# Signs Singapore Had Fallen

- Change of flags (Union Jack → Japanese)
- Renaming Singapore to “Syonan-To”
- Soldiers removing uniform and fleeing (POWs)
- Severed body parts
- scare public
- fear
- Couldn’t buy food
- Use of rationing
- Learning Japanese in schools
- bowing to the east
- manipulated to sing Japanese songs

# War Survivor Experiences

- Japanese forced Chinese men to “register”
- killed
- racial discrimination
- had to sweep rice of the ground

## Why not kill EVERYONE in Singapore?

- Manpower
- Ammunition
- Waste resources

# Methods the Japanese used

- Carrot and stick ⇒ establish legitimacy
- Establish fear
- Violence
- legitimacy → trust & right to rule

## Kempetai

- Military police force
- relied on informers (spies) (proceeds to get backstabbed)
- created an atmosphere of fear

## Imprisoning Allied Soldiers

- Rounded up Allied troops and imprisoned them as POW
- Dispelled the myth of British superiority and built up the image of Japanese as a strong Asian power

## Meting out Harsh Punishments

- Executed anyone caught stealing and displayed their heads in public
- Methods of interrogation by kempetai included water torture, electric shocks, dislocating limbs, etc.

## Sook Ching

- Mass brutality instailled fear in many, especially the Chinese community → kept them in line with japanese rule
- Eliminated (perceived) anti-Japanese elements among the local people

## Winning loyalty

- Snitching

## Different Treatment

- Race
- Poorly
- Chinese
- Eurasians
- POWs
- Better
- Indians
- Malays
- Loyalty to Japanese
- Willingness to work for Japanese

## Japanese Culture

- English names were changed to Japanese ones
- Teaching of Nippon-go
- Promotion of Nippon-seishin
- Japanese lessons in newspapers
- Sports for the masses

## Education System

- Rejected British emphasis on academic subjects
- Favoured character building, physical education and vocational education
- English and Chinese language was restricted
- Malay and Japanese only

## Propaganda

- Appeals to emotions
- Simple and easy to understand
- Indoctrination to influence the minds of the locals
- Idea of prestige
- Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere
- Portrays the Japanese as liberators
- Benevolent rulers

# Resistance and collaboration

- Dependent on personal interests
- Collaborated for personal safety

# Daily life of people

## Health and Safety

- Unsanitary
- Pneumonia + dysentery
- insufficient funds to rebuild
- overcrowding of people
- Insufficient food
- Beriberi
- malnourishment
- Lack access to clean water
- dysentery

## POWs

- 5000 men were squeezed into a space for 600
- Prevent them from resisting
- Dispel the myth of western superiority
- Used them as free, forced labour
- Worked on the Thailand-Burma railway, aka ‘Death Railway’
- Meant to transport resources
- 16000 died in the process

# Food Shortage

## Why?

- Not safe to export and import food
- Japanese kept food supplies to themselves

## Rationing

- Purchased food supplies in rationed amounts using the cards issued to them.
- Could only receive fixed quantity of rice, salt, sugar, etc.
- Very long queues
- People at the back could not get food

### Black Market

- Demand high, supply high
- prices skyrocket
- hyperinflation

## Banana Money

- First introduced on 23 February 1942
- Roughly worth to the value of the Straits Dollars
- As economic conditions deteriorated, more money was printed by the administration → banana money became useless

## Grow More Food Campaign

- People dont depend on Japanese
- cut cost on trade and import
- encourage self-sufficiency
- produce tapioca, sweet potato, yam

## Relocation

- Wider plots of land to grow food and build settlements
- Encourage self-sufficiency
- Endau and Bahau
- Chinese → Endau (generally successful)
- Eurasians and Chinese Roman Catholics → Bahau
- Why did Bahau fail
- Hilly land and clay soil which was not very fertile
- Settlers were mainly white-collar workers who had little experience in agriculture
- Land was a hotbed for mosquitoes that spread malaria

# Japanese Surrender

## Mood of the people

- Happy
- Relieved → Not under Japanese rule
- Hopeful
- Japanese collaborators → Fearful of the repercussions

## Changes

- People were no longer afraid of the Japanese
- Japanese forced to do hard labour → POW

## British Military Administration

- Restore a basic sense of order
- fix issues from Japanese

# The End
- Battle of Coral Sea
- Battle of Midway
- 1994 - Re-invasion of the Philippines
- March 1945 - Battle of Iwo Jima and Okinawa
- Allied bombers and planes could be seen
- Atomic bomb dropped
- Little boy + fat man