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Sook Ching massacre
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The Sook Ching massacre (?????) was a systematic extermination of perceived hostile elements among the Chinese in Singapore by the Japanese military during the Japanese Occupation of Singapore, after the British colony surrendered in the Battle of Singapore on 15 February 1942 during World War II. Sook Ching was later extended to include Chinese Malayans. The massacre took place from February 18 to March 4 1942 at various places.
The term Sook Ching (??) is a Chinese word meaning "a purge through cleansing". At the time, the Japanese also described the massacre as such (it was referred to as the ????/Kakyoshukusei, or "purging of Chinese"). The Japanese also referred to it as the Shingaporu Daikensho (?????????), lit. "great inspection of Singapore".
Although the term "Sook Ching" appeared as early as 1946, it was not commonly used in the Chinese press or other publications until the 1980s. It is not clear whether it was the Japanese or Chinese who first used Sook Ching/shukusei, which is ?? in both languages.
The current Japanese term for the massacre is Shingaporu Kakyogyakusatsujiken (????????????), lit. "(the) Singapore Chinese massacre".
The massacreWhen the Japanese occupied Singapore, the Japanese military authorities became concerned about the local Chinese population. The Imperial Japanese Army had become aware that the ethnic Chinese had strong loyalties to either the United Kingdom or China, with wealthy Chinese financing Chiang Kai-Shek's effort in the Second Sino-Japanese War, after Japan had invaded China on July 1937, with other charity drives. The military authorities, led by General Tomoyuki Yamashita, decided on a policy of "eliminating" the anti-Japanese elements.
The Japanese military authorities defined the following as "undesirables":
- Persons who had been active in the China Relief Fund.
- Rich men who had given most generously to the Relief Fund.
- Adherents of Tan Kah Kee, leader of the Nanyang National Salvation Movement.
- Hainanese, who were believed to be communists.
- China-born Chinese who came to Malaya after the 1937 Sino-Japanese War.
- Men with tattoo marks, who were believed to be members of secret societies, specifically Triads.
- Persons who fought for the British as volunteers against the Japanese.
- Government servants and men who were likely to have pro-British sympathies, such as Justices of the Peace, and members of the Legislative Council.
- Persons who possessed arms and tried to disturb public safety.
Yamashita instructed the Syonan garrison to cooperate with the Syonan Kempeitai, the Japanese military police, and carry out "severe punishment of hostile Chinese."
Soon after the fall of Singapore, Lieutenant Colonel Masayuki Oishi, commander of No. 2 Field Kempeitai, set up his headquarters at the YMCA Building in Stamford Road, which also served as the Kempeitai East District Branch. The Kempeitai jail was in Outram with branches in Stamford Road, Chinatown, the Central Police Station. A residence at the intersection of Smith Street and New Bridge Road formed the Kempeitai West District Branch. Under Colonel Oishi were 200 regular Kempeitai officers and another 1,000 auxiliaries who were mostly young, rough peasant soldiers. Singapore was broken up into sectors, each placed under the control of a Kempeitai officer. The Japanese set up designated "screening centres" all over the colony to gather and screen all Chinese males between 18 to 50 years old, eliminating those thought to be anti-Japanese. Sometimes, women and children were sent for inspection. In reality, the screening was arbitrary and non-selective, and could involve as little as walking past a Japanese officer. Most of those identified were innocent people and were just killed brutally without reason.
The ones who passed the "screening" would receive a piece of paper with "Examined" written on it, or have a square ink mark on their arms and shirts. Those who did not pass the "screening" would be stamped with triangular marks. There were trucks near these screening centers to send those who failed to their deaths. The Japanese Army chose remote sites such as Changi, Punggol, Blakang Mati and Bedok to perform the executions, with the victims thrown overboard off boats, killed with a bayonet or be machine-gunned to death off the harbour.
At the behest of Lieutenant Colonel Tsuji Masanobu, who had played a key role in the organisation of the Singapore operation, Sook Ching was extended to the rest of Malaya, particularly Penang. However, in these rural areas the Japanese did not have the luxury of working with a concentrated population, so the army did not have sufficient time nor manpower to fully interrogate the entire Chinese population. Therefore, widespread indiscriminate killing of the Chinese population occurred, even though the Japanese made a show of screening the civilians and identifying the guerrillas.
