The
Japanese sought vengeance against the Chinese and to eliminate anyone who held
anti-Japanese sentiment. The Imperial authorities were suspicious of the Chinese
because of the Second Sino-Japanese War, and killed many in the Sook Ching
Massacre. The other ethnic groups of Singapore such as the Malays and the
Indians were not spared. The residents suffered great hardships under Japanese
rule over the three and a half years.
Victorious Japanese troops marching
through Fullerton Square.Many of the British and Australian soldiers taken
prisoner remained in Singapore's Changi Prison. Many would never return home.
Thousands of others were shipped on prisoner transports known as "hellships" to
other parts of Asia, including Japan, to be used as forced labour on projects
such as the Siam–Burma Death Railway and Sandakan airfield in North Borneo. Many
of those aboard the ships perished.
The Japanese were highly successful
in recruiting Indian soldiers taken prisoner. From a total of about 40,000
Indian personnel in Singapore in February 1942, about 30,000 joined the
pro-Japanese "Indian National Army", which fought Allied forces in the Burma
Campaign. Others became POW camp guards at Changi. However, many Indian Army
personnel resisted recruitment and remained POWs. An unknown number were taken
to Japanese-occupied areas in the South Pacific as forced labour. Many of them
suffered severe hardships and brutality similar to that experienced by other
prisoners of Japan during World War II. About 6,000 of them survived until they
were liberated by Australian and U.S. forces, in 1943–45.
After the
Japanese surrender in 1945 Yamashita was tried by a US military commission for
war crimes committed by Japanese personnel in the Philippines earlier that year,
but not for crimes committed by his troops in Malaya or Singapore. He was
convicted and hanged in the Philippines on 23 February 1946.
How did it affect my life in SIngapore?
I could not fufill my duty as a daughter becauseI was forced to be a free labourers in other parts of Asia and was never return home after that...
http://sg.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110206173721AAaQwSs ( 14 Feb 2013)
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