Shinozaki Mamoru
Encyclopedia
, a former Japanese diplomat was convicted and jailed by the British for spying for Japan before the Second World War. He was later credited as the "Japanese Schindler" for saving thousands of Chinese
and Eurasians
by his liberal issue of personal safety passes and the creation of safe havens during the Japanese occupation of Singapore
. He was also instrumental for being the key prosecution witness during the Singapore War Crimes Trial between 1946—1948. A book he wrote after the war called Syonan — My Story, continues to give an invaluable insight into the Japanese occupation of Singapore today.
coal-mine and was often away on business. He was raised largely by his grandmother, who had desired him to become a monk. She arranged for him to stay at a Buddhist temple for a year at the age of six, but his father opposed the idea. As a student, he was keen in socialism, reading in secret the works of Karl Marx
and Friedrich Engels
, a serious offence in those days which got him expelled from his Kyoto
high school. After spending a year as a ronin he entered Meiji University
to study journalism. Upon graduating in 1931, he was a Domei reporter, where he was posted to Shanghai
in 1934, then to Nanking, and finally to Hankow, from where he was recalled. He went on to join the Japanese Foreign Ministry as a press attache in Berlin
, and later reassigned to Singapore in October 1938.
While in Singapore as the press attache to Japan's consul-general, he took Colonel T. Tanikawa, the planning chief of Japan's Imperial Army Headquarters in Tokyo
, and Major Kunitake who was on Tsuji Masanobu
's Malaya
Campaign planning staff, on a spying mission. Shinozaki had been shadowed by the British
Special Branch
detectives and was subsequently charged with helping the two Japanese officers to obtain information that might be used by a foreign power. He was tried and sentenced despite protesting his innocence (claiming that he was not fully aware of the actual agenda of the Japanese officers he accompanied earlier) to three years' hard labour and a fine of $1,000.
Upon the British surrender of Singapore on 15 February 1942, he was released from Changi Prison
and went on to become first adviser to the Japanese military administrator in Syonan (Singapore was renamed by the Japanese as Light of the South during the Occupation), then education officer and subsequently welfare officer in the civilian administration of Syonan. In his working capacity at the Defence Headquarters, he deliberately stored food supplies at the Thomson Road
home of the Little Sisters of the Poor
so that the nuns there would have a ready supply of food. But his biggest single act of mercy was the huge number of good citizen passes that he produced and gave freely especially to the Chinese and Eurasians in an act of conscience after witnessing the brutal tortures and killings by the Kempeitai
committed against them earlier.
If not for Shinozaki personal intervention at various times, many more thousands of Chinese might have perished in the Sook Ching, a pogrom
in which those considered to be anti-Japanese were massacred during the early weeks of the Occupation. Countless prominent Chinese saved by him include Dr Lim Boon Keng, OBE
, Tan Hoon Siang, Chen Kee Sun, Dr. Hu Tsai Kuen, Wee Keng Chiang and S.Q. Wong.
These actions also made him highly unpopular with some in the Japanese military that in June 1942, he temporarily "disappeared" from Syonan with the help of the Navy to avoid their ire. Shinozaki was also instrumental in the formation of the different welfare associations, the two significant ones being the Overseas Chinese Association under Dr Lim Boon Keng and the Eurasian Welfare Association under Dr Charles Joseph Paglar. The Eurasians and Chinese were the obvious targets in any anti-Japanese mopping-up drives and Shinozaki thought that these Japanese-sponsored associations would afford the communities some official protection.
Overseas Chinese Association (OCA) was a Japanese-sponsored body started on 2 March 1942 as the main representative of the Chinese community to interact with the Japanese administration and also as a way for Shinozaki to obtain the release of the many senior Chinese community leaders who were under Kempeitai arrest during the Sook Ching. Among them, Dr Lim Boon Keng and S. Q. Wong, a prominent businessman, were later made chairman and vice chairman respectively. The association set up its headquarters at the old Chinese Chamber of Commerce building in Hill Street
.