After the Japanese military realized that they could not kill off as many as 50,000 Chinese, and that Japan's resources were being stretched with advances in other parts of Southeast Asia, the head of the authorities called off the killing on 3 March.
The Sook Ching Massacre cost the Japanese military administrators any chance of cooperation with local Singaporeans, especially the Chinese community. Unlike many other places in Southeast Asia Japan occupied during the war, Singaporeans did not view the Japanese army as liberators of European imperialism in Asia. Even though Singapore did not have a nationalist movement like other places in Asia because of the diverse demographics, the Japanese army was unable to exploit ethnic differences to their advantage.
Massacres at beachesThere were several sites for the killings, the most notable ones are Changi Beach Park, Punggol Beach and Sentosa (or Pulau Blakang Mati). The Punggol Beach Massacre cost the lives of 300 to 400 Chinese, who were shot at Punggol Beach on February 28 1942 by the Hojo Kempei firing squad, the auxiliary Japanese military police responsible for all killings that took place in the massacre. The victims were some of the 1,000 Chinese males detained by the Japanese after a door-to-door search along Upper Serangoon Road. Several of these men had tattoos, a sign that they could be triad members, with the Japanese assuming that such individuals were anti-Japanese.
The current site of the popular Changi Beach Park was the site of one of the most brutal killings in Singapore's history. On 20 February 1942, 66 Chinese males were lined up along the edge of the sea and shot by the military police. The beach was the first of the killing sites of the Sook Ching massacre, with another one at Tanah Merah. Another site was at Sentosa Beach (now the Serapong Golf Course after land reclamation was done). British gunners buried some 300 bullet-ridden corpses washed-up on the shore of Sentosa. They were civilians who were transported from the docks at Tanjong Pagar to be killed at sea nearby.
Death tollDue to the lack of records, it is impossible to definitively tally up the total number of Chinese killed in the Sook Ching Massacre. There are varying figures regarding the death toll—the range goes from the official Japanese figures of less than 5,000 to a total of 100,000 by the Singaporean Chinese community. Postwar trial testimonies, though, strongly suggest a total between 25,000 and 50,000.
Aftermath In 1947, the British Colonial authorities in Singapore held a war crimes trial to bring the perpetrators of the Sook Ching Massacre to justice. Seven officers, namely Lieutenant General Takuma Nishimura, Lieutenant General Saburo Kawamura, Lieutenant Colonel Masayuki Oishi, Lieutenant Colonel Yoshitaka Yokata, Major Tomotatsu Jo, Major Satoru Onishi and Captain Haruji Hisamatsu were charged with carrying out the massacre. While Kawamura and Oishi received the death penalty, the other five received life sentences (Nishimura was later convicted for his part in the Parit Sulong massacre by an Australian Military Court and hanged). The court accepted the Nuremberg Trials defence of “just following orders." The death sentences were carried out on 26 June 1947. Even though the Chinese community urged the British authorities to stage the executions of Kawamura and Oishi in public to ease the anger in the Chinese community, the British allowed only six members of the victims' family association to witness the execution. After the trial the British colonial government in Singapore considered the matter closed, and only demanded war reparations from Japan for damage caused to British property, much to the dismay of the Chinese community. However, with Singapore gaining independence from British colonial rule, the Chinese community began a new wave of anti-Japanese resentment and demanded reparations and an apology from Japan. The Foreign Ministry of Japan denied Singapore's request in 1963, stating the San Francisco Treaty of 1951 settled the issue of reparation with Britain, and therefore, the colony of Singapore. However, then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew responded by saying that the British colonial government did not represent the voice of the people of Singapore. The Chinese staged a boycott of Japanese goods in September 1963, though it only lasted seven days. With Singapore's independence from Malaysia on 9 August, 1965, the Government of Singapore made another request to Japan for reparation and an apology. In 25 October 1966, Japan agreed to pay $50 million in compensation, half as a grant and the other half as a loan. However, the compensation package did not come with an official apology. Bones of the Sook Ching victims have continued to be unearthed by locals decades after the massacre. The most recent finding was late in 1997, by a man looking for earthworms to use for bait. He found a skull, two gold teeth, an arm and a leg; his attention was drawn to these remains by the gold glinting in the sun. The massacre sites of Sentosa, Changi and Punggol were marked heritage sites in 1995 to commemorate the end of World War II.
See also
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