The National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated stations present The Pacific Story. This is the story of the Pacific, the drama of the millions of people who live around this greatest sea where the United States is now committed to a long-term policy of keeping the peace. This is a documentary account of the situation in the Pacific, of the men and events which are today influencing the shape of world affairs for generations to come. The story of the Pacific, the drama of the Pacific, of the men and events which are today influencing the shape of world affairs for generations to come. I had the feeling as I stood there that the naval yard of Singapore had always looked like this, giant cranes lifting and lowering things, locomotives moving heavy loads back and forth, dockyard machinery, repair shops, men like ants working all over the great ships in the graving dock, swinging over the side in bourgeois chairs, scrambling over the gun turrets, assembling a clip under the folk clothes, scraping and painting the flying bridge. I had the feeling that it had always been like this, and yet I knew so well it had not. I remembered what it had looked like after the bombing, the way places always looked after bombings, wreckage, rubble, steel twisted into fantastic, tortured shape, mangled machinery, craters like ugly wounds and fire-blackened stumps of buildings. I remember what was said when Singapore fell. To Britain it is the greatest military disaster of the war, greater even than Dunkirk. At Dunkirk the British Expeditionary Force lost all its equipment, but 80% of the personnel was saved. At Singapore the British Empire lost a whole army of some 70,000, together with their equipment and the vast and costly naval dates. The loss of Singapore ranks for the breaching of the Marginal Line in France. As the breakthrough of the Sudan gave most of Europe to the Nazis, the fall of Singapore gave most of the Far East to the Japanese. With the fall of Singapore and its 80 million dollar naval dates, the most powerful British faction in the Far East has fallen into the hands of the Japanese. I remembered that, but what I remembered more were those last few agonising hours of resistance, the fighting and the straits, the overwhelming power of the Japanese surging over the island. And I remembered what followed. Keep them going, keep them moving. Clever eh, Pembroke? Someone's gotta sweep the streets. That's not why they're making us do it. Stop your talking over there! Keep those fools moving! They want us to lose face before all those Asiatics over there are along the curb watching us. Quiet Clyde, he's watching us. They know what they're doing. Better than being put into a prison camp. That'll come. Stop your talking! Quick! Quick now! Clyde was right. When we and all the other whites had swept the streets until the Japanese were satisfied, they degraded us before the Melees, the Chinese, the Indians, and all the other Asiatics in Singapore. They lined us up and herded us off to Chanjee criminal prison. Good heavens, how many have they gone and crowded into this jail? Get in there! Step quick! Oh, all right, you don't have to push. Get in there! Now, move ahead. Any more I'll come in. How many of us do you estimate have got crammed in here, Pembroke? Oh, I'd say three thousand. Three thousand? We built the place for six hundred. There are more women and children than that in here now. What did you say about women and children? I said there are more women and children in here now than this jail was built for. Besides all us men. If they're permitting women and children to be here, then why don't they allow my wife and two children? That isn't the idea. These women here have been taken from their husbands and children, and the children have been separated from their parents. Oh, your wife and children are probably in one of the other prison camps. What will happen to my children if they're separated from my wife? Wails? They're so young and my wife... Oh, look, chum, take it easy. I'm going to get out of here. I'm going to get out of here. You ahead, all of you. You, move! Don't hit me with that gun again. This place was built. The sanitation facilities were inadequate. Buckets and garbage tins were used for cooking and distributing food. The jail was infested with bedbugs. Seen Mackenzie the last couple of days? No. He's making drawings of the entire jail. And he's set down how many prisoners are locked up in each section. Interesting pastimes. Well, he's figured out exactly how much space each one of us has. How much? Eight feet by three feet. Eight feet by three, sir. To live, move, breathe, eat, and sleep. Hard enough space to lie down. Aye. Look at that over there. A sick woman. Two sick kids. And no medical care. There was no help for them. The woman and one of the children died. They were the first to go. Others followed. That made a little more space. The food was bad. There was not enough of it. We grew thinner. By looking at Clyde, I tried to estimate how much weight I'd lost. After a while, I didn't think of that anymore. Only of how to get more food. I caught a snail last night in the dark. It was crawling on the wall. Was everything crawling around in here, sure? I ate it. Ate the snail? Yes. The snail? Yes. It was good. Gave me an idea. If we could catch some more, maybe we could raise snails. There's protein in them. Not me. I'm going to get out of here. I'm going to find my wife and kids wherever they are. We talked about