had Japanese flags on sale and the owner appealed for donations of Indian army khaki uniforms to clothe recruits to a new anti-British force. Mr. Pillai, a ‘native physician’, advertised that until Singapore fell he would treat members of the Imperial Japanese Forces for free. Meanwhile, nothing if not opportunistic, the prominent fabric store, Hardial Singh & Co., which in December 1941 had been promoting blackout fabric to protect against Japanese air raids, had by late January 1942 reopened with ‘Thanks to the Imperial Japanese Forces’. Meanwhile, KMM activists were out and about within the Malay community trying to smooth relations and outline the new realities. A group of young KMM activists had been specially infiltrated into the city to support the transition and they encouraged Malay households to daub an ‘F’ (for F Kikan) on their properties, or failing that a turtle representing Kame. Meanwhile, one senior KMM official, Onan Haji Siraj, had arrived with the first Japanese troops and had accompanied one Yamashita, who pre-war had been the owner of a textile shop in Batu Road and had now returned in an intelligence role. Together they entered Yamashita’s boarded up shop and from beneath a stone floor tile removed a hidden Japanese flag which was soon proudly displayed outside the shop as evidence that a new power was in charge.

  Selangor and a Change of Sultan

  From the outset, the Japanese announced that they planned to work in co-operation with Malaya’s Sultans, thereby signalling a message of reassurance to the Malay community. In the case of Selangor, however, on arrival they simply deposed the pro-British Sultan Alam Shah and replaced him with their own appointee. The Sultan’s undoing had been his declaration in December 1941 that the ‘enemy has entered our house’. On 15 January 1942, shortly after their arrival in Kuala Lumpur, Governor Fujiyama summoned the Sultan and his brother, Tengku Musa Eddin to King’s House (next to Carcosa - previously the British Governor’s residence) where Fujiyama had taken up residence. He kept the Sultan waiting for over two hours before sending the Deputy Commander of the 25th Army, Major General Manaki, to speak on his behalf. It was less a conversation, more an instruction. Manaki explained that because of his pro-British stance and his anti-Japanese comments he would be replaced as Sultan by Tengku Musa Eddin, who was proclaimed Sultan Musa Ghiatuddin Riayat Shah. Indicative that they never really understood Malay culture, Manaki then proposed a toast of saki to the success of the Japanese army. The newly appointed Sultan Musa Eddin reportedly raised his glass while the just-ousted Tengku Alam Shah quietly refused.

  On 18 January, just three days after his ‘investiture’, Sultan Musa Eddin implored his people in the local press to ‘Be loyal to the Nippon Government… and you will never regret your wholehearted acceptance of the New Order. Let us welcome Colonel Fujiyama and the Japanese army of occupation and thank them for what they have been able to do to us.’ The Japanese argued that in deposing Tengku Alam Shah they had restored the precedent of primogeniture, or the older son assuming the crown, but in reality in Tengku Musa Eddin they ‘appointed’ a compliant, if difficult and somewhat feckless, Sultan. Nevertheless, the Japanese had the man they wanted. For the rest of the war, Tengku Alam Shah led a penurious and marginalised existence, his isolation made worse when the Japanese seized his radio. His health was also poor – plagued by malaria. His household was immediately reduced in size, and throughout the war he and his small retinue felt under constant pressure from the Japanese. Indeed, one credible report noted that late in the war three close relatives and office-holders - Raja Uda bin Raja Mohammed, the Chief Kathi, Haji Osman and the Private Secretary, Raja Nong - were scheduled for arrest and beheading, though the Japanese never followed through with this threat. But an atmosphere of fear and intimidation pervaded Tengku Alam Shah’s household.

  Stragglers

  One of the very few Britons to remain in Kuala Lumpur was Dr. G.A. Ryrie, who chose to stay at his post as the Superintendent of the Leper Colony at Sungei Buloh. On 23 January, in an effort to demonstrate their benign intent, Dr. Ryrie was summoned by Colonel Fujiyama, who presented him with a cheque for $2,500 for the leper hospital, an event which was covered in all the local newspapers. Dr. Ryrie re-paid this generosity by using the Japanese fear of leprosy to feed and support a small group of fugitive soldiers from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders who rested and recuperated at the hospital before attempting to regain the British lines. The Japanese had their suspicions about Dr. Ryrie but could prove no wrongdoing. Nevertheless, some months later they sent him to join the other British internees at Changi.

