Singapore Under the Japanese

When General Yamashita Tomoyuki pushed his thinly stretched army into Singapore on 15 February 1942, so began what Singapore regards as the blackest period of its history. For the British, who had set up a naval base near the city in the 1920s, surrender was sudden and humiliating – and some historians have pinpointed the fall of Singapore as the moment when the myth of British impregnability was blown apart and the empire began its final decline.
The impact of the Japanese occupation on the collective political and social memory of Singapore cannot be underestimated, and it has
partly inspired Singapore’s modern preoccupation with security.Japanese rule was harsh. Yamashita had the Europeans and Allied
POWs herded onto the Padang; from there they were marched away for internment. Many of them were taken to the infamous Changi Prison, while others were herded up to Siam (Thailand) to work on the horrific Death Railway.
The Japanese also launched Operation Sook Ching to eliminate Chinese opposition. Chinese Singaporeans were driven out of their homes,
‘screened’, then either given a ‘chop’ (a mark on the forehead meaning they had been cleared for release), or driven away to be imprisoned or executed (there’s a memorial to one massacre at Changi Beach). Estimates of the number of Chinese killed vary – some sources put the number at 6000, others at more than 45,000.The Japanese renamed the island ‘Syonan’ (Light of the South),
changed signs into Japanese, put clocks forward to Tokyo time and introduced a Japanese currency (known by contemptuous locals as ‘banana money’).
The war ended suddenly with Japan’s surrender on 14 August 1945, and Singapore was passed back into British control. While the returning British troops were welcomed, the occupation had eroded the innate trust in the empire’s protective embrace. New political forces were at work and the road to independence was paved.

Singapore Under the Japanese