Let the Terror Begin
Britain prided itself on its naval strength in Singapore. A fleet of warships was stationed there, led by the pride of the fleet, Prince of Wales and the battle cruiser Repulse.
On 8th December 1941, both ships put out to sea and headed north up the Malay coast to where the Japanese were landing. On 10th December, an infamous day in British naval history, both ships were sunk by repeated attacks from Japanese torpedo bombers. The RAF had already been effectively destroyed and could therefore offer no protection. The loss of both warships had a devastating impact on morale in Britain. Sir Winston Churchill wrote in his memoirs:
‘I put the telephone down. I was thankful to be alone. In all the war I never received a more direct shock.’
If Singapore was to be saved, only the Army was in a position to halt the Japanese advance.
Lieutenant General Arthur Percival had ninety thousand men under his command including British, Indian and Australian troops. The Japanese advanced with sixty-five thousand men led by General Tomoyuki Yamashita. The majority of the Japanese troops had fought in the Manchurian/Chinese campaign and were battle-hardened. Most of Percival’s men had never seen combat.
The first confrontation took place at Jitra in Malaya between 11th and 12th December 1941.
Percival’s forces were routed and withdrew in full retreat. The Japanese attack was based on speed, ferocity and surprise. To accelerate their advance, the Japanese used bicycles as well as the more traditional forms of transport. The Japanese modus operandi was demonstrated when captured wounded Allied soldiers were killed where they lay. Those who were not injured but had surrendered were also murdered. Some captured Australian troops were doused with petrol and burned to death. Locals who had helped the Allies were tortured before being murdered.
The brutality of the Japanese soldiers shocked the British. But the effectiveness of the Japanese war machine was demonstrated when they captured the capital of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, on 11th January 1942.
All the indications were that the Japanese would attack Singapore across the Johor Strait. General Wavell, the British commander in the region, was ordered by Churchill to fight and never surrender Singapore.
On 31st January 1942, the British and Australian forces withdrew across the causeway that separated Singapore from Malaya. It was clear that this would be their final stand. Percival spread his men across a seventy-mile line, the entire coastline of the island.
It became obvious that Percival had spread his defences far too thinly. This was to be a fatal miscalculation on his part.
On 8th February 1942, the Japanese attacked across the Johor Strait as had been predicted. Because Percival had spread his defences so thinly the Allied soldiers were too far away to try and halt the deadly advance. On 8th February, twenty-three thousand Japanese soldiers attacked Singapore. They advanced with speed and ferocity.
Harry and Julie were summoned by the Governor to Government house to receive a briefing.
‘Well, I am sure you are aware the Japanese hordes are at our doorstep. I think it is essential that we point out in no uncertain terms that our hospital is out of bounds, as it were,’ Sir Shenton came straight to the point.
‘Certainly, Sir Shenton. I can’t imagine any invading army bringing harm to hospital patients and the staff who are caring for them. Besides, it’s prohibited by the Geneva Convention.’
‘Harry, I’m not sure that the Japanese are a signatory to the Convention.’
‘Sir, may I make a suggestion? Julie can stay here in Government House while I return to Alexandria to make sure the hospital has the appropriate Red Cross flags etc. flying. So there is no mistaking the hospital is protected ground.’
‘No, Harry I’ll come with you. I owe it to my patients.’
‘No, Julie, Harry is right. You should stay here. For the time being anyway.’
Julie reluctantly agreed and Harry made his way to Alexandria Hospital.
Harry arrived at the hospital at 12.30 pm and checked the Red Cross flags and banners; they could be clearly seen from all sides. He conducted a round of the wards reassuring all the patients that all was well.
Harry observed the first Japanese troops from the hospital’s upstairs verandah around 1:00 pm. They advanced in single file, led by a soldier carrying the red and white Japanese flag. All were dressed in green uniforms, steel helmets, camouflaged with tree branches and twigs, and armed with rifles with bayonets and submachine guns. They were moving up from the Ayer Rajah Road, with another group advancing towards the Sisters’ Quarters. Harry asked Captain Bartlett to greet the soldiers and although the hospital was clearly marked with red crosses, the international symbol for medical sanctuary, Harry decided to take no chances. The first Japanese soldier entered the hospital compound; Captain Bartlett went out to meet him. The Captain raised his arms to signal his peaceful intent and pointed at the red crosses on the hospital. As he spoke the word ‘Hospital,’ the soldier raised his rifle and fired at the Captain at point-blank range.
Japanese soldiers began to enter the hospital murdering the patients they found there.
Harry and the Commanding Officer Lieutenant Colonel Craven discussed whether they should formally surrender. It was decided that one more effort to show they were a medical facility was called for.
Lieutenant Craven grabbed a Red Cross flag and held it at the window. The Japanese responded with a shot, which missed Lieutenant Craven, striking the wall behind him.
The hospital became a war zone with guns firing inside and out, screams could be heard between explosions and gunfire. Patients and medical staff were running for cover everywhere. Harry made his way down to the ground floor about thirty minutes after the assault began; Lieutenant Colonel Craven was with him.
What they discovered was horrific, some fifty dead and many more wounded; the floor awash with blood and grey matter.
The two men made their way to the operating theatre.
