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The Second World War Japanese Occupation of Singapore

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 August 2020

Gregg Huff  and
Gillian Huff
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Abstract

Japan's Second World War occupation of Singapore was marked by acute shortages of food and basic consumer goods, malnutrition, rampant black markets and social breakdown. We argue that the exploitation of Singapore was extreme and fully accorded with pre-war Japanese policy. Japan used Singapore mainly as a communications centre and port to ship Indonesian oil. Mid-1943 attempts to add manufacturing to the city's role had limited success. Acquiescence of Singaporeans to Japanese rule was a notable aspect of occupation. While part of the explanation is that the occupation was a reign of terror, the economics of shortage conferred on the Japanese considerable leverage in maintaining social control.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 51 , Issue 1-2 , June 2020 , pp. 243 - 270
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore, 2020

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Footnotes

We owe thanks for detailed and helpful comments on this article to the editor and two especially perceptive anonymous referees. Andrew Bain, Richard DuBoff and Mike Montesano read and commented in detail on Southeast Asia during the Pacific War more times than they may care to remember. Our debt to them is great, built up through numerous drafts, email correspondence and discussion. Mike Shand, University of Glasgow, drew the maps with superb skill. Thanks go to Sarah Womack for research assistance. We are grateful to Dayaneetha De Silva for an exceptional job of copy-editing. Support and funding from ESRC grant RES-062-23-1392 and the Leverhulme Trust grant EM-2014-081 are gratefully acknowledged.

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