Due to Shinozaki's frequent interventions, some anti-Chinese members of the Japanese military authorities criticised Shinozaki as being pro-Chinese. When Colonel Watanabe took over as the Chief Military Administrator, Shinozaki was removed from his post as adviser to the OCA. He was replaced by Takase, who used the OCA to exploit the Chinese community in extracting a "donation" of $50 million ($10 million from the Chinese in Singapore and $40 million from the Chinese in the rest of Malaya) as a gift to atone for their anti-Japanese activities in Malaya. On 25 June 1942, Dr. Lim and 57 Chinese leaders presented the $50 million cheque to Lt-Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita
, the Commander-in-Chief of Malaya and Singapore. Other tasks demanded by the Japanese were the sale of lottery tickets, labour contributions for assorted Japanese defence projects and evacuation of civilians out of Syonan. Its most successful occupation projects was the organisation of the settlement of Endau which was managed solely by the association with the help of Shinozaki.
The settlement schemes of Endau
and later Bahau
aimed to resettle some of Singapore's population in Malaya, so that they could live off the land and ease the terrible food shortage on the island during the Occupation. But most probably an opportunity by the Japanese authorities to disperse the Chinese and prevent a core of subversives from forming, should the British try to re-take Singapore.
In August 1942, Shinozaki, who had become Chief Welfare Officer worked with the OCA on the Endau Settlement project. To give them a good incentive, he and the OCA decided that no Japanese would be allowed in the settlement and that the whole enterprise would be managed by the officials of the Association. The exception to the "no Japanese" rule was Shinozaki whose role was to keep the settlement supplied with essentials such as seeds, farming tools and rice until the crops were ready. Endau was called New Syonan and was only for the Chinese. To get Endau started, a team from the OCA had gone with Shinozaki to look for a suitable site and Endau was picked because there was fresh water nearby and the land was suitable for agriculture.
By September 1943, when the first batch of settlers moved in, the jungle had been cleared, the temporary barracks-style housing was ready, a basic road was there and the plots marked out for each family. The settlers were housed in the barracks that were nothing more than covered wooden platforms with walls of dried leaves until they had built their own huts or paid someone to build one for them. The first batch of settlers were welcomed with a hot meal and were quickly given their own plots of land and assistance in building their own huts and planting their crops. Each family was given 3 acres (12,140.6 m²), with one meant for rice fields.
Making the settlement home took sheer physical labour and many had never worked the fields before. Leeches in the padi fields bothered the new settlers. The compensation after the hard work was the feeling of freedom from fear and Japanese supervision. By September 1944, there were about 12,000 settlers in Endau with each batch of newcomers being helped out by the older settlers until they were on their feet. A small town developed with subsequent waves of settlers providing services or employment rather than farming the land. There were coffee shops and a few restaurants, a hospital, a school teaching arithmetic and Nippon-go and a simple farming life.
The organisation and running of Endau was by all accounts efficient as Shinozaki left the settlers to run things for themselves. Life in Endau was in fact very satisfactory compared to life in Syonan and Shinozaki was pleased to hear Dr. Lim described it as "our Chinese Utopia".
The Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA) in the jungles of Perak
and Johore evolved from the resistance groups put behind enemy lines by the trainers of 101 Special Training School. It was the most organised of the resistance groups during the Japanese Occupation because its parent organisation, the Malayan Communist Party
(MCP) formed in 1930, already had a history of organised resistance that stretched back to the 1920s and its beginnings as the extreme left-wing of the Kuomingtang.
MPAJA resistance consisted of attacks on Japanese troops, police stations and local policemen, informers and collaborators and anyone with even an appearance of collaborating with the Japanese. To support their anti-Japanese resistance financially and materially, they robbed, stole and extorted from the local population. They were not discriminating and Endau was not spared later. To keep the MPAJA off the backs of the Endau settlers, Shinozaki reached a secret and dangerous deal with the terrorists—he bribed them with bags of rice. He would have been in very serious trouble with the Kempeitai who had already taken note of his pro-Chinese activities. Helping the MPAJA would have been the last straw and the Kempeitai were not above beheading their own countrymen for what they considered bad behaviour. In 1946, Chin Peng
, the Secretary-General of the MCP had been decorated by the British for his anti-Japanese activities. By then he was leading the MCP and by 1948 would be engaged in a guerilla war with the British that came to be called the Malayan Emergency
.
