| Selvarajah |
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| My Parents. My father Narayanapillai and my mother Unnamalay are from Sri Lanka. They came out to Malaya to earn a better liviing. They had 4 children. I am the eldest and on the picture left I am on my mothers lap. My father was a Telegraph Inspector in Johor and was suconded to Kelantan. I was born in Kota Bahru on 12th March 1931. On completion of his tour of duty in Kelantan we returned to Johor Baru. My sister and brothers were all born in Johor Baru. I started my primary education at the Ngee Heng English School. After 3 years in Ngee Heng we continued our education startung with Standard 2 at Bukit Zarah English School. As soon as I had completed my Standard 2, Japan attacked Malaya. On 8th December 1941 Japanese aircraft bombed Singapore. |
| With the dropping of the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Japanese surrender the British returned to Malaya and set up the British Military Administration. But living conditions did not return to "normal" as of the pre war days. |
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| The British authorities had expected the assault to take place on Singapore by sea and Sir Winston Churchill had send the battleship HMS Prince of Wales (picture right) and cruiser HMS Repulse to Singapore. But the Japanese did not conform to their expectation. Instead they landed in Kota Baru (picture below) and advanced down the Malay peninsular |
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| In order to engage the ships that were transporting the Japanese troops, Admiral Phillips, the Naval Commander sailed off from Singapore with "Z" Force maintaing radio silence and without "air cover". But this did not prevent the Japanese from detecting "Z" Force and attacking them on the 10th of December off the coast of Kuantan and sinking both, the HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repluse |
| The British thought that it would not be possible to advance through the jugles of Malaya. But they still deployed Land Forces under the command of Gen Percival who were "no match" to the Japanese Army. The northern most defensive position at Jitra was breached on 12th December 1941 and the advance contined at a rapid pace towards the south. A lot of European civilians specially familes started leaving for Singapore. As the Japanese advance continued southward, all of us except those who were involved directly in the war effort in Johor Baru we ordered to evacuate, firstly outside a radius of 7 miles and subsequently to a radiuos of 14 miles.which took us to Tebrau Estate My mother passed away when we were in Tebrau Estate. |
| By the 1st of February 1942 the British Forces had withdrawn to Singapore which was seperated from Malaya by a causway and on 15th Feb 1942 Gen Percival had no option but to surrender (Pic right). It might have been some consolation to Gen Percival when he was invited to attend the formal surrender of Japan to Gen MacArthur, the Allied Supreme Commander on the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. Pcture below shows Gen MacArthur seated and behind him are Gen Wainwright and Gen Percival. |
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| The Japanese occupation period was one of sufference for most of us. There was shortage of food. As rice was isufficient and rationed we had to supplement it by growing our own tapioca and sweet potatoes. Diseases such as malatia and beri beri were rampnt but medicine and other essential items were difficult to obtain. The Dollar was replaced by Japanese Dollar notes (pic below is $1000/ note) which became worthless. Worst of all we lived in fear of not knowing when our heads would be chopped off or be tortured by the Kempetai. My father was arrested twice by the Kempetai, accused of listening to "overseas" radio and passing on the information to the POWs. |
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| Our house was only about 50 yards from the railway staion and we could see the trians from Singapore going north transporting POWs. It was sad to see them looking haggered and packed in goods wagons. They were being send to build the "Death Railways" and most of them met their death there. |
| Apart from the fear and worry about father being tortured or put to death by the Kempetai, we also had to worry about the Malayan Peoples Anti Japanese Army (MPAJA). |
| Father was responsible for maintaining telephone and telegraphic communications from Johor Baru to Layang Layang and the telephone lines were along both sides of the railway tracks. The MPAJA which mainly consisted of Chinese was the armed wing of the Communist Party of Malaya. It was formed when Japan invaded Malaya and its guerrilla activities included the "cutting off" of the telephone lines. Every time this happened father and his team of technicians had to go out to repair them and became vulnerable to being ambushed by the guerrillas.. |