![\"The](\"http:\/\/bukitbrown.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/japanese-surrender-in-city-hall.jpg\")
<\/a>The Chamber of the Former City Hall was the site of the historic surrender of the Japanese on 12 September 1945. (c.1945. Image from National Museum of Singapore)<\/p><\/div>\n
“12 September 1945, General Seishiro, along with four other Generals and two Admirals, entered the City Hall Chamber to formally surrender Singapore to Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, the British Supreme Allied Commander in Southeast Asia.” From Roots<\/a> on WW II timeline.<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\nSo today marks Victory Day. But the joy and relief must have been \u00a0 short lived as people woke up to victory and at the same time came to grips with the loss\u00a0 and damage wreaked by three and half years of Japanese Occupation; \u00a0 Closer to\u00a0 the bone, came grieving for lives lost and unaccounted for.<\/p>\n
Recently, I attended a talk by a researcher – delving into WW II history for next years commemoration of the 75 Anniversary of the fall of Singapore –\u00a0 who shared\u00a0 some\u00a0 memos she came across at the National Archives of Singapore which had sent the “hairs on her arm standing” .<\/em> They were written by an officer\u00a0\u00a0 under the\u00a0 British Military Adminstration BMA.\u00a0 <\/a>The BMA was established in Singapore and Malaya during the period from the Japanese surrender to restoration of civilian rule on 1 April 1946.<\/p>\nThe memos noted that reports of those missing during the war lodged by civilians to the BMA in the immediate aftermath of\u00a0 wars’ end, started to show a pattern of\u00a0 Chinese men\u00a0 missing from the dates corresponding to what we now know as Sook Ching. For a period of 3 weeks from 21 February to 4 March 1942, Chinese males between the ages of 18 and 50 were summoned to various mass screening centres and those suspected of being anti-Japanese were executed.<\/p>\n
The full scale and nature\u00a0 of Sook Ching was certainly not known during Occupation and only painfully unraveled after the war.\u00a0 But there had been records handwritten and scribbled\u00a0 in secret\u00a0\u00a0 by individuals of\u00a0 the names of the\u00a0 men who were taken and never returned. Some of these records came to light and\u00a0 later provided evidence needed for the war tribunals which took place a year later in 1946 in Singapore. A portal of the war tribunals<\/a>\u00a0 held in Singapore launched at the end of August 2016\u00a0 at the NUS Law Faculty and based on records from the British is an important initiative in\u00a0 documenting\u00a0 WW II history in the region.<\/p>\nIn our own research into family history, descendants shared with us their\u00a0 oral records of those in their family\u00a0 who perished in Sook Ching, of which is captured in both our community driven book WW II@ Bukit Brown<\/a> and also in this blog here <\/a>and here<\/a>.<\/p>\nCloser to home, and perhaps most poignant is a first ever record of the Sook Ching execution of two brothers on Punggol Beach documented\u00a0 in a poem by the late father of\u00a0 a family friend. The title of this blog post is taking from the anthology of poems and essays which are published in ” I Found A Bone and Other Poems”<\/a> by Teo Kah Leng.<\/p>\nI reproduce here excerpts from the title\u00a0 poem:<\/p>\n
\nI found<\/span> a bone<\/span> on Punggol Beach<\/em><\/strong>
\n Half buried in the sand,<\/em><\/strong>
\n And bleached by white by the sea and sun –<\/em><\/strong>
\n I picked it up with my hand<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\nIt was as brittle and as light<\/em><\/strong>
\n As coral in the sea<\/em><\/strong>
\n It has once an arm like mine<\/em><\/strong>
\n And a hope like me<\/em><\/strong>
\n …….<\/em><\/strong>
\n But then they came a fateful day <\/em><\/strong>
\n To shatter hope and faith<\/em><\/strong>
\n ’twas nineteen hundred forty two<\/em><\/strong>
\n February twenty-eighth….<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\nA machine gun sputtered a deadly hate<\/em><\/strong>
\n A bullet whizzed through me,<\/em><\/strong>
\n And I was dragged down by the line<\/em><\/strong>
\n That dropped before the sea<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\nI heard my brother groan and die,<\/em><\/strong>
\n I heard approaching feet,<\/em><\/strong>
\n And Ah! I felt the welcome steel<\/em><\/strong>
\n That stopped my heart to beat<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\nI held the arm bone<\/span> in my hand<\/em><\/strong>