With Endau up and running, Bishop Adrian Devals of the Catholic Church decided to take up Shinozaki's suggestion of a Eurasian settlement. When the Sembilan government offered them a piece of land in Bahau to start a settlement for Eurasians and Chinese Catholics as well as neutrals such as the Swiss
and Danes
, they took it despite the reservations of the advance team and also their fears of kempeitai swoops if they remain in Syonan. Shinozaki, who was a big help in Endau, could only assist the Bahau covertly in order not to annoy the Negri Sembilan administration.
Bahau was problematic from the start. The land was hilly; it had a poor water supply, poor soil and poor drainage. The malaria
problem at Bahau was very serious because not enough steps were taken to prevent the breeding of mosquitoes at the beginning. The Japanese had cleared the jungle in Bahau originally to put in an airfield but had been driven out by the mosquitoes earlier. Secondary jungle was already taking over the clearing by the time the Eurasians took it for their settlement. Many of the plots of land were not cultivated because the labour required to clear the cut trees and to plant was too much for many settlers weakened by malaria and other diseases. Also, lack of expertise also made cultivating crops difficult too.
Due to many hardships encountered, many Bahau settlers decided that things were not so difficult in Syonan after all and returned later. Bahau saw some 3,000 settlers by the time the Occupation ended and claimed between 300 and 1,500 lives. The exact figures are unknown. The chief of those who perished in Bahau was Bishop Devals whose farming injury got infected with tetanus and he died of it in January 1945. There was no hospital in Bahau then.
Yet many settlers who survived disease did learn to be resourceful. People who had never done construction work before built their own huts. White-collar workers who had never grown rice or vegetables became quite good in farming. They learnt how to make a lot of things like soap, coconut oil, condensed milk, tapioca keropok, chop trees, plant vegetables, and trade in used clothing while waiting for the crops to ripen. On the plus side, in Bahau one had the freedom to talk and move without fear of the Kempeitai. In Endau, however, this freedom was clouded by the presence of MPAJA informers who generated a murky atmosphere of uneasiness whenever Shinozaki came to visit.
After the Japanese surrender, Shinozaki was captured but did not remain long in the internment camp in Jurong
. Because so many survivors in Singapore vouched for his exemplary behaviour that the British roped him in to help the British Field Security Force and during the War Crimes Trials as interpreter and prosecution witness. In 1973, he was interviewed by Lim Yoon Lin of the Institute of South-East Asian Studies for its oral history programme, his transcript called "My wartime experiences in Singapore" continues to give an invaluable insight into the Japanese occupation of Singapore. In early 1990s, Shinozaki died of an illness in Tokyo.
His role in the Occupation has been told, in first-person unadorned prose, in a book he wrote after the war called Syonan — My Story in 1975. Highlights include the chilling round-ups that began one week after the Japanese arrived and the controversial Overseas Chinese Association formed to "co-operate" with the Japanese occupiers through which the $50-million "donation" was squeezed from the Chinese community and in the post war witch hunts of whether, and who, among Singapore's residents had collaborated with the Japanese.
His humanitarian acts has also been recorded by Yap Pheng Geck in his memoirs called Scholar, Banker, Gentleman Soldier, the last portion in the title referring to Yap's role as a captain in the Chinese Volunteer Corps. His contact with Shinozaki, came in connection with the Endau Scheme. Where Shinozaki was concerned, Yap found him to be sincere in wanting to promote the local people's welfare and even risked his neck sometimes with the Japanese military police, interceding for the Chinese people and also rendering the same services to Eurasians.
In another book titled Singapore Through Sunshine And Shadow in 1961 by Eurasian doctor John Bertram van Cuylenburg. He described Shinozaki as the "arch spy of pre-Pacific war days," van Cuylenburg wrote, almost in marvel, that a man, who had spied for his country and was sentenced and jailed by the British, could want to do his level best to lessen the sufferings of the Singapore people.