food nearly all the time. What about the stores of food that were accumulated for the siege? There was enough to last a couple of years. The Japanese must have found it by now. A lot of it was underground. They would find it. That's an idea. What? Maybe if we tell them what it was, maybe we could make a deal with them. And they'd give us some of it. Or maybe they would, I... Maybe. We've nothing to lose and everything to gain. I'm going to tell them. Try to make a deal with them. Try to make a deal with them. Clyde told one of the guards. And then we waited. You will come with me. I? Yes, you, Fembroke. Come with me. Guard! Yes? Remember that food? What food? Those hidden stores of food I told you about two weeks ago. Are we going to get some of it? I know nothing about food. I told you. Didn't I, men? Didn't I? I had told you about the food that the British had stored away. And you said we'd get some of it. I know nothing about food. You will come with me. The commander questioned me about my work in the rubber industry before the Japanese had come. Who were the others among the prisoners who'd worked in the rubber industry? Whatever the purpose behind this, he cunningly concealed it. I said my work had brought me in contact with few people. But I knew no one among the prisoners who'd worked in rubber. But I knew by the time they took me back that something was afoot. I tried to figure out what they were after. If it concerned rubber, it would probably concern a man named Jenkins, R.O. Jenkins, an expert on rubber who was in Chonji Prison. From where I sat, I could see him. I knew that if I talked to him, I would betray him. And that's what Twilight Bryson sidled up to me. Here. Here. Take this paper. I took it. I dropped it. I put my foot on it. It's from Jenkins. What is it? It's a plan for the rehabilitation of the Malayan rubber industry. A plan? Yes. He got word from the governor, Sir Shenton Thomas, to work out the plan to get the industry working immediately after the Counter-Attack regains Singapore. But what does he want me to do? Bryson was gone. When I looked around, Clyde was watching me. Is that the rubber's plan? Yes. The Kempe knows it's around. They'll be looking for it. I see. It's been moving around for days. I had it last week. It's going to be bad for the one who's caught with it. The Kempe is furious that we'd even think of getting the rubber plantations back. The Kempe were secret police. That night in the dark, I hid the plan under a stone in my space. Bryson came back to talk to me. I passed it on to you, Pembroke, because I'm getting out. I'm getting out. I can't stay here while my wife and kids... What was that? Nothing. Listen. This is the second plan Jenkins has drawn up. The first one he hid in sections in different places. He thinks one of the sections fell into the hands of the Japanese commander here. But the Japanese don't know who made the plan. That's what they're after. They've taken out three prisoners in the last week and tortured them to find out. Take care of it. I'm going. Bryson left. I didn't know if he meant he was going to try to escape that night or what. I lay awake for hours in the dark, my insides gnawing with hunger, thinking about him and Jenkins' plan. Just before dawn, I was raising. The Kempe was raiding the place. As the Japanese closed in on me, I could see them moving out in all directions through the jail. Take it close to the wall. Now, stand still. Do not move. They dragged every stitch off me, and as my rags were thrown down, they went over them inch by inch. What they did to me, they did to all the others around. Get out of the way! Bring it! They asked no questions, only searched. My heart pounded. I kept looking up. I feel I looked at the stone. They pushed it. They stepped on it. They stepped over it. There were other stones around the courtyard. They ignored them all. And at last they left. Simply walked out. As I pulled on my few rags, Clyde came over to me. Bryson is dead. What? Bryson? He tried to escape to join his family. They shot him. I got the plan back to Jenkins. I destroyed it. The food became worse. The filth, the misery, the vermin, the illness, the terror became worse. We saw no more cats or dogs. Ben Shaw, the prisoner who had eaten the snail, waited for weeks to capture more. With the help of other prisoners, he started a snail farm. They herded them together and husbanded them like livestock. There's protein in them. We'll be free pretty soon if we have good luck. We're going to have enough for an ounce of snail meat for every prisoner in this jail every day. By 1943, we were getting reports from the outside that there was such a shortage of food in Singapore that the Japanese were dumping many people onto the mainland to ship for themselves. Look at this, Pembroke. Where did you get that? A Chinese outside cashed a check for me. A Chinese gave you money for a check? Aye. He charged me 10% to cash it, but he cashed it. They'll cash checks for any British officer. No Chinese would cash a check without being pretty sure of getting his money back. Right. This means they're certain that Singapore will be recaptured. Just as you say. They pushed in a haggard wreck of a man. He stood inside the door looking at all of us with his hollow eyes, his shaggy hair blended into his beard, his mouth hung open. He just stood there looking. After a while, he sank down and sprawled out on the floor. Clyde and I went over to him. His clothes were in rags. We gave him some water. All we