The end of Japanese Occupation

This picture, recently taken from Facebook, shows a remarkable event that took place along Weld Quay in George Town, Penang, on the morning of 03 September 1945. The building with the rectangular windows still stands today, restored and renamed as the stately Royale Chulan Hotel. The one on the right, however, no longer exists. It may look intact in the photograph, but much of it had in fact been reduced to rubble by Allied bombings towards the end of the Second World War.

Few people today remember that Penang was the first place in Malaya to return to British hands after Japan’s surrender on 15 August 1945. The operation that made it happen was called Operation Jurist, a small but significant naval move that quietly brought the war to its close on our shores.

By then, the Second World War was drawing to its end. The Soviets had swept through Manchuria, threatening to invade Japan. The Americans were preparing to strike the Japanese mainland and the British, fresh from their campaign in Burma, had plans to retake Malaya. Their intention was to land more than a hundred thousand men on the west coast to capture Port Swettenham and Port Dickson, before advancing south to Singapore and north to Penang. But those plans, codenamed Operation Zipper, were overtaken by events. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, followed by Japan’s sudden surrender, changed everything overnight.

Instead of launching a full-scale invasion, the British revised their plans. Two smaller operations were drawn up: Operation Tiderace to retake Singapore and Operation Jurist to secure Penang first, a test to see whether the Japanese forces in Malaya were truly ready to surrender.

A detachment of Royal Navy ships under Vice-Admiral Harold Walker sailed from Rangoon on 27 August 1945, arriving off Penang the following day and anchoring near the island. The Japanese still controlled George Town, but soon a small fishing boat appeared, carrying Japanese officers who had come to meet the British. It was a strange, tense encounter. The war was supposed to be over, yet no one knew if the Japanese troops would obey their Emperor’s order to lay down their arms.

For several days, there was an uneasy standoff. Messages went back and forth between the British fleet and the Japanese command in Penang. Eventually, Walker issued an ultimatum: the Japanese were to sign the surrender papers aboard his flagship by the morning of the third of September. On the evening before the deadline, Rear Admiral Jisaku Uozomi of the Imperial Japanese Navy and Lieutenant General Shinohara Seiichiro, the Japanese governor of Penang, boarded HMS Nelson. There, they met Walker and signed the formal surrender of the Japanese garrison in Penang. Soon after the signing, Uozomi reportedly fainted and had to be carried away for treatment. An almost symbolic collapse of authority.

The next morning, 03 September 1945, a small party of Royal Marine commandos landed at Weld Quay. Manicasothy Saravanamuttu, a prominent Ceylonese who was the editor of the Straits Echo recounted in his memoirs, The Sara Saga, that "it was on the morning of Monday 3 September that two British destroyers tied up at Swettenham Pier, the Old Jack was hoisted on the flagstaff there and British troops landed in Penang. We, the old Penang Service Committee had reformed ourselves and we were ready with the Town Band to welcome the British troops. In fact, as they emerged from the harbour area our band played the First Company of the Marines into the town, marching at their head, to the E&O Hotel." There, representatives of the local communities had gathered to witness the formal handover of the city to the British.

From there, the marines spread out across the island, taking over Bayan Lepas Airport, the seaplane base at Glugor and other key installations. The Japanese offered no resistance. Some were marched through the streets of George Town, their weapons surrendered, before being ferried across to the mainland, which remained under Japanese control for a few more days.

By that afternoon, the British had restored order to the island. Penang was back under British rule, the first liberated territory in Malaya. Singapore’s surrender followed nine days later, on 12 September 1945, when Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten formally accepted it.

But liberation didn’t bring instant relief. Years of occupation had left the people battered and hungry. Food was scarce, prices were high and there were riots. The British moved swiftly to restore control, placing the whole of Malaya under Military Administration. It remained that way until 01 April 1946, when civilian rule returned with the establishment of the Malayan Union. With the Straits Settlements dissolved, Penang became a Crown Colony within the new Union.

In my book Let the Aisles Proclaim, I included an eyewitness account from the Penang Free School Magazine - the first issue of 1946 - that vividly described the scene at Weld Quay when the British fleet arrived:

“There steaming into Penang were the ships of the Royal Navy. In the twinkling of an eye the piers, wharves and beaches were crowded with thousands of people all beaming with smiles. The whole town was out on holiday. People were stepping on one another’s toes, jostling and pushing to try and get to the front to see the first of the troops that came ashore. Far into the day people were still crowding about the wharves, shaking hands with any soldier they met.”

Reading that account today, I can almost picture the excitement and relief that swept through the island. The joy of seeing freedom return, tempered by the eventual realisation that life after the war would never be the same again.