Kuala Lumpur at War 1939-1945

by Andrew Barber

  Shortages

  One of the BMA’s biggest problems was the supply of food and its distribution to the needy. In Kuala Lumpur, four feeding centres had been set up in the city to provide basic provisions; in October they offered over 10,000 meals per day. In Kuala Lumpur, as elsewhere in Malaya, the weekly allowance of rice from government-supplied retailers was three kattie for adult males and one and a half katties for women and children, which was low but above starvation levels (it was one quarter the level offered in 1941 when the British introduced a ration card shortly before their defeat). With great reluctance, given the government’s tight financial position, there were also short-term cash payments to the very needy, particularly those in outlying areas. In December 1945, $70,000 was distributed to the poorest of the poor.

  Poverty contributed to the wave of lawlessness then sweeping Selangor. Not only were starving people more likely to turn to crime but the distribution lines and food centres themselves sparked violence as hungry and disaffected people vented their anger on slow queues and petty restrictions. In November 1945, the Food Board said that it was anticipating the arrival of additional rice supplies by boat from India and Thailand but noted ‘If any of the shipments fail to arrive it will be embarrassing.’ By January 1946, however, Brigadier Newboult said that while there remained areas of shortage there were stockpiles and the challenge was in part one of distribution. But he also acknowledged that the rice stock had been hit hard, and seed-rice for next season’s harvest had in many cases been consumed. Newboult revealed that the army had imported thousands of chickens from India but all had died due to the absence of inoculation. Following this set-back, the BMA looked to rabbits, noting that ‘rabbits give fairly quick returns’. It would take many months for the food situation to become tolerable, though there is little evidence that fast-breeding rabbits ever played an appreciable role in improving matters.

  Malayan Railways – in Disarray

  The Japanese occupation had left the Malayan Railways network in a truly terrible state. The two massive USAAF bombing raids on the engineering and marshalling yards at Sentul had wrought great destruction but, even more disruptive, large sections of branch-line rail track had been up-rooted and sent to Japan’s ‘death railway’ projects, along with scores of Malayan Railway locomotives and literally hundreds of wagons. After the war, there was the thorny decision of what to do about all this scattered stock, and whether and how it might be returned. On inspection, much of it was found to be in an appalling condition and it was therefore decided to dispose of it in situ. With the aptly named Colonel A.A. Forward representing the Malayan Railways Advisory Board serious haggling took place, though the British were hardly in a strong position. In negotiations with the French Chemins de Fer de L’Indochine, Colonel Forward initially asserted that he would accept no less than £2,200,000; by February 1949, the French paid the Bank of England £1,250,000 in full and final settlement. A somewhat lesser sum was eventually extracted from the Thais, who also proved frustratingly slow to pay. British exasperation at Thai delaying tactics was only matched by the frustration of the Dutch, who were seeking similar restitution from the British for Dutch East Indies locomotives that had been brought to Malaya, the British proving equally tardy in paying compensation! A further problem was the dispersal of Malayan Railway staff who had followed their rolling stock to Thailand and Burma. As late as 1947 the Railway Department Annual Report lamented that while most of their staff had by then returned, the number of employees was ‘still below that required’.

  In the immediate post-war years, the Malayan Railways was faced with huge problems in restoring its service to pre-war levels. In 1946, the journey time from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore had doubled. Only in income could they show a better result, making $16,629,612 in revenue against $10,024,096 in 1939. This spectacular increase, however, was only achieved by a massive hike in ticket prices which brought considerable public anger and added to the high inflation rate of the period. Payment was also much flouted. In 1946, travel was supposed only to be for those with BMA permits, but according to a contemporary account ‘all trains are invaded, except at principal stations by uncontrollable crowds who travel free not only in all vehicles but on their roofs and even on the buffer beams of locomotives. This lack of order brings considerable operating difficulties and pilferage abounds, the most recent instance being the removal during the progress of a train of almost the complete contents of 8 wagon loads of sugar’.

  Crime and Unrest

  With homeless and transient people flooding into Kuala Lumpur, with the economy at a stand-still and with enormous food and other shortages, crime rates rose to alarming levels. When, in October 1945, the RAF re-established an airbase at Sungei Besi, it was beset by thieves and robbers only too happy to steal anything loose and portable. In response, the commander of the base added additional armed patrols to beef up perimeter security but found it an impossible task. In the same month a mob of about 300 broke into the Selangor Tin Dredging Company stores and looted all the equipment. The British were anxious to distance themselves from the repressive ways of the Japanese but started to crack down on looters and thieves through harsh sentencing. At a meeting with local community representatives in January 1946, an official warned that ‘The armed robbery situation has become very serious and the question of meting out more severe punishment is already under consideration.’ Meanwhile Colonel Lee of the BMA noted that ‘Whipping and even the death penalty cannot be too severe on these desperados.’