could find out from him was that his name was Cope. They questioned me for weeks. I told them nothing. I told them nothing. It was plain that he'd been tortured. He was a good man. It was plain that he'd been tortured. We cleared the state for him near ours. We took care of him as well as we could. There was no medical help, whatever. He just lay there, ate a little of his food. He left most of it, which we ate. We asked him no questions. But when he was sleeping, sometimes Clyde and I talked about him. He knew out here, marked my words. What makes you think, sir? I don't know. The way he behaves, what he says. Little by little it came out. He was a British officer. Home was in Doncaster. He could come out to India in the Southeast Asia Command as a liaison officer. And in the dead of night, he parachuted down into Malaya, 200 miles up the Malay Peninsula from Singapore. I was supposed to make contact with some other liaison officer who had dropped into Malaya. Some months before, I made contact with him by radio. When I got to the rendezvous point, they were not there. Tiffany lay back until I was in the trap. Then they jumped me. I brought you here for questioning, eh? No, no. They took me to the news post, Port Swetnam, up the street. Then Kuala Lumpur. Then down here. We listened when he talked. And when he stopped, we said nothing. We were too tired, too weak to ask questions. The Japanese guards strutted around among us on their daily tours of inspection. They wouldn't strut if they knew what I know. No, no, I'll bet they would. No, you bet they wouldn't. They know they're going to be thrown out of here, but they won't admit it even to themselves. No. The day we moved back into Singapore, we're going to be in operation from the first day. I thought of the wreckage of the naval base, with docks from the port facilities blasted into rubble. We're getting everything ready. We're building floating docks, up to 50,000 tons in India, and we'll tow them in and start using them the day we take over. We've built a monster mobile naval radio station. Moments, so we call it, with office equipment, power supply, with more than 100 ratings trained and ready to land within 24 hours of occupation. These things are ready now? This mobile radio station and the docks? Ready. In India, right now. God! Yes, we're moving with oil tanks with floating pipelines so that tankers can discharge their cargo offshore. We're bringing a water purification plant to start supplying water from almost the first minute. You're expecting them here any time, eh? I didn't say that. With that, he shot up like a clam. I looked across the cell block. One of the Japanese guards was looking at him out of the corner of his eyes. The Clyde changed the subject to the snail farm, and I joined him in a conversation. They've been eating them for centuries in France. You get used to them, and after all, they're protein. It is something like eating them. ... Cope didn't talk again for days, but by this time he'd come to understand the hope that his words brought to all of us in Shanji. We're prepared to move in a laundry, a canteen, and a cinema, and a mobile bakery and refrigerators have been ordered, and two frigates have been outfitted in England as floating power stations to be used in case the shore power stations are destroyed. Even huts for personnel are waiting in India for the day we take back Singapore, and plans have been worked out for a mobile naval air base, and cranes and dockyard machinery and tools, locomotives and repair stores. Everything will be ready, and even personnel have been informed. ... When 1944 reports were filtering into us of what was happening outside, they are beginning to realize that their new order is not a success. How do you know, Shaw? Some of those attained to my snail farm have outside contacts. Oh, there are no food reserves, there are no vegetables in the market, although the Japanese have tried to force the Chinese and the Malays to grow more food. There is almost no fish. The military has taken no stuff. There is little rice, and no flour, and no bread. How is the war going? The Americans have landed in the Philippines. We took heart. We learned about the progress of the fighting in the Philippines, of the British carrier-borne raids on Sumatra, and then one day we looked up and saw a live plane over Singapore. Those are British planes from Burma. Then we must have visited Burma again. In the months that followed, they kept coming back. Look, those are heavy bombers. Yes, yes, those are American superforts. They are based in India. The Japanese have taken over the city. They plastered the naval base, left the city almost untouched. The raids continued. It was 1945 now. Summer and the heat was unbearable. There was more space now in Chanjhi Prison. The Japanese must be losing. The guards are almost civil. I think we could escape. They'd kill you if you tried. Is that worse than this? Remember Bryson? No, no, that was before your time. They killed him, I suppose. They were more sure of themselves then. We could feel the end was coming. Escape was in the air, and then Shaw got word from the outside. The war's over. Japan's surrendered. What? How do you know? The US dropped some kind of a new bomb on one of their cities, and they surrendered. One bomb? Yes, one bomb. And the Japanese have surrendered to the Allied forces in Tokyo. Impossible! It's true. It's true. The war's over. Japan's surrendered. Japan's surrendered. Quiet, quiet! Stop it! Stop