SINGAPORE
Stit,—Having just returned from internment in Singapore I am in a position to appreciate the excellent article entitled " Singapore" by Mr.
Swanston in your issue of September 7th. This will, I hope, go far to dispose of quite unjustified aspersions against the loyalty and good will of the people of Malaya. In defeat the tendency was of course to cast round for excuses however flimsy, and having regard to the fact that to our troops at the time one Asiatic was quite undistinguishable from another, it is perhaps hardly surprising that a Malay could not hang out his washing or a belated Chinese flash a torch without falling into immediate suspicion of treachery and Fifth Columnism. A case coming to my immediate notice was one where a row of poles marking a proposed irrigation channel in a padi field in Malacca, put up by a Government department prior to the outbreak of war, was reported as an attempt by disaffected villagers to lead in Nipponese bombers to an observation headquarters established overnight in a nearby rubber estate. Instances of this sort could doubtless be multiplied.
During our internment Chinese sympathisers risked and sometimes I fear forfeited their lives in attempts to get money and supplies to us and after the surrender by the Japanese we were overwhelmed with gifts of food from Singapore people. In order to do this people who had gone through three and a half very lean years stripped themselves of stores beyond all price and quite irreplaceable under current conditions. Outward emotional display is not an Oriental characteristic, but the spontaneous and enthusiastic welcome with which we were received can never be forgotten by any reasonably sensitive person.
As regards the Malays and Indians it must be remembered that the Nipponese, appreciating that their record in China was such as to make all Chinese irreconcilable, adopted the policy of Divide et Impera, and to some degree favoured the Malays and Indians. As, however, their cruelty is only equalled by their social and political ineptitude, this policy of partial ingratiation failed, and before long the lash curled round all non-Nipponese shoulders with impartial abandon. I am sure that our return was acclaimed by all communities as an answer to prayer for deliverance from the nightmare conditions prevailing under the Nipponese
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