  In terms of inter-racial clashes, Selangor and Kuala Lumpur were fortunate not to suffer to the same extent as Perak, Johor and Malacca. A BMA report of October 1945 noted that ‘Regarding the Sino-Malay incidents….. we have not had as bad a time as other regions. There have been two or three isolated incidents….’ One such clash was sparked when both Chinese and Malay gangs tried to rob the same train which resulted in an ‘unfortunate incident’. In January 1946, Brigadier Newboult noted that ‘elements of the population… are taking advantage… to go outside the law to rob, to threaten, to intimidate often by force of arms, other members of the community. The Police and Military authorities are coping with the situation [but] they are not receiving that help from the public, which could be given but is withheld owing presumably to fear of retaliation’. Elsewhere in Selangor, there was the added problem of industrial strikes and agitation. In October 1945 the BMA noted that ‘strikes occurred at the Batu Arang coal and the Railway Workshops and Supplies Depots’ with the ‘Selangor People’s State Committee’ being ‘responsible for the majority of the demonstrations and irresponsible activities’. Despite all this, Newboult concluded that the BMA was ‘getting the upper-hand’. Slowly the police presence became increasingly visible and effective. It was a reformed force having purged many of the policemen who had served during the Japanese occupation and it gradually gained greater popular support. Overall, crime rates and the number of violent incidents began to drop, though Kuala Lumpur would never return to pre-war levels of security and public safety.

  Public Health and Education

  The British found that public health and medical services had deteriorated hugely during the Japanese occupation. In October 1945, a team of British medical auxiliaries arrived in Kuala Lumpur to work on public health programmes, though an absence of drugs and equipment severely hampered their progress. Malaria eradication measures were soon put in place but it took some years for public health to return to pre-war levels – partly because so many people were undernourished and lacking in strength. It was a similar situation with schooling. By November 1945 the majority of schools had reopened though Kuala Lumpur’s premier English school, the Victoria Institution, and two prominent English medium technical colleges remained occupied by the army until 1947. Chinese and Indian enrolment was increasing each month and English-medium schools had raised class numbers from 240 to 320 – an increase of fifty per cent on pre-war figures. The Malay schools had also increased their enrolment bu
t took time to return to pre-war levels, partly because there was no cloth available for school uniforms. With an educational backlog, Kuala Lumpur’s burgeoning population and a demographic bulge of young people, providing sufficient school places remained problematic for a number of years to come. Once again, the BMA’s intentions were good but the practical realities of getting a broken system back to its former level proved taxing.

  The BMA – Unloved and Little Missed

  On 1 April 1946, the BMA handed over authority to a civilian government. It had endured a torrid eight months of governance. One BMA officer, and later a distinguished administrator and academic, J.W. Gullick, noted that ‘government by an occupying army is, by its nature likely to be an unpleasant experience for the civilian population subject to it. The British Military Administration of Malaya was no exception to that’. It had earned the unwelcome moniker, the ‘Black Market Administration’ and within its ranks there were not only capable and experienced officers like Gullick, but also a fair sprinkling of rogues and incompetents. The range and complexity of the problems facing the BMA would have tested the most well-oiled and proficient of administrations – which the BMA most certainly was not. As Gullick concluded, on ‘April Fool’s Day 1946… unloved - the BMA passed into the history books.’

  Chapter Twenty

  Kuala Lumpur Small War Crimes Trials

  Throughout 1946 and into 1947, Kuala Lumpur was the scene for one of the war’s longest running and most comprehensive set of Small War Crimes Trials. Similar trials took place elsewhere in Malaya and in Singapore. Penang held a particularly large and colourful trial of Kempetei officers. They were held under the auspices of the British military and the Court Presidents were military officers with legal backgrounds. The court proceedings followed the British practice of contesting prosecution and defence counsels, though it was the Court President rather than a civilian judge or a jury who made the final judgement and determined sentencing. For those who received the death penalty, there was an appeal process, which was in the form of a short summary document sent to the Commanding Officer of the British Forces in Malaya. From the trials held in Kuala Lumpur, however, there was not one successful appeal against capital punishment. The Kuala Lumpur trials were held in the Crown Courts, in what is now the Sultan Abdul Samad building, opposite the central padang. The cases were dealt with in a brisk military manner with some being heard and decided in just one day, though some of the complex cases lasted for over two weeks. Between July 1946 and December 1947, the Kuala Lumpur trials brought at least 94, and possibly as many as 105, defendants to the dock. Certain cases were held individually but in others there were multiple numbers of accused. Most defendants were Japanese military personnel and Kempetei officers but also included medical administrators from the Thai-Burma railway, prison officials and Taiwanese and local interpreters and collaborators.

  The defendants were held at Pudu Prison and those who were executed were hanged from the gallows there. By the conclusion of the process at least nineteen prisoners were sentenced to death, with their executions generally coming some four to six weeks after their appeals. The executions took place early in the morning, starting at 7.00am. The hangman, James Henry Pink, received $50 for each execution and his assistant, a Malay warder, received $10. Though the process was kept discreet and sheltered from the rest of the prison, there was no hiding the fact that an execution was taking place, if only because the other prisoners - due to prison convention - were not served breakfast until the executions had taken place.