it! Get down on all of you! Get down on your faces! The war's over! The war's over! Japan's surrendered! Get down on your faces! Get down! Now, you. You mean me? Yes, you. Drag him out. Drag him out the door. Take hold of him. Drag him out. The floor was smeared with blood from Shaw's head as coke dragged him out. Did you see that gush in his head? Yes. The war's over for him, all right. He's dead. That was the last time we saw those two Japanese. And then word filtered in that the war had ended. The Japanese naval officers had boarded MHMS Nelson, the flagship of the British task forces in that area, to provide data for safe passage from the Straits of Malacca to Singapore. We didn't wait for formal relief from Chiang Jai. That night we slipped out of the prison. A Chinese hit us. You had better not go out. The war's over, isn't it? Singapore is still full of Japanese, ready to fight and kill. And General Itagaki, the commander, has said that he will not surrender Singapore. He's been ordered to surrender by Field Marshal Terauchi. What he has said, he will not surrender. If you are seen on the streets, you will be killed. The next day we learned that Admiral MacBethan, Supreme Commander in Southeast Asia, had warned Field Marshal Terauchi that he would be held responsible if General Itagaki did not surrender. We laid low another day. British warships have dropped anchor in the harbor. What? Actually... Let's get down there at once. Come on. We walked openly out into the street. We went down to the back of the waterfront. And there, for the first time since February 1942, there were British men of war in the stream. The harbor in ruins, the battle fleet at anchor frowning down the parmas. General Itagaki went aboard and signed an agreement for the occupation of the city. And for the next two days we watched more and more vessels come in, cargo carriers and auxiliaries as well as warships. Look! The first landing craft are coming in. That's the fifth Indian. The division had fought in Libya, Italy and Burma. We stood on the main wharf of the Empire docks and waited for them to land. Once these were the busiest commercial wharves in Singapore. Now there was not a merchant ship dock there. And the Empire troops were coming in. They're in food battle threat. Look at them, each in burkos. Hurrah for the Indian people! Hurrah! The prisoners of war, the civilians, the Chinese and the Empire docks, were all with joy. The Japanese guards stood by watching it all with smiles on their faces. But not for long. Well, I'll be. Major General Mantek ordered them to work, sweeping the streets just as you and I did, eh Pembroke? Yes. The Japanese are not only to sweep the streets, they're to fill in the trenches and help in the clean-up work generally. Chinese and Malayans along the curb over there watching them. Just as they watched us, Pembroke. Yes, that's all it's for. Aye, restoration of space. And that same day General Itungaki made a statement. Oh, we hoped the peace will last for twenty years. Very well, Pepatrigan. Back in twenty years, I looked around me, the wreckage, the desolation, the black misery, and I thought of the suffering of what Singapore had been, the great distributing centre for Britain's eastern commerce, a port served by eighty steamship lines, thirty thousand ships entering the harbour each year, the world's great naval bases, the operating centre of a powerful defensive fleet. And I looked at the ruination. Back in twenty years. The municipal building was untouched by destruction, and there on September the 12th, 1945, it all ended. You'll never forget this day, Pembroke. Never? Look, representatives of the United States, England, Australia, France, China. Aye, and Japan. Yes, I say, Itungaki is getting ready to sign. Aye, they never dreamed they'd ever know this kind of humiliation. When it was done, General Itungaki had surrendered his 85,000 troops in Malaya and the 500,000 troops in Southeast Asia and in the Indies under Field Marshal Terauchi. And now it is 1946. A year and more has passed. The blasted docks and the naval installations are whole again. The twisted steel, the wreckage and the rubble are gone. The windows filled in, the blackened buildings rebuilt. And now again, rubber and tin and cremine and a hundred other things needed by people everywhere are flowing through Singapore. I have the feeling, standing here looking at it, that it has always been like this. Yet I know so well, it has not. You have been listening to the Pacific Story presented by the National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated independent stations to clarify events in the Pacific and to make understandable the cross currents of life in the Pacific Basin. For a reprint of this Pacific Story program, send ten cents in stamps or coins to University of California Press, Berkeley, California. To repeat, for a reprint of this Pacific Story program, send ten cents in stamps or coins to University of California Press, Berkeley, California. The Pacific Story is written and produced by Arnold Marquis. The music was scored and conducted by Henry Russell. The principal voice was that of Hans Conrad. Programs in this series of particular interest to service men and women are broadcast overseas through the worldwide facilities of the Armed Forces Radio Service. This program came to you from Hollywood and is heard in Canada over the facilities of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. This is NBC, the National Broadcasting Company.