Apparently, a Japanese soldier had entered the room and found the surgical team standing together in the middle of the floor with their hands above their heads. He motioned the men into the corridor. There, a dozen Japanese soldiers set upon them with bayonets. Dr Rogers was stabbed in the right side of the chest and two more times as he lay on the ground. Dr Parkinson, who tried to run around the corner into the main corridor, was gunned down. Two more were killed by bayonet. The patient in the theatre, who was under anaesthetic, was bayoneted to death on the operating table.
Captain Smiley, Chief Surgeon, received a thrust to the breast, which was deflected away from his heart by a cigarette case in his pocket. He blocked the next thrust with his arm and took the dagger in his groin. The next two thrusts severely injured his right arm and hand. Captain Smiley fell onto Private Sutton, who had thus far escaped attack. The Captain told Sutton to fall down with him and pretend to be dead. After the soldiers left, Harry and Craven found their colleagues. They dressed Smiley’s wounds as best they could. Both Smiley and Sutton lived to tell the tale.
In another section of the hospital, the Japanese were busy assembling a group of more than two hundred surrendered men comprising hospital staff and the walking wounded, some of them in splints and bandages and hobbling on casts. Their hands were tied behind their backs and then the men were tied into groups of eight. These groups were led out of the hospital by the north wing. A group of about sixty officers and men gathered from the second floor, including Harry, joined the larger group.
The prisoners were herded along the railway track through a drain tunnel under the railway embankment to Ayer Rajah Road and then to a row of buildings a quarter of a mile from the hospital and set about fifty yards back from the road. Men who were too weak to walk were allowed to lay their arms on the shoulders of more able-bodied men. But those who fell were bayoneted and left for dead.
As fighting around the hospital was still intense, the prisoners were also subjected to the shelling of their own army.
The prisoners were packed into three small rooms, the biggest of which measured approximately ten feet by twelve feet. Each room was crammed with fifty to seventy men. The doors were barricaded with lengths of wood and the windows shuttered and nailed up. There was no ventilation - the temperature outside was thirty-five degrees with eighty percent humidity. The men remained tied together, but managed to take turns sitting on the floor to rest. A number of men found it possible to untie themselves but there seemed no way out of the building short of a rescue. The men were forced to relieve themselves where they stood. All were thirsty, many severely dehydrated. Some became delirious and slipped into unconsciousness. A number did not survive to see morning.
The following morning, a Japanese officer opened the door of one room and said in broken English,
‘We are taking you behind the lines. You will get water on the way.’
When the Japanese began taking the men out two-by-two along the courtyard and around the latrine, the prisoners were encouraged. More than one hundred men were led on the so-called ‘water march’.
Soon the remaining prisoners began to hear screams of anguish, and cries of ‘Oh my God,’ ‘Mother,’ ‘Don’t, don’t.’ The sight of a Japanese soldier wiping the blood off his bayonet confirmed their worst fears: the prisoners were being systematically massacred.
Suddenly, the sound of shelling could be heard. One shell struck the end of a building and tore the doors and window shutters, filling the air with dust. A number of men sprinted from the building. The majority of these men were shot down, but a few of them managed to get clear of the buildings and into the brush surrounding the storm drain. One of them was Harry, along with Corporal C.N.C. Bryer, Privates S.W.J Hoskins and F.A.H. Gurd, Captain R. de Warrenne Waller and Medical Corporal G.W. Johnson. These were the only men out of two hundred and fifty taken who lived to tell their stories.
While the massacre was underway across the railway tracks on 15th February, the hospital had become a battle station. The Japanese allowed no medical activity. Later in the day, the remaining prisoners cleaned up the wards. Medical Ward 6 was turned into a mortuary.
At 8:00 pm on 15th February the Allies surrendered to the Japanese.
Harry and the other escapees made their way back to central Singapore knowing there was no way to get off the island. They figured it would be best to join the British and Australian troops and the civilian population - at least they stood a chance as POWs.
The Japanese took one hundred thousand men and women prisoner in Singapore. Many had just arrived and had not fired a shot in anger. Nine thousand of these men died building the Burma-Thailand railway. The people of Singapore fared worse. Many were of Chinese origin - over fifty thousand of them - and they were slaughtered by the Japanese.
The fall of Singapore was a humiliation for the British government. The Japanese had been portrayed as useless soldiers only capable of fighting the militarily inferior Chinese. How wrong they were.
The commander of the Australian forces in Singapore, Major General Gordon Bennet said before escaping the carnage,
‘The whole operation seems incredible: 550 miles in 55 days – forced back by a small Japanese army of only two divisions, riding stolen bicycles and without artillery support.’
Leaving the twenty-two thousand Diggers behind to deal with their fate, Bennet escaped the island on the basis of being more useful to the cause back home in Australia.
Gordon Bennet escaped two hours after the surrender of Singapore. His aide, Captain Gordon Walker swam out from the waterfront to a sampan, rowed it ashore and with several other officers started down the strait. They got aboard a junk crowded with British officers and loaded with anti-aircraft shells, slipped past the silent guns of Blakang Mati and so southward for five days. Walker said. ‘All of us were in a bad state of nerves and everyone wanted to run the boat. It was hell. After twenty four hours we began to eat and took a cup of water a day, a handful of rice and some carefully divided cubes of pineapple and bully beef.’
From the junk the Bennet party transferred to the Tern , a thirty-foot police launch formerly in the Singapore harbour service, and went through Sumatra by way of Jambi, Muaratebo and Padang to Java and safety.
Singapore is Silent by George Weller
Hell on earth was about to begin.