War years quickened passage to adulthood
By: Dominic Nathan
A MINI marriage boom took place in Singapore, with anxious parents scurrying to find husbands for their single daughters as British forces retreated south from Malaya.
Simple marriage vows were exchanged on streets, recalls Mr Robert Chong, now a 66-year-old retiree, because parents felt that an unmarried daughter was more likely to be molested or raped by invading Japanese soldiers.
It was a really sad sight seeing them say goodbye to their daughters, he said.
"There was a state of confusion and panic on the streets as refugees from the countryside, in the Jurong, Woodlands and Choa Chu Kang areas, were fleeing to the city after the Japanese entered Singapore," he said.
Mr Chong was a 16-year student of St Andrew's School then. Like many other youths during that period, he volunteered to join the Air Raid Precaution (ARP) force.
He was trained in rescue and first aid skills and given the task of ensuring that blackouts were observed at night.
He joined despite his mother's strong objections because he felt that it was better to be prepared.
"She did not want me to get involved with the war as she was worried that I would get injured or worse," he said.
In a matter of months, he went from wearing his school uniform to the ARP's brown "boiler suit", complete with gas mask and steel helmet.
As retreating British and Indian soldiers filed past his Bukit Timah police station ARP post, the reality of war and imminent invasion sank in.
Said Mr Chong: "We had no specific orders, so we used our own discretion and decided to abandon the post after the retreating soldiers told us that the Japanese had landed at Woodlands.
"We requisitioned an abandoned lorry and headed for a students' union headquarters building at Sophia Road," he added.
From spending his leisure time climbing Bukit Timah Hill and having picnics with friends near a small waterfall in the area only months before this, he was now fleeing from his neighbourhood.
His parents and younger brother had already left their Bukit Timah Village home and were staying with relatives in Upper Serangoon.
Shelling by Japanese artillery was now a daily feature.
"It was a terrible time for us at the Sophia Road students' union," he said. "We could not move because stray shells were landing on the road just in front of us.
"We could not go outside, do the marketing or do anything."
But curiously, he recalled that the nearby cinema was still operating.
"Nobody went in, but the shows just kept running."
For the next few days, he lived on canned sardines and some rice collected before the shelling began. This lasted until the British surrender.
A radio broadcast on Feb 15, 1942, the first day of the Lunar New Year, announced that Singapore had fallen, he said.
Fearing possible reprisals by the Japanese against any uniformed personnel, he changed into his civilian clothes after rejoining his parents and brother.
By this time, people were being rounded up and taken to interrogation centres where they were being screened.
"Many of them were taken away and were never seen again. We returned to a near empty house; it had been looted," he said.
His family then moved to Tanjong Katong where things were more stable and he started to look for a job.
His first job was dismantling and cleaning aeroplane engines at a Japanese factory in Katong. This earned him 50 cents a day in Japanese currency.
The confusion, fear and panic experienced in the past few weeks had given way to a somewhat more settled way of life.
"But the fear that you could be picked up by soldiers at a sentry point any time or turned in by spies for listening to the radio never went away," he said.
By the following year, after picking up a working knowledge of Japanese, he decided to quit as he was not learning much else at the job.
"But I had to make up a story about how despite enjoying the work at the factory, I had to move 10 miles away with the rest of my family and would not be able to get any transport," he said.
He returned to his former home at Bukit Timah Village and got a job at a nearby Japanese soya sauce manufacturer.
More than anything else, his ability to speak Japanese - which he had picked up at his previous job - qualified him to be a supervisor.
"Life was a bit easier at this factory and we received slightly larger portions of rice rations," said Mr Chong.
His more settled routine now revolved around home, getting rations and work at the factory.
For entertainment, they saw the occasional movie at Capitol cinema.
"It was mostly Japanese movies but there were some Chinese-language shows as well. But English shows were banned," he remembered.
Soon, rumours started circulating about Japanese losses on the warfront.
This was followed by Allied air raids over Singapore.
By the end of the Japanese Occupation, Mr Chong was no longer the happy-go-lucky teenager of pre-war years.
He said that he came through the war years more mature and serious - and also more obedient and filial to his parents after seeing the suffering they were put through.
He added: "The war also made me more aware that we cannot take things for granted. It should never be allowed to happen again."
First published in The Straits Times, 1 March 1992
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