\n And let my warm tears fall,<\/em><\/strong>
\n My brothers were slain on Punggol Beach<\/em><\/strong>
\n My brothers Peter and Paul<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\nTeo Kah Leng<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n(1909 -2001)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
====================<\/p>\n
(Benedict) Teo Kah Leng\u00a0\u00a0 was an English and Literature\u00a0 teacher who started his teaching career\u00a0 in\u00a0 pre- war Singapore.\u00a0 “Paul” in the poem is his younger brother and “Peter” his older brother.\u00a0 On Teo Kah Leng’s poems, Dr. Eriko Ogihara-Shuck, who co edited the book and who\u00a0 has researched\u00a0 Malayan modernism writing\u00a0 in colonial Singapore,\u00a0 writes:<\/p>\n
The memos noted that reports of those missing during the war lodged by civilians to the BMA in the immediate aftermath of\u00a0 wars’ end, started to show a pattern of\u00a0 Chinese men\u00a0 missing from the dates corresponding to what we now know as Sook Ching. For a period of 3 weeks from 21 February to 4 March 1942, Chinese males between the ages of 18 and 50 were summoned to various mass screening centres and those suspected of being anti-Japanese were executed.<\/p>\n
The full scale and nature\u00a0 of Sook Ching was certainly not known during Occupation and only painfully unraveled after the war.\u00a0 But there had been records handwritten and scribbled\u00a0 in secret\u00a0\u00a0 by individuals of\u00a0 the names of the\u00a0 men who were taken and never returned. Some of these records came to light and\u00a0 later provided evidence needed for the war tribunals which took place a year later in 1946 in Singapore. A portal of the war tribunals<\/a>\u00a0 held in Singapore launched at the end of August 2016\u00a0 at the NUS Law Faculty and based on records from the British is an important initiative in\u00a0 documenting\u00a0 WW II history in the region.<\/p>\n In our own research into family history, descendants shared with us their\u00a0 oral records of those in their family\u00a0 who perished in Sook Ching, of which is captured in both our community driven book WW II@ Bukit Brown<\/a> and also in this blog here <\/a>and here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Closer to home, and perhaps most poignant is a first ever record of the Sook Ching execution of two brothers on Punggol Beach documented\u00a0 in a poem by the late father of\u00a0 a family friend. The title of this blog post is taking from the anthology of poems and essays which are published in ” I Found A Bone and Other Poems”<\/a> by Teo Kah Leng.<\/p>\n I reproduce here excerpts from the title\u00a0 poem:<\/p>\n (1909 -2001)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n ====================<\/p>\n (Benedict) Teo Kah Leng\u00a0\u00a0 was an English and Literature\u00a0 teacher who started his teaching career\u00a0 in\u00a0 pre- war Singapore.\u00a0 “Paul” in the poem is his younger brother and “Peter” his older brother.\u00a0 On Teo Kah Leng’s poems, Dr. Eriko Ogihara-Shuck, who co edited the book and who\u00a0 has researched\u00a0 Malayan modernism writing\u00a0 in colonial Singapore,\u00a0 writes:<\/p>\nI found<\/span> a bone<\/span> on Punggol Beach<\/em><\/strong>
\n Half buried in the sand,<\/em><\/strong>
\n And bleached by white by the sea and sun –<\/em><\/strong>
\n I picked it up with my hand<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\nIt was as brittle and as light<\/em><\/strong>
\n As coral in the sea<\/em><\/strong>
\n It has once an arm like mine<\/em><\/strong>
\n And a hope like me<\/em><\/strong>
\n …….<\/em><\/strong>
\n But then they came a fateful day <\/em><\/strong>
\n To shatter hope and faith<\/em><\/strong>
\n ’twas nineteen hundred forty two<\/em><\/strong>
\n February twenty-eighth….<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\nA machine gun sputtered a deadly hate<\/em><\/strong>
\n A bullet whizzed through me,<\/em><\/strong>
\n And I was dragged down by the line<\/em><\/strong>
\n That dropped before the sea<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\nI heard my brother groan and die,<\/em><\/strong>
\n I heard approaching feet,<\/em><\/strong>
\n And Ah! I felt the welcome steel<\/em><\/strong>
\n That stopped my heart to beat<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\nI held the arm bone<\/span> in my hand<\/em><\/strong>
\n And let my warm tears fall,<\/em><\/strong>
\n My brothers were slain on Punggol Beach<\/em><\/strong>
\n My brothers Peter and Paul<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\nTeo Kah Leng<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n