7 - Rebuilding Broken Lives

Summary

PICKING UP THE PIECES

Japan's official surrender took place on 2 September, 1945, on board the American battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. Thus officially ended the Second World War. In Singapore, a second surrender ceremony was staged at the Municipal Building (now known as City Hall) on 12 September, 1945. With this surrender, Japan's occupation of Southeast Asia came to an end. Returning British troops were welcomed back as conquering heroes and everyone was anxious for a return to normalcy. But the island was in ruins and its economy in shambles. Basic necessities such as food, shelter, and clean drinking water were all in short supply. All Japanese currency was declared worthless. The infrastructure was also seriously damaged, with electrical, gas, water, and telephone services in an utter state of disrepair. A black market in basic essentials was flourishing, as were other vices such as prostitution and gambling. There was acute overcrowding in the tenements that were left standing.

The sudden end of the war came as a surprise for the British, who had not made any detailed plans for the post-war occupation and administration of Singapore. Indeed, General Douglas MacArthur's insistence that Operation Zipper — to reoccupy Japan's Southeast Asian territories — be delayed meant that Allied troops entered these territories some two weeks later than was planned. During the war, the Colonial Office had decided that its Malayan territories — comprising the Straits Settlements, the Federated Malay States, and the Unfederated Malay States — should be consolidated to resolve the anomalous constitutional situation occasioned by the territories' differing political status. The Colonial Office decided to create a federation called the Malayan Union that would include all these territories except for Singapore, which was to be kept separate as its overwhelmingly Chinese population might frighten the Malay rulers into rejecting the Malayan Union altogether. The plan was for Singapore to be a kind of administrative capital city, something akin to Washington, DC, where the British Commissioner-General for Southeast Asia would be based.

After the Japanese surrendered, Singapore was placed under the British Military Administration (BMA) under Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander of the Southeast Asian Command (SEAC).