80th anniversary (5): From the Japanese perspective

At four o'clock in the afternoon on this date 80 years ago (19 December 1941), the first Japanese troops landed on Penang island. This was a result of Penang surrendering after nine days of continuous bombardment by Japanese enemy aircraft and the quiet evacuation of the British military garrison and European civilians. With the island now totally defenceless, it fell upon the local civilians to fly the white flag to signify Penang's surrender to the Japanese military. In today's 80th anniversary story, the last of my five-part commemoration of the sad occasion, I shall reproduce two stories from The Syonan Shinbum newspaper. 

Meanwhile, Singapore fell to the Japanese military on 15 February 1942. Five days later, The Straits Times was commandeered to resume publication under a new Japanese name. At first it was called The Shonan Times but in the course of the next few months, this was replaced by other names, viz The Syonan Times. The Syonan Sinbun and finally, The Syonan Shinbum. Regardless of the name, the newspaper was still the official propaganda organ of the Japanese Administration in Singapore until their surrender to the Allied Forces there on 12 September 1945. (In Penang, the Japanese had surrendered 10 days earlier on 02 September 1945.)

To mark the first anniversary of the Japanese invasion, The Syonan Shinbum of 08 December Showa 17 (昭和 17 年) (Showa 17 is 1942), carried a full page of stories that glorified the Japanese achievement. They were propaganda but there was still useful information to glean from them.

Domei in the stories referred to the Japanese Empire's Domei News Agency. It was dismantled after the Allies defeated Japan at the end of the Second World War. Part of this news agency is today Kyodo News. 

In my previous story (the link to Part 4 appears at the end of this story), I had mentioned how the Union Jack was lowered from Fort Cornwallis and a white flag had replaced it as a sign of surrender. I had also related how a local radio station had broadcast a message of surrender to the Japanese. In the first story below, we learn of a third attempt at informing the Japanese through three men who had rowed across the Channel and made their way to the Japanese headquarters in Kuala Muda.

Penang Saved From Needless Bombing (Domei)

HOW THREE MEN, two released Japanese internees and a Eurasian jockey, rowed in a sampan to Kedah to inform the Japanese Army of Penang's surrender, in one of the most interesting stories of the entire Malayan campaign.

When the British garrison marched out of Penang on the night of Dec 16, the general belief was that hostilities, as far as the island was concerned, were over. But when Japanese bombers continued their raids, attention was drawn to the fact that the Union Jack was still flying over Fort Cornwallis, and the people realised that the British had evacuated without declaring Penang an open town.

Leaders of the various communities held a hurriedly convened meeting and it was decided to broadcast a message to the Japanese troops that Penang had surrendered. The Prai power station, source of the island's electricity supply, having been dynamited by the British forces a day before they evacuated, arrangements were made to tap the current generated by an emergency plant at the local hospital.

With this current, the Penang Broadcasting Station, operated by local radio technicians, again started functioning. At short intervals, the message of surrender was read out, and in between gramophone records were played as in a regular radio programme. In addition, two newspapermen volunteered to lower the Union Jack at Fort Cornwallis and and hoist the white flag in its place. Amid the drone of raiding planes, this was carried out.

The most effective measure to inform the advancing Japanese troops of Penang's capitulation, was a decision to send a delegation to the mainland and contact the Japanese personally, Two Japanese internees, released when the British garrison evacuated, and a Eurasian, I. Allan, a jockey by profession, left in a sampan on the morning of Dec 17 and after 10 hours of strenuous rowing in a choppy sea crossed the channel and reached Kuala Muda in Kedah.

From there, the three men without any rest left for Sungei Patani, Headquarters of the Japanese Forces. They contacted them the following day at noon, and gave them an account of how Penang had surrendered and that Japanese nationals were trying to restore order. This saved Penang from further bombing.

At 6pm on the evening of Dec 19, Japanese troops landed.