  For the new Japanese administration in Kuala Lumpur, the repair of critical infrastructure destroyed or damaged by the British was a priority. By late January, a temporary bridge over the River Klang had been opened by Governor Fujiyama and work was progressing on repairing the electricity generating station at Bangsar. By this stage the Japanese authorities felt that they were getting on top
of their most pressing problems and concluded, somewhat smugly, that ‘after a fortnight of disrupted sanitary services and a shorter reign of hooliganism, Kuala Lumpur is daily returning to normal life…’. It would take until October for the city’s street lights to function properly, but one sign of normalcy, the cinemas were re-opening. Bizarrely - or pointedly - the Capitol Theatre chose to show that classic of British military incompetence tinged with bravery, The Charge of the Light Brigade. At the same time a similar example of military incompetence underscored by bravery was enveloping British forces trapped in Singapore.

  ‘Caught like Rats in a Trap’

  The local media and press gave full exposure to the on-going success of the Japanese military machine. By late January, it was possible to crow that the British in Singapore were ‘Caught like Rats in a Trap’ and once the British surrendered on 15 February the newspapers produced full-page spreads extolling Japanese military prowess. In mid-February, Governor Fujiyama sent a message to the people of Selangor. As with many Japanese pronouncements, the message started cordially but soon introduced an undercurrent of thinly veiled threat and coercion.

  ‘On behalf of myself and my officers and men I would like to thank all the citizens of Selangor for the way in which they have welcomed us to the State and for the co-operation they have been giving us from the first day of our entry into Kuala Lumpur and Klang… [But] we are equally aware that there is an element in the State which in ignorance is working against the establishment of the New Order. We are defiantly determined to destroy such bad elements even if we have to adopt the most drastic methods…’

  From the outset, the Japanese made clear that punishment would follow any efforts to undermine, or indeed failure to support, their government, but they were also keen to demonstrate that their style and nature was very different from the departing British. In late January they announced that henceforth the word ‘coolie’ would no longer be acceptable and instead the term ‘labourer’ should be adopted. This was an effort to put clear blue water between themselves and the British, who were widely perceived to be racist and elitist. The Japanese also noted that, unlike the just-departed British, they were ‘not snobs or social butterflies’ and that thanks to the ‘virtue of the Mikado’ (the Emperor) and the absence of terms of social differentiation in the Japanese language (everyone was something-san) ‘we are all equal in the eyes of the emperor’. In Kuala Lumpur, their initial public pronouncements tended to be generally accommodating, noting how the New Order would differ from the old. This was ‘liberation’ not ‘occupation’. The media carried prominent and positive articles about Japan, seeking to confront the ‘distorted stories’ that had been ‘peddled by the colonial British’.

  The Japanese method was not all fear. Seeking to win early acceptance, they used the radio and the re-launched newspapers to highlight the need ‘to dispel...a great deal of the malicious, pernicious and false anti-Japanese propaganda with which we have been fed in recent years’. In its place, the citizens of Kuala Lumpur were encouraged to embrace the ‘New Order’, which they were told was pro-Asian and anti-colonial in character. In this vein, the Japanese established the Orwellian-sounding ‘Peace Maintenance Committees’ to manage relations with the main communities, and they highlighted the support the ‘New Order’ government had received from the various Sultans and from prominent community figures from the other races. But increasingly, as confidence in their position grew, the tone of public pronouncements took on a more menacing air. The only flag that could be flown was the Hinomaru, or the Rising Sun, which was made available through the various Peace Committees and also through many of the city’s Indian-owned fabric shops. There were lessons in the press on how to address Japanese troops – who were to be addressed by the Malay honorific ‘tuan’. Japanese soldiers were on sentry duty on many roads and civilian passers-by were expected to bow low; a failure to do so could result in a smart slap. Meanwhile there was the even more pointed message that ‘The Japanese government will show no mercy to Communists nor to any others who attempt to obstruct actively or passively the establishment of the New Order in East Asia.’ The sinuous, discreet, detached governance of the British had been replaced by a very different animal.