  A small group of officials attended the execution, including a Japanese interpreter to help the condemned man through his last moments. The gallows was located in a dark, forbidding chamber located on the ground floor of Block A, at the end of ‘death row’ from which a metal door led directly to the execution chamber. It was through this that the condemned man was taken to his execution, though the corpse would later be removed through an external door to the prison yard, where a van would be waiting to take it away. Inside the chamber was a simple raised wooden-platform complete with trapdoor, and above this ran a large wooden-beam from which dangled the hangman’s noose, complete with its thirteen turns. The condemned man could either sit on a wooden chair or stand, and was invariably hooded for his last moments. In similar cases elsewhere, there is testimony that in the seconds before the trapdoor opened the Japanese prisoners cried defiant screams of ‘banzai’ or protestations of faith to the Emperor. In the case of Pudu Prison, however, the dry, official paperwork fails to record whether or not such acts of bravura occurred. After the hanging - and in some cases two or more men were executed in the same session - the corpse was laid out on the floor of the execution chamber and inspected by a medical officer who then recorded on the death certificate that death came through ‘dislocation of the neck by judicial hanging’, or some similar formulation. The bodies were then driven away and cremated, partly due to the fear that the buried corpses might be exhumed and mutilated by angry Kuala Lumpur residents. For those who escaped the gallows there was a broad spread of sentencing, ranging from two years to life, and a goodly number, as many as thirty, were acquitted. Those that were given prison sentences initially served their time in Pudu Prison but from the late 1940s the British quietly allowed them to return to Japan to finish their sentences, which in many cases were cut short on remission.

  It might have been thought, and this was certainly the intention, that the Small War Crimes Trials would bring ‘closure’ to traumatised communities and a sense of justice for the widespread atrocities of the Japanese. There was certainly entrenched anger and animosity, and the trials offered some form of justice. Indicative of declining public interest, however, individual cases were increasingly consigned to passing references on the inside pages of the local newspapers. Though the wounds would take many years, if ever, to heal, there was already a sense that the citizens of Kuala Lumpur were sick of the whole business and were much keener on restoring their damaged lives and in looking ahead to the challenges of the post-war era than in revisiting the trauma and violence of the Japanese occupation. The final cases concluded in late 1947, over two years after the return of the British and shortly before the CPM took to the jungles once more, but this time in opposition to the colonial British. Soon a new conflict would envelope Malaya, and would come to dominate the political and social landscape.

  Epilogue

  The Japanese occupied Kuala Lumpur from January 1942 until September 1945, a period of three years and eight months. The impact of their short occupation was profound. Much, however, depended on race, age, gender, occupation and happenstance. It is therefore impossible to offer a single narrative or portrayal of these years; each community, family and individual having a very different war. Nevertheless, certain themes predominate and perhaps the most common was the capricious brutality that accompanied the Japanese. While the British may not have been loved, they were later welcomed back as a respite from the violence, hardship and famine that accompanied the Japanese occupation.

  The Japanese occupation was a turning point in the history of Malaya and of its capital city. Kuala Lumpur suffered physically from the effects of the British ‘scorched earth’ policy, from looting and from USAAF bombing raids, but much less so than either Penang or Singapore. The main traumas visited upon the city and its inhabitants were political, sociological, economic and psychological. Through their divisive policies and repressive methods, the Japanese tested inter- and intra-communal relations to breaking point and left behind a radicalised and polarised political landscape. Into this fractured environment the British tried to rebuild an economy and society wrecked by war. The Malayan Emergency, which followed hard on the heels of the British return, would attest to the difficulties and strains that war had imposed on a hitherto largely settled and peaceful country. The war years were divisive and heightened inter-communal tensions. The focus of Japanese repression was on the Chinese, but all communities suffered. When the spectrum of v
iolence reaches the lows of the Bukit Jalil massacre, where over four hundred Chinese men were decapitated or bayoneted to death, this leaves plenty of space for more lenient but still oppressive treatment. Indeed, in terms of absolute losses, it was the Indian community that suffered the most. Though they handled the different communities in different ways, Japanese policies stoked existing divisions leading to heightened animosity and increased polarisation.

  Within each community, the war also left lasting scars. For the Chinese, pent-up anger and hatred shifted from the Japanese (now repatriated) to perceived spies and collaborators within their own community. This sense of betrayal helped fuel the divisions that fed the growth of the communist insurgency. The Indians, meanwhile, remained deeply divided on racial and religious grounds. The majority Tamils took many years to recover from the death and losses of their men on the Japanese war projects, with many believing that the political leadership of the IIL and the INA had failed, for fear of alienating the Japanese, to protect legions of their young men. Even the Malays, who fared relatively better than the other two main communities, entered the post-war era stressed and conflicted. The ‘Malay left’, which had made progress during the Japanese occupation, was confronted by an emerging political establishment based on the traditional rulers - the Sultans and aristocrats - and the new professional elite of UMNO. Supported by the British, they wished to forget as fast as possible any accommodation that might have occurred during the Japanese occupation and instead highlighted the role played by Malays in confronting the Japanese, at the expense of a truly balanced account.