Interview by ABC News

Interview: Lee Kuan Yew

A young medical orderly in Singapore during 1941-42, Lee Kuan Yew talks about his personal experiences of the war and its effect on Singapore.

It was unforgettable experience for me. I was a young man then of not yet 19. I sat out on my veranda along Norfolk Road and …they marched 80,000 troops from the city to Changi, and they were - I wouldn't say marching, just moving for nearly 36 hours, and I've never felt so depressed in my whole life.


Senior Minister, even in Australia it's often thought that the Pacific war began at Pearl Harbour - that's our image of the beginning of the war. What would you say was the true beginning of the Pacific war?


I think 1931 when the Japanese decided to move into Manchuria and occupy what they call Manchuko - set up a puppet regime. Then in 1937 they moved further south into Shanghai, Peking as it then was known and Man Ching and they occupied the coastal areas and the river basins and then in 1941 the Americans put an oil embargo - either they withdrew or there's an oil embargo. That triggered it off.

So an economic war had begun well before December 7 or December 8th?

Oh yes. They wanted an Empire - you must remember those were the 1930's - they saw the British, the French, the Dutch with Empires in South East Asia which would have been more useful to them, so why shouldn't they have an Empire?

And the attack in Malaya itself actually occurred some hours before the attack on Pearl Harbour and Singapore itself was bombed - what's your memory of the first day of the war here?


Well about 4, or 5 o'clock in the morning I was then a second year student at Raffles College - we heard a rumble - city was completely lit up - couldn't believe it. Bombs had dropped and then the sirens went off, but after the bombs had exploded.

And what were you told about the progress of the war down the Malay Peninsula?

Well there were two levels of information - one the official communiqué or communiqués and the other the flow of refugees coming down from the north, from Penang, from Perak then later on from Kuala Lumpur as they came down south. So I would say that the credibility of what people told us was certainly much more convincing than what the communiqué said because the communiqué said they went back to another line, holding the line and so on. But we knew it was very rapid advance, taken by surprise.

And the British evacuation of Penang - what did that signal to the local population? Did that catch up with you?

Well that was very bad, I think - they panicked. The British quit and just left the island like that and without essential services. So it was bad for local morale.

And the attack itself on Singapore - can you describe that for me, come February 8?

Well I think you must take the build up one, two weeks before then, and we saw the troops coming back and when you have about 70, 80,000 troops suddenly squeezed together in one island in some disarray - we knew that this was a critical situation and when they blew up the Causeway, they also blew up our water supplies to the mainland. In other words either they could counter-attack or there's about two weeks supply and that was it.

And how much of a breakdown of discipline and order did you detect amongst Imperial troops?

There wasn't any rout I mean soldiers trying to scatter or seeking cover, but there was a certain amount of demoralisation, which was quite obvious. I was coming back from my duties as a medical orderly from Raffles College, going home on my bicycle; and on the way, along Stephens Road, which is about a mile from the College to the south, there was a whole line of military trucks with Australian soldiers - young men, totally bewildered and one of them offered me his rifle - he says take it. I - my heart was in the pit of my stomach. I mean by the time they thought it was hopeless, the battle was over.

So what was their demeanour, their condition, their morale? It was rock bottom at that stage, was it?

Well subsequently we discovered that they were on their way to the Middle East - going to fight the desert war, and then they were diverted to Singapore to join a totally unprepared, ill-equipped army with almost no air cover - no tanks.

And then the surrender itself occurred - would you be able to give us a word picture of the defeated army, because you saw it marching by didn't you?

Yes, it was unforgettable experience for me. I was a young man then of not yet 19. I sat out on my veranda along Norfolk Road and it was a route they marched 80,000 troops from the city to Changi, and they were - I wouldn't say marching, just moving for nearly 36 hours, and I've never felt so depressed in my whole life. I mean it's just like as if the dark ages have descended, you know I mean they're going into captivity - a few things stood out: the Scottish highlanders were very good. They played their bagpipes as they withdrew across the causeway and it was blown up behind them. They didn't have bagpipes, so they were marching left, right, left, right...

So they did their best to maintain their dignity?

Oh yes, yes - it was not just dignity, it was a certain discipline, yes they'd lost, but they are not a routed army.

And not so the Australians, I take it. They were a very disconsolate lot.

Yes they were. It was a shuffle - bewildered I think is the word I would use.

Did it colour your impression of Australians?

At the time, yes. I thought they were less professional, less disciplined. There were many British troops that were not as good as the Scottish highlanders, but they, there was a certain military spirit in them. I think they were probably more battle-experienced - the officers; but the Australians were completely raw I think - including the officers, and the only group that was more dishevelled were the Indians. I mean it wasn't their fight - they were just sent here.

Looking back, why do you believe the defeat of British forces was so swift and comprehensive?

Under-estimation of the experience and the military skills and dare of the enemy. We had planned this for many years, studied the terrain, had fifth columns all along the way to guide them through - used bicycles and small boats to by-pass front lines - a total surprise and demoralisation as a result; and of course no air cover.