Chinese in Singapore
Chinese Singaporeans are people of Chinese ethnicity who hold Singaporean nationality. As of 2010, Chinese Singaporeans constitute 74.1% of Singapore's resident population, or approximately three out of four Singaporeans, making them the largest ethnic group in Singapore...
and Eurasians
Eurasian (mixed ancestry)
The word Eurasian refers to people of mixed Asian and European ancestry. It was originally coined in 19th-century British India to refer to Anglo-Indians of mixed British and Indian descent....
by his liberal issue of personal safety passes and the creation of safe havens during the Japanese occupation of Singapore
Japanese Occupation of Singapore
The Japanese occupation of Singapore in World War II occurred between about 1942 and 1945 after the fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942. Military forces of the Empire of Japan occupied Singapore after defeating the combined Australian, British, Indian and Malayan garrison in the Battle of Singapore...
. He was also instrumental for being the key prosecution witness during the Singapore War Crimes Trial between 1946—1948. A book he wrote after the war called Syonan — My Story, continues to give an invaluable insight into the Japanese occupation of Singapore today.
History
Shinozaki was born in Japan in February 1908. His father owned a FukuokaFukuoka Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located on Kyūshū Island. The capital is the city of Fukuoka.- History :Fukuoka Prefecture includes the former provinces of Chikugo, Chikuzen, and Buzen....
coal-mine and was often away on business. He was raised largely by his grandmother, who had desired him to become a monk. She arranged for him to stay at a Buddhist temple for a year at the age of six, but his father opposed the idea. As a student, he was keen in socialism, reading in secret the works of Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
and Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels was a German industrialist, social scientist, author, political theorist, philosopher, and father of Marxist theory, alongside Karl Marx. In 1845 he published The Condition of the Working Class in England, based on personal observations and research...
, a serious offence in those days which got him expelled from his Kyoto
Kyoto
is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:...
high school. After spending a year as a ronin he entered Meiji University
Meiji University
is a private university in Tokyo and Kawasaki, founded in 1881 by three lawyers of the Meiji era, Kishimoto Tatsuo, Miyagi Kōzō, and Yashiro Misao. It is one of the largest and most prestigious Japanese universities in Tokyo, Japan....
to study journalism. Upon graduating in 1931, he was a Domei reporter, where he was posted to Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
in 1934, then to Nanking, and finally to Hankow, from where he was recalled. He went on to join the Japanese Foreign Ministry as a press attache in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, and later reassigned to Singapore in October 1938.
Conviction and release
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
, and Major Kunitake who was on Tsuji Masanobu
Tsuji Masanobu
was a tactician of the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second World War and later a politician. While he was never indicted for war crimes after World War II, subsequent investigations have revealed that he was involved in war crimes throughout the Pacific war including the massacre of Chinese...
's Malaya
British Malaya
British Malaya loosely described a set of states on the Malay Peninsula and the Island of Singapore that were brought under British control between the 18th and the 20th centuries...
Campaign planning staff, on a spying mission. Shinozaki had been shadowed by the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
Special Branch
Special Branch
Special Branch is a label customarily used to identify units responsible for matters of national security in British and Commonwealth police forces, as well as in the Royal Thai Police...
detectives and was subsequently charged with helping the two Japanese officers to obtain information that might be used by a foreign power. He was tried and sentenced despite protesting his innocence (claiming that he was not fully aware of the actual agenda of the Japanese officers he accompanied earlier) to three years' hard labour and a fine of $1,000.
Upon the British surrender of Singapore on 15 February 1942, he was released from Changi Prison
Changi Prison
Changi Prison is a prison located in Changi in the eastern part of Singapore.-First prison and POW camp:...
and went on to become first adviser to the Japanese military administrator in Syonan (Singapore was renamed by the Japanese as Light of the South during the Occupation), then education officer and subsequently welfare officer in the civilian administration of Syonan. In his working capacity at the Defence Headquarters, he deliberately stored food supplies at the Thomson Road
Thomson Road
Thomson Road can refer to either:*Thomson Road, Singapore*Thomson Road, Hong Kong...
home of the Little Sisters of the Poor
Little Sisters of the Poor
The Little Sisters of the Poor is a Roman Catholic religious order for women. It was founded in the 19th century by Saint Jeanne Jugan near Rennes, France. Jugan felt the need to care for the many impoverished elderly who lined the streets of French towns and cities.This led her to welcome an...
so that the nuns there would have a ready supply of food. But his biggest single act of mercy was the huge number of good citizen passes that he produced and gave freely especially to the Chinese and Eurasians in an act of conscience after witnessing the brutal tortures and killings by the Kempeitai
Kempeitai
The was the military police arm of the Imperial Japanese Army from 1881 to 1945. It was not an English-style military police, but a French-style gendarmerie...
committed against them earlier.
