The Japanese Occupation of Malaya

The Japanese Occupation of Malaya
Author: Paul H. Kratoska
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 456
Release: 1997-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780824818890

Japan attacked British-ruled Malaya on 8 December 1941 as part of a wave of military actions that toppled the British, Dutch and American colonial regimes in Southeast Asia. Within seventy days, the conquest of Malaya was complete, and British forces in Singapore surrendered on 15 February 1942. The three and a half years of Japanese rule are generally considered to mark a profound transition in the history of the Malay peninsula, but little is known about this period. This book uses the limited administrative papers that survived in Malaya, oral sources, and accounts written by Japanese officers involved in the Malayan campaign to flesh out the story.

New Perspectives on the Japanese Occupation in Malaya and Singapore, 1941-1945

New Perspectives on the Japanese Occupation in Malaya and Singapore, 1941-1945
Author: Yōji Akashi
Publisher: NUS Press
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2008-12-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9789971692995

Information on the Japanese Occupation of Malaya and Singapore is sparse, and Japanese-language materials are particularly difficult to find because the Japanese military systematically destroyed war-related documents when the war ended. The contributors to this volume participated in a Forum that spent four years locating surviving materials relating to the Occupation of Malaya. The group has three objectives: to collect primary sources, to interview Japanese military and civilian officials who took part in the military administration and people in Malaysia and Singapore who experienced the period, and to publish the results of the studies. Based on interviews with Japanese, Malaysians and Singaporeans who lived through the war years and materials gathered from archives and libraries in Britain, Malaysia, Singapore, USA, Australia, and India, the Forum has produced a number of Japanese-language publications. This book makes available some of their research findings in English. Topics covered include the Watanabe Military Administration, Japanese research activities in Malaya, Japan's Economic Policies, Malayan Communist Party Leaders and the Anti-Japanese Resistance, the Massacre of Chinese in Singapore, Railway Transportation during the Japanese Occupation Period, The Singapore internment Camp for Allied Civilian Women, and the Japanese Surrender. This volume is a revised version of Akashi Yoji, ed., Nippon Senryoka no Eiryo Maraya/Shingaporu (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten Publishers, 2001). Book jacket.

Japan and Singapore in the World Economy

Japan and Singapore in the World Economy
Author: Hitoshi Hirakawa
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 314
Release: 1999-06-24
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1134651740

Using a variety of published and unpublished material, this work examines Japan's economic activities in Singapore, analysing the role of Japanese prostitutes, Kobe's overseas Chinese and the Lee Kwan Yew regime's policy towards Japan.

Guns of February

Guns of February
Author: Henry P. Frei
Publisher: NUS Press
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2004
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9789971692735

This is an account of the fall of Singapore and Japan's 1941 military campaign in Malaya through the eys of Japanese soldiers who took part, based on interviews, memoirs, war diaries and other Japanese-language sources.

Low Fertility in Japan, South Korea, and Singapore

Low Fertility in Japan, South Korea, and Singapore
Author: Shigeki Matsuda
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 101
Release: 2020-02-18
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9811528306

This book describes the low fertility status in three developed Asian countries—Japan, South Korea, and Singapore—and outlines countermeasures for their declining birthrates. Based on the characteristics of each society, the authors discuss why their fertility rates have not yet recovered. Low fertility is a demographic phenomenon that first occurred in Europe and subsequently spread across other countries. Currently, the fertility rates in Europe are relatively stable, while those in developed Asian economies are the lowest worldwide. This may cause labor shortages and weaken their social security systems, undermining Asia’s social and economic sustainability despite its remarkable economic development. In response to low fertility, some Asian countries have implemented countermeasures: Japan has introduced measures based on childcare facilities and work–life balance. Similarly, since the mid-2000s South Korea has established countermeasures to promote a balance between work and child rearing, as well as expanded childcare services. Singapore began introducing countermeasures before the other two countries, including various advanced measures. Yet none of these countries has seen a full recovery in fertility rates. Based on a statistical analysis of survey results from the three countries, this book makes several important points. The first is that the policy has been ineffective in Japan due to a discrepancy between the needs of parents raising children and those who are the targets of the countermeasures. Second, the work–life balance and child-rearing support measures that have been promoted in Japan and South Korea have not affected the number of children that women want to have. Third, Singaporean values tend to place individual emphasis on competition with oneself (education and career status) rather than on married life. This intense competition has lowered fertility rates. To restore these rates, each country must promote policies that better address its specific issues.

The Defence and Fall of Singapore

The Defence and Fall of Singapore
Author: Brian Farrell
Publisher: Monsoon Books
Total Pages: 594
Release: 2017-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9814423890

Shortly after midnight on 8 December 1941, two divisions of crack troops of the Imperial Japanese Army began a seaborne invasion of southern Thailand and northern Malaya. Their assault developed into a full-blown advance towards Singapore, the main defensive position of the British Empire in the Far East. The defending British, Indian, Australian and Malayan forces were outmanoeuvred on the ground, overwhelmed in the air and scattered on the sea. By the end of January 1942, British Empire forces were driven back onto the island of Singapore Itself, cut off from further outside help. When the Japanese stormed the island with an an-out assault, the defenders were quickly pushed back into a corner from which there was no escape. Singapore’s defenders finally capitulated on 15 February, to prevent the wholesale pillage of the city itself. Their rapid and total defeat was nothing less than military humiliation and political disaster. Based on the most extensive use yet of primary documents in Britain, Japan, Australia and Singapore, Brian Farrell provides the fullest picture of how and why Singapore fell and its real significance to the outcome of the Second World War.

Memory, Identity, and Commemorations of World War II

Memory, Identity, and Commemorations of World War II
Author: Daqing Yang
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 195
Release: 2018-04-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 1498567703

Why do some governments and societies attach great significance to a particular anniversary year whereas others seem less inclined to do so? What motivates the orchestration of elaborate commemorative activities in some countries? What are they supposed to accomplish, for both domestic and international audience? In what ways do commemorations in Asia Pacific fit into the global memory culture of war commemoration? In what ways are these commemorations intertwined with current international politics? This book presents the first large-scale analysis of how countries in the Asia Pacific and beyond commemorated the seventieth anniversaries of the end of World War II. Consisting of in-depth case studies of China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Singapore, the Philippines, United States, Russia, and Germany, this unique collective effort demonstrates how memories of the past as reflected in public commemorations and contemporary politics—both internal and international—profoundly affect each other.

Singapore: The Japanese Version

Singapore: The Japanese Version
Author: Col. Masanobu Tsuji
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
Total Pages: 480
Release: 2016-08-09
Genre: History
ISBN: 1787200981

Originally published in 1960, the author of this book is one of the planners of the Imperial Japanese Army’s invasion of Malaya and the capture of Singapore—Colonel Masanobu Tsuji himself. In it, he “unreservedly attributes Japan’s victory in Malaya to the patriotic fervour and self-sacrifice of the frontline officers and men of her 25th Army, which, in advancing six hundred miles and capturing Singapore in seventy days, achieved one of the decisive victories of World War II and accomplished a feat unparalleled in military history. [...] For the first time in history an army carried out “a blitzkrieg on bicycles”, astounding the world by the sureness and rapidity of its advance, and exploding the myth of the impregnability of Singapore—which, as Colonel Tsuji emphasizes, had no rear defences, a fact he states was unknown to Winston Churchill at the time. [...] Colonel Tsuji’s career proves him a master planner and an outstanding field officer. He now appears as an excellent writer and is to be congratulated upon his book, and also upon the motives which led to his escape from the Allied forces after the national surrender [...].”