  Japanese Impressions

  A Japanese diplomatic signal of early May 1942, sent from its Embassy in Bangkok to the Foreign Affairs Ministry in Tokyo, reporting on conditions in occupied Malaya was intercepted and decrypted by the British. Shortly thereafter it was read by Winston Churchill. It cannot have made easy reading because in general the assessment was accurate and balanced - which must have made its contents all the more galling. The decrypted signal read:

  ‘The restoration of peace and order… in the post-war order has made better progress than expected. Owing to the sympathy shown by the indigenous coloured [people] towards the white troops being unexpectedly negligible the remnants of the defeated forces have little chance to escape. The remaining troops, being unable to endure in the hills and the valleys cut off from civilization, are asking of their own accord to be taken in as prisoner. Though there are some who have not yet been accommodated, it is not worth making a song about.

  While it is thought there are considerable numbers of Indian soldiers [intermingling] with the Malayan-born people of their own race, they are individually dispirited. This is due to their not only being free ideologically from anti-Japanese feelings, but also to the fact that the Army’s policy of conciliation is meeting with considerable success….With regards to the Chinese, there are numbers of bodies of defeated soldiery and numbers of communists, leading to occasional incidents but the Army’s plan for [restoring] peace and order are making progress, and incidents of this nature are on the decrease….In view of all these circumstances the Army has already transferred a large part of its forces in Malaya to other fronts……In short, a Japanese soldier is in no danger even when walking alone on a country road…

  There are over 90,000 prisoners and more than 2,600 officials held in detention. Some have been deployed on repairing aerodromes, road repairs and other tasks and they whistle in a leisurely way. The Australian soldiers are the most simple minded and their treatment is said to be good….The fact that Anglo-Saxons are being employed as coolies under the very eyes of the populace must surely make an impression on the coloured races. Reflecting as it does the real authority of Japan.’

  Following this resounding defeat, for the British the ‘lights went out’ in Malaya. Having been a determining force for over 150 years, they were now impotent - either dead, expelled or incarcerated - and with no influence on events and with little knowledge of what was going on.

  Chapter Seven

  Exodus

  Following the Japanese seizure of Kuala Lumpur, the 101 STS stay-behind teams slipped into their role of engaging the Japanese supply lines – though in so doing they had very different experiences. Spencer Chapman was based near Raub, in Pahang, along with a large store of explosives. From this base he trekked across the Main Range (Malaya’s central mountain spine of dense jungle) before setting up a forward base near the Escot and Behrang estates in the border area of Selangor and Perak, from which he launched a short-lived but effective series of sabotage raids on the critical north-south railway. In due course the Japanese responded and he was forced to retreat into the jungle, where he was protected by the Chinese communists, forming the genesis of the relationship that was later formalised into an alliance between Special Operation Executive’s Force 136 and the communist guerrillas, now named the Malayan Peoples Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA).

  In contrast to Chapman’s early successes, Frank Vanrenen and his stay-behind party - drawn from the Volunteers - had bunkered down near Tanjong Malim in southern Perak, but had been spooked by a false alarm that the Japanese were on their doorstep. Their Chinese porters had fled and the British officers headed for safety to the nearby jungle. When they re-emerged some hours later they discovered that their stores, which included a radio-set, ha
d been stolen. Lacking equipment and communications, they headed towards the coast where they commandeered a sampan and made their way to Port Swettenham. Here they set about blowing up an arms dump and sabotaged a train. But in response, the Japanese took a number of local men, women and children as hostage and threatened to kill them unless Vanrenen and his group surrendered. On 25 March, they duly responded to this blackmail and handed themselves in and were sent to Pudu Prison. Another member of the team, Hembry, however, managed to escape to Java and then to Australia.

  One group of six Selangor Volunteers, linked somewhat incongruously to the State’s ‘Drainage and Irrigation Department’, were also part of the 101 STS organisation. Under ‘Senior Engineer’ Foster Pelton, they deployed to Negri Sembilan to the south of Selangor, and there set about attacking, or rather trying to attack, rear-echelon Japanese units and road and rail communications. But this proved more difficult than they had anticipated. Based in a rubber plantation close to the main north-south rail line, they emerged from their lair to set charges along the tracks, designed to be triggered by the pressure of a passing train. But the charges proved temperamental and failed to explode. The drainage engineers cum commandos then focused on attacking road transport, also without much success, though their efforts drew unwelcome attention. They had a short and notably unsuccessful war, their location being betrayed to the Japanese by a local Chinese man. They were duly surrounded, captured and sent to Pudu Prison.