If not for Shinozaki personal intervention at various times, many more thousands of Chinese might have perished in the Sook Ching, a pogrom
Pogrom
A pogrom is a form of violent riot, a mob attack directed against a minority group, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres...
in which those considered to be anti-Japanese were massacred during the early weeks of the Occupation. Countless prominent Chinese saved by him include Dr Lim Boon Keng, OBE
Lim Boon Keng
Lim Boon Keng, OBE was a Chinese doctor who promoted social and educational reforms in Singapore and China. Lim was of Chinese Peranakan descent, with ancestry from Hai Teng district in Fujian, China.-Early life:...
, Tan Hoon Siang, Chen Kee Sun, Dr. Hu Tsai Kuen, Wee Keng Chiang and S.Q. Wong.
These actions also made him highly unpopular with some in the Japanese military that in June 1942, he temporarily "disappeared" from Syonan with the help of the Navy to avoid their ire. Shinozaki was also instrumental in the formation of the different welfare associations, the two significant ones being the Overseas Chinese Association under Dr Lim Boon Keng and the Eurasian Welfare Association under Dr Charles Joseph Paglar. The Eurasians and Chinese were the obvious targets in any anti-Japanese mopping-up drives and Shinozaki thought that these Japanese-sponsored associations would afford the communities some official protection.
Overseas Chinese Association
Hill Street
Hill Street is a street in the downtown of Singapore starting from Eu Tong Sen Street and ending at Stamford Road, where the road becomes Victoria Street...
.
Due to Shinozaki's frequent interventions, some anti-Chinese members of the Japanese military authorities criticised Shinozaki as being pro-Chinese. When Colonel Watanabe took over as the Chief Military Administrator, Shinozaki was removed from his post as adviser to the OCA. He was replaced by Takase, who used the OCA to exploit the Chinese community in extracting a "donation" of $50 million ($10 million from the Chinese in Singapore and $40 million from the Chinese in the rest of Malaya) as a gift to atone for their anti-Japanese activities in Malaya. On 25 June 1942, Dr. Lim and 57 Chinese leaders presented the $50 million cheque to Lt-Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita
Tomoyuki Yamashita
General was a general of the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II. He was most famous for conquering the British colonies of Malaya and Singapore, earning the nickname "The Tiger of Malaya".- Biography :...
, the Commander-in-Chief of Malaya and Singapore. Other tasks demanded by the Japanese were the sale of lottery tickets, labour contributions for assorted Japanese defence projects and evacuation of civilians out of Syonan. Its most successful occupation projects was the organisation of the settlement of Endau which was managed solely by the association with the help of Shinozaki.
Endau Settlement
Endau
Endau is a small town in Malaysia. It lies on the northern tip of east Johor and the southern tip of Pahang. It is famous as one of the largest fishing ports on the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia.Located north of Mersing...
and later Bahau
Bahau
Bahau is the principal town of Jempol district, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia. The name Bahau is believed to have been derived from a Chinese phrase...
aimed to resettle some of Singapore's population in Malaya, so that they could live off the land and ease the terrible food shortage on the island during the Occupation. But most probably an opportunity by the Japanese authorities to disperse the Chinese and prevent a core of subversives from forming, should the British try to re-take Singapore.
In August 1942, Shinozaki, who had become Chief Welfare Officer worked with the OCA on the Endau Settlement project. To give them a good incentive, he and the OCA decided that no Japanese would be allowed in the settlement and that the whole enterprise would be managed by the officials of the Association. The exception to the "no Japanese" rule was Shinozaki whose role was to keep the settlement supplied with essentials such as seeds, farming tools and rice until the crops were ready. Endau was called New Syonan and was only for the Chinese. To get Endau started, a team from the OCA had gone with Shinozaki to look for a suitable site and Endau was picked because there was fresh water nearby and the land was suitable for agriculture.
