Memories of Malaya - 3. The secret radio

My father continues his memories of life under the Japanese during World War Two, when he was a young boy of about six.

He writes:

Lessons consisted exclusively of learning the language and the script - not the one that uses the Chinese characters. There was no Japanese literature or war propaganda in the lessons. Soon there was not much to teach us and a lot of the periods were spent in singing some popular Japanese songs.

After the British surrendered my Father had to get rid of his tin hat and gas mask with which he was issued when he was drafted or joined the medical service of the British Army. As a doctor the Japanese issued him some petrol and so he was able to use his car which had a red cross pasted in the front wind-screen and the back. This would ease him in passing through the check points that were erected on most cross-roads.

One matter caused me a great deal of anxiety and that was the radio. The Japanese had made it known that if anyone was found with a radio he was liable to have his head chopped off. So for a few mornings I would wake up with cold sweat worrying that Mother had not got rid of our radio. Eventually she did by dumping it into a deep mining pool. She could not have done it herself and must have needed someone to help her and it is a wonder that whoever he was he did not squeal to the Japanese about it.

The only time I came across some Japanese soldiers was when a few of them came round to the vicinity of our house. They were intent on catching some chickens and they asked me to help them to round-up the chickens; we didn’t catch any. I wondered if that amounted to collaborating with them! By the third year of school I was quite fluent in writing and speaking Japanese but I soon forgot all of it after the return of the British. Being young I did not know what happened to the production of rubber and tin and how trade was conducted. What we know was the scarcity of food. We had also dug vegetable plots at the back of the house and planted the easily grown vegetables but it was not enough to be self-sufficient.

As the Allies fought back and in the last months of the Occupation we could see the B-29’s dropping bombs over the airfield, the Central Railway Workshop and unexpectedly the National Museum. The places bombed were quite far from where we lived so we did not suffer any collateral damage as it would be called now. Some people watched and cheered but a lot were still apprehensive because the Japanese had not surrendered yet.

Finally the Japanese surrendered and the occupation was over. I did not witness the ceremony of the signing of the surrender which was conducted in the school hall of the Victoria Institutions, the school I attended in later years.

Written by Guest Blogger: Ooi Boon-Leong

Photo: thanks to indianaradios.com

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