Continuing in our remembrance of the Fall of Singapore, here’s an excerpt from the BBC’s WW2 People’s War website. It’s been featured on this site before, but for those new to this, the WW2 People’s War is an online archive of wartime memories contributed by members of the public and gathered by the BBC. The archive can be found at bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar. It even has a section just on Singapore.
Here’s an account by Len (Snowie) Baynes:
At a quarter to three, I received what I hope will remain as the greatest shock of my life, as a messenger came with the order to lay our weapons down in front of us and surrender. I find it quite impossible to describe my feelings. Until now we had felt that we were holding our own, and anticipated pushing the Japanese back off the island before many more days had passed (we were still optimistically awaiting the arrival of Allied aircraft).
Our wildest guesses did not take into account the possibility of abandoning the territory to the enemy – we had been told that the island must be retained at all costs, since it was an essential link in our communications with Australasia. In any case we did not think of throwing in the sponge while any of us remained alive – that was not the British way. I crept round the position passing on the order, adding the instruction to remove the rifle bolts and bury or otherwise hide them.
Read the full account here.
Tags: Fall of Singapore
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