By September 1943, when the first batch of settlers moved in, the jungle had been cleared, the temporary barracks-style housing was ready, a basic road was there and the plots marked out for each family. The settlers were housed in the barracks that were nothing more than covered wooden platforms with walls of dried leaves until they had built their own huts or paid someone to build one for them. The first batch of settlers were welcomed with a hot meal and were quickly given their own plots of land and assistance in building their own huts and planting their crops. Each family was given 3 acres (12,140.6 m²), with one meant for rice fields.
Making the settlement home took sheer physical labour and many had never worked the fields before. Leeches in the padi fields bothered the new settlers. The compensation after the hard work was the feeling of freedom from fear and Japanese supervision. By September 1944, there were about 12,000 settlers in Endau with each batch of newcomers being helped out by the older settlers until they were on their feet. A small town developed with subsequent waves of settlers providing services or employment rather than farming the land. There were coffee shops and a few restaurants, a hospital, a school teaching arithmetic and Nippon-go and a simple farming life.
The organisation and running of Endau was by all accounts efficient as Shinozaki left the settlers to run things for themselves. Life in Endau was in fact very satisfactory compared to life in Syonan and Shinozaki was pleased to hear Dr. Lim described it as "our Chinese Utopia".
The Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA) in the jungles of Perak
Perak
Perak , one of the 13 states of Malaysia, is the second largest state in the Peninsular Malaysia bordering Kedah and Yala Province of Thailand to the north, Penang to the northwest, Kelantan and Pahang to the east, Selangor the Strait of Malacca to the south and west.Perak means silver in Malay...
and Johore evolved from the resistance groups put behind enemy lines by the trainers of 101 Special Training School. It was the most organised of the resistance groups during the Japanese Occupation because its parent organisation, the Malayan Communist Party
Malayan Communist Party
The Malayan Communist Party , officially known as the Communist Party of Malaya , was founded in 1930 and laid down its arms in 1989. It is most famous for its role in the Malayan Emergency.-Formation:...
(MCP) formed in 1930, already had a history of organised resistance that stretched back to the 1920s and its beginnings as the extreme left-wing of the Kuomingtang.
MPAJA resistance consisted of attacks on Japanese troops, police stations and local policemen, informers and collaborators and anyone with even an appearance of collaborating with the Japanese. To support their anti-Japanese resistance financially and materially, they robbed, stole and extorted from the local population. They were not discriminating and Endau was not spared later. To keep the MPAJA off the backs of the Endau settlers, Shinozaki reached a secret and dangerous deal with the terrorists—he bribed them with bags of rice. He would have been in very serious trouble with the Kempeitai who had already taken note of his pro-Chinese activities. Helping the MPAJA would have been the last straw and the Kempeitai were not above beheading their own countrymen for what they considered bad behaviour. In 1946, Chin Peng
Chin Peng
Chin Peng, former OBE , was born Ong Boon Hua in Sitiawan, and was a long-time leader of the Malayan Communist Party...
, the Secretary-General of the MCP had been decorated by the British for his anti-Japanese activities. By then he was leading the MCP and by 1948 would be engaged in a guerilla war with the British that came to be called the Malayan Emergency
Malayan Emergency
The Malayan Emergency was a guerrilla war fought between Commonwealth armed forces and the Malayan National Liberation Army , the military arm of the Malayan Communist Party, from 1948 to 1960....
.
Bahau Settlement
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
and Danes
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
, they took it despite the reservations of the advance team and also their fears of kempeitai swoops if they remain in Syonan. Shinozaki, who was a big help in Endau, could only assist the Bahau covertly in order not to annoy the Negri Sembilan administration.
Bahau was problematic from the start. The land was hilly; it had a poor water supply, poor soil and poor drainage. The malaria
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
problem at Bahau was very serious because not enough steps were taken to prevent the breeding of mosquitoes at the beginning. The Japanese had cleared the jungle in Bahau originally to put in an airfield but had been driven out by the mosquitoes earlier. Secondary jungle was already taking over the clearing by the time the Eurasians took it for their settlement. Many of the plots of land were not cultivated because the labour required to clear the cut trees and to plant was too much for many settlers weakened by malaria and other diseases. Also, lack of expertise also made cultivating crops difficult too.