And how significant an episode in the history of Empire was the failure here?

I wouldn't want to exaggerate it, but it knocked the bottom out of the myth that the British were not defeatable by the Asians.

And tell me about life for you as Asians under Japanese occupation.

It was 3 and a half years - first year or so is just fear, terror, terror - they rounded people up, 50 to 100,000 young men were just picked up out of collection centres, just to teach the Chinese and Singapore lessons for having supported the nationalist government in China with funds. So terror was the first instrument of government, but there was still plentiful food, provisions kept - stockpiled by the British and the commercial houses. Then as the war dragged on, it wasn't going well for them and the troops were sent down south, I suppose massacred, defeated by about '44; food was getting scarce, ships were not coming in because they were being sunk by Allied submarines, so life became very difficult. Many people were hungry - one meal a day and a lot of root crops for rice, you know sweet potatoes, tapioca leaves for vegetables - I remember you can have a completely bloated stomach after a meal with little nutrition and one hour after that you're hungry. And medicines were just not available because whatever medicines left behind by the British were stockpiled by the various dispensaries. They were precious - so life was a hazardous business and people dispersed - the population went down by half as people scattered to the islands and into Malaya, to plant their own food.

I know you said in your book that it was a relief when the British returned, but when the British returned, were they seen as victors - given the circumstances?

I wouldn't say they were seen as victors. They were not defeated, I mean. The Japanese were defeated by the two atomic bombs, and just as well because I think otherwise I may not be here because they were prepared to fight to the last Japanese and the last civilian, I mean right under this building - this was Government House, they had tunnels which we've had to reinforce to make sure that the foundations are not disturbed but when they said they were going to fight to the last man, they meant that literally.

It was often thought at the time that the local population had a certain indifference to the war and that Europeans were very much disengaged from the lives of local people - they led separate lives. Do you think it's different now? How much is it different now?

Well the Europeans are not in charge now, so the government is, the government of the people, by the people and has to be for the people; I mean we're just part of them...

I meant from a more of a regional perspective - do you think that the Europeans still try to live a European life in Asia?

Well yes I mean the standard of living of the average European here - they are at professional levels, they're either Chief Executives or very high up in a company - very few factory floor workers - none at all I mean. The lowest would be a supervisory grade and that would just keep them for a short while, to show the local foreman how to do it, and then they're sent home because they're too expensive. So they do lead a sort of encapsuled life I mean they have special schools to keep up with their own home education; they live comfortably otherwise they wouldn't have come out here and they've got maids that they wouldn't have at home, so when they come out here it's a higher quality of life than they would have at home. But I wouldn't say that their standard of living here in Singapore would be higher than say a Singapore professional or Chief Executive.

What would you say are the enduring lessons of the war? What is the continuing impact of it all?

The enduring lesson is war is a disaster. Whoever wins, tremendous loss of life, property - a set back for civilisation. At the same time one has to accept that there will be not major wars any more, but minor conflicts between third world nations, their mechanisms for confidence building, reconciliation, peace-making less developed because they have not been through the kind of traumatic experience say the Japanese or the Germans or the French or the British have been through. I'm not sure about the Australians - I think you must have gone through a traumatic experience. Therefore you've got to make provisions for irrational behaviour, and this is one of the problems. But we try, I mean the region is trying I mean everybody wants to rebuild now, so we formed an enlarged ASEAN grouping of 10 from the original 5, there's a disparity between the new members who are out of the market system, part of the communist system - Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia - they are more isolated, but I do not see conflict for the immediate future. But you cannot say who has - there is an irrational element in relations between countries.

We saw it on September 11.

Yes.

Just finally do you detect any reluctance from say Britain and Australia because we have this ANZAC tradition in Australia where the warrior mythology, is taught to the school children - do you think there is any reluctance to really confront and debate the Singapore / Malaya story because for us it's not a story with a happy ending?

I wouldn't say you are running away from it, and certainly not the Australians because it's too close and too painful, and if you go by the books that have been written by British historians - war historians, there is a detached, brutal approach to the stupidities of a completely unprepared fighting force. I mean maybe it was unavoidable because the priorities were to hold the Suez Canal in the Middle East against the Germans and Rommell, but the forces here were just being sacrificed, should they have fought at all? It was an enormous game of poker you are playing with the Japanese.

And the only people to be fooled by the propaganda about the invincibility, the impregnability of Singapore were our own people. The Japanese certainly weren't fooled.

But they did take it seriously... they knew the guns were all pointing seawards. They didn't come from the sea. They came from the north - the back side and they came with aircraft, bicycles and tanks, and they zipped through in what December the 8th, February the 15th...

69 days.

Yeah, but it was the surprise and the demoralisation that set in after the surprise - the ease with which they were being outflanked time and again.

And some of the local forces fought extremely well even to the last man themselves, didn't they - the Singapore detachments?

Mmm.

Thank you very much for speaking with us. Thank you.

Further reading:

» The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew, Prentice Hall, 1998