During the Japanese Occupation, all clocks were moved forward by two hours to synchronise with the official time in Japan. Thus, the 4pm mentioned in my previous post (Part 4) appeared in the newspaper story above as 6pm. They both referred to the same time. Also, the Eurasian jockey's full name was Ivan Allan.

The second story is also from the same issue of The Syonan Shinbum which gloated over the surrender of Penang. The part of the story of the story that interested me was the aerial dogfights over the mainland. In The Sara Saga, Saravanamuttu said that he was the local representative that submitted the report to Reuter's office in Singapore. He wrote: "As Reuter's correspondent in North Malaya, after careful investigation and interviewing one of the British pilots, who had baled out, at the Penang General Hospital, I reported that four British planes were brought down while all the enemy planes got away safely. However, the official communique interchanged the words 'British' and 'enemy' and this shook my confidence in official communiques after that."

Surrender of Penang A Story of 'Shameful Cowardice' (By a Domei Staff Writer)

PENANG is not by any means the most strategic point in Malaya and no great battle was waged to bring about its fall, yet the story of the surrender of this island may well occupy an important place when the history of the Greater East Asia War comes to be written.

It is a story of shameful cowardice, of how high British officials deserted their posts at the first sign of danger, and how the European civilians were evacuated in the dead of night, leaving the local population in chaos.

Perhaps more than in any other place in Malaya, the manner of the fall of Penang showed up the hollowness of British propaganda and exposed the truth that the British do not care if all Asiatics die as long as not a single Briton is imperilled.

When war broke out early in the morning of Dec 8, few in Penang were aware of it until special newspaper editions carried the report of the landing on Kota Bahru, the raid on Singapore and the historic attack on Pearl Harbour. The sensation, as was only to be expected, was tremendous but beyond the policemen posted outside Japanese business premises and residents, there were no visible signs of a "war atmosphere."

Long years of British propaganda extolling Malaya's strength had lulled the population, especially the European section of it, into such a state of comatose complacency that they still refused to believe that the war could be brought to Penang.

Within a week that fond illusion was shattered as Japanese bombers smashed shipping, and harbour and aerodrome facilities, crushing resistance with no great difficulty. Not more fatal to British prestige than the defeat in  arms were the incredible war communiques issued by British Military Headquarters in Singapore and the even more incredible conduct of British officials.

Everyone saw for himself the dogfights over the mainland in which the defenders invariably came off worst: next day they read in the papers that Japanese planes had been shot down! What they did not know was that the local representative of Reuter's news agency had sent a cable to his head office in Singapore reporting the loss of four British planes and that his report had been issued as a communique by Headquarters with the word "Japanese" substituted.

As the air raids continued, the Chinese, the Indians, the Malays and the Eurasians panicked but none in such a fashion as the British officials. The Resident Councillor moved his office from the waterfront to his house four miles away from the town, and the Chief Police Officer deserted his post, later, shamed into some semblance of manhood by the terrible disorder in the town, re-establishing his headquarters in a building in the residential area. In short, the two men who should have tried to maintain order and seen to the continued operation of vital public services were conspicuous by their absence. The other British officials were no better.

And while looting proceeded unchecked in the business centres of the town and the officials were in hiding, the people of Penang continued to read exhortations by Sir Shenton Thomas, telling them to keep their chins up, and declaring that "every inch of the country will be defended."

Last act of the British tragedy in Penang was enacted on the night of Dec 16, when the garrison evacuated and the white population snacked out on their heels, with no thought for the chaos they had left behind.

Here it may be mentioned that in sharp contrast, this callous attitude, the Japanese military attempted to restore order in Penang even before they occupied it. In their daily flights over the island, the planes dropped thousands of pamphlets, warning looters to cease their plundering immediately. When the Japanese occupation troops set foot on Penang on Dec 19, they took effective measures to check the criminal elements and, what was equally important, arrange for sale of rice to the people.

The measure of co-operation that the people of Penang have been and are giving to the Japanese Administration tells more eloquently than mere words the feelings of gratitude towards the men who came as conquerors and have remained as friends.

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