Due to many hardships encountered, many Bahau settlers decided that things were not so difficult in Syonan after all and returned later. Bahau saw some 3,000 settlers by the time the Occupation ended and claimed between 300 and 1,500 lives. The exact figures are unknown. The chief of those who perished in Bahau was Bishop Devals whose farming injury got infected with tetanus and he died of it in January 1945. There was no hospital in Bahau then.
Yet many settlers who survived disease did learn to be resourceful. People who had never done construction work before built their own huts. White-collar workers who had never grown rice or vegetables became quite good in farming. They learnt how to make a lot of things like soap, coconut oil, condensed milk, tapioca keropok, chop trees, plant vegetables, and trade in used clothing while waiting for the crops to ripen. On the plus side, in Bahau one had the freedom to talk and move without fear of the Kempeitai. In Endau, however, this freedom was clouded by the presence of MPAJA informers who generated a murky atmosphere of uneasiness whenever Shinozaki came to visit.
Post war years
Jurong
Jurong is the largest town in the western part of Singapore, consisting of 11 residential precincts, 14 industrial districts, 1 military zone and 1 Waterfront district. It resembles Woodlands, the largest town in the northern part of Singapore, which is smaller in size, has smaller industrial area...
. Because so many survivors in Singapore vouched for his exemplary behaviour that the British roped him in to help the British Field Security Force and during the War Crimes Trials as interpreter and prosecution witness. In 1973, he was interviewed by Lim Yoon Lin of the Institute of South-East Asian Studies for its oral history programme, his transcript called "My wartime experiences in Singapore" continues to give an invaluable insight into the Japanese occupation of Singapore. In early 1990s, Shinozaki died of an illness in Tokyo.
His role in the Occupation has been told, in first-person unadorned prose, in a book he wrote after the war called Syonan — My Story in 1975. Highlights include the chilling round-ups that began one week after the Japanese arrived and the controversial Overseas Chinese Association formed to "co-operate" with the Japanese occupiers through which the $50-million "donation" was squeezed from the Chinese community and in the post war witch hunts of whether, and who, among Singapore's residents had collaborated with the Japanese.
Critics and supporters
Today's cynics might still demur and claim perhaps there was an agenda behind his kindness—to win the hearts and minds of the people, for instance. But victims and their families brutalised by the Japanese military said that the conclusion can be known to Shinozaki himself, and those looking back at its history from the safe passage of time.His humanitarian acts has also been recorded by Yap Pheng Geck in his memoirs called Scholar, Banker, Gentleman Soldier, the last portion in the title referring to Yap's role as a captain in the Chinese Volunteer Corps. His contact with Shinozaki, came in connection with the Endau Scheme. Where Shinozaki was concerned, Yap found him to be sincere in wanting to promote the local people's welfare and even risked his neck sometimes with the Japanese military police, interceding for the Chinese people and also rendering the same services to Eurasians.
In another book titled Singapore Through Sunshine And Shadow in 1961 by Eurasian doctor John Bertram van Cuylenburg. He described Shinozaki as the "arch spy of pre-Pacific war days," van Cuylenburg wrote, almost in marvel, that a man, who had spied for his country and was sentenced and jailed by the British, could want to do his level best to lessen the sufferings of the Singapore people.
See also
- Oskar SchindlerOskar SchindlerOskar Schindler was an ethnic German industrialist born in Moravia. He is credited with saving over 1,100 Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his enamelware and ammunitions factories, which were located in what is now Poland and the Czech Republic respectively.He is the subject of the...
- Kempeitai East District BranchKempeitai East District BranchThe Kempeitai East District Branch was the headquarters of the Japanese military police force, the much feared Kempeitai during the Japanese Occupation of Singapore. It was located at the old YMCA building, at the present site of Singapore's YMCA on Stamford Road...
- Double Tenth IncidentDouble Tenth IncidentThe "Double Tenth Incident" or "Double Tenth Massacre" occurred on 10 October 1943, during the Second World War Japanese occupation of Singapore...