Everyone suffered during war, regardless of race
By Mathew Pereira
MR BORHAN Muslim, 71, can still recall clearly his first peek at the carnage in Pasir Panjang Ridge.
It was the scene of one of the most ferocious battles fought in Singapore during the Japanese invasion.
Three days after the brutal encounter, bayoneted bodies were still hanging from trees.
In the shelters built on the knoll, decaying, bullet-ridden bodies remained in crouched positions behind walls and doors where soldiers from both sides had taken cover.
The battle there was fought between the Malay Regiment's 1st Battalion and the invading Japanese.
Mr Borhan, a Malay who was 20 years old then, said the whole village near Pasir Panjang Ridge was told to move out when a Japanese invasion was imminent.
The British believed that the kampung stood right in the middle of the expected attack route of the Japanese.
The villagers moved out - and the Japanese came.
Mr Borhan and his fellow villagers moved to an area near the present Jalan Haji Alias. But there, the Malays were bombarded heavily by Japanese artillery.
His uncle was killed in one of the strikes.
He said he decided to move back to his kampung three or four days later.
Their houses were total wrecks. British rifles and ammunition were everywhere. The British soldiers had apparently changed into civilian clothing in the kampung's houses and ran off, abandoning their weapons.
But he got to know of the fighting on the ridge from a Malay soldier who was bayoneted in the battle and left for dead.
The soldier crawled down to the kampung after the Japanese soldiers had left.
Mr Borhan said he then went up to the ridge and saw several soldiers tied to trees and bayoneted repeatedly.
He said: "Till this day, I do not understand why the Japanese had to bayonet them. It is so cruel. They could have just shot them."
Recalling the war also brought back painful memories of several close friends who were missing.
"Jumari, Johari and Ahmad - they just disappeared," he said.
The families of the trio were told that they were picked up by Japanese soldiers after a show and sent to work in Siam.
"Death is not as bad as when a person goes missing," said Mr Borhan. "The uncertainty about his fate is even more painful."
For another Malay, Mr Haji Rubaii Mansoor, 65, the war years were a time when no one was spared from the brutality of the Japanese.
Slapping the local population became a pastime for the Japanese soldiers. The saddest incident for him during the war happened when the Japanese were advancing into Singapore.
Mr Rubaii, who was then 15, said he and his family were staying in a kampung in Geylang when Japanese aircraft dropped leaflets warning that they were going to attack the area.
The Malay villagers fled to Kaki Bukit and found out that the leaflets were just a diversionary tactic as the fleeing villagers ran into Japanese troops there.
British artillery, based in Pulau Blakang Mati (now Sentosa), got wind of the Japanese move and started bombarding them.
The British mortars fell short of the Japanese positions and landed instead on the villagers.
Many of them were killed, while others had their limbs blown off. Some were just thrown into trenches, which were dug for shelter during air raids, and buried there.
Said Mr Rubaii: "There was nothing we could do but helplessly watch our people getting hit. It was a sad day for us."
For Mr Thobias Pereira, 63, an Indian, the one thing he remembers about the Japanese was that they did not discriminate among the races when it came to inflicting pain and suffering.
"Regardless of whether you are a Chinese, Malay or Indian, they will beat you up or chop off your head if you do something wrong," he said.
He said that many members of the Indian community stayed in the Serangoon Road area as they found comfort in numbers.
Mr Pereira said he was fortunate not to be singled out for attention.
"You did what the Japanese told you to and you were spared," he said.
His point was - war is war, inevitably you suffer. He cited the bombing by British aircraft as an example.
The British airplanes dropped bombs on oil drums along the Tanjong Pagar area, setting the whole place ablaze.
People jumped into the trenches when they saw the approaching aircraft, but the burning oil flowed into the trenches on top of the men.
Watching the men being burned to death was a terrible sight, he said.
Mr Cleaver Eber, 80, was one of the many Eurasians who fought against the Japanese with D Company of the Singapore Volunteer Corps.
This unit comprised Eurasians who fought against the Japanese right until the British surrender. They were responsible for guarding Bukit Timah Road.
Mr Eber said that when they heard the Japanese were making their way down Bukit Timah Road, a captain from his platoon and he advanced to try to stop them.
But halfway through, they were stopped by other British soldiers who told them that the war was over and that the British had surrendered.
The Eurasians were picked up and interned.
It was as PoWs that the Eurasians suffered the most. Some were sent to Siam and died there.
For Mr Eber, who was then 30, the years as a PoW saw his 72-kg frame whittled down to 41 kg by the end of the war.
He kept a detailed account of places and events that happened in a secret diary hidden in his pillow, a move which would have brought death if it was discovered.
Several blows and beating from a Japanese soldier almost crushed his skull, led to the loss of 10 to 12 teeth and left him blind partially in one eye.
But he said it was his wits and presence of mind that kept him alive.
He supplemented his diet of rice with snake meat and other animals that the other PoWs caught.
He said that during his entire incarceration, he must have eaten 400 snakes and many other animals.
Once, the PoWs caught a baby elephant and tried to kill it for food, but it escaped after putting up a violent struggle.
Mr Eber said life was difficult during his internment. But the one thing that saddened him every day was to listen to the Last Post, as it signalled the death of another colleague.
He said he still recalls the day the bugle was played for his closest friend.
First published in The Straits Times, 17 January 1992
Copyright © 1998 Singapore Press Holdings. All Rights Reserved.
