Return to Singapore
| Date | 01 July 1946 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X4601900310 |
| Author | R. E. Foulger |
| Published date | 01 July 1946 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Return to Singapore
By R. E.
FOULGER
WEreturned to Singapore on September 5th, in my case after an
absence of twenty-three years.
For the policing of Singapore, we were a party consisting of myself,
one other trained police officer, a Customs officerand an Army officer.
Prior to the surrender of Singapore there were about sixty trained
European police officers here.
The
Japanese police officers were quickly relieved of their duties.
They
were also relieved of the swords which they all carried. Anumber
of cars and lorries, good, bad and indifferent, mostly the latter, were
commandeered in various parts of the city and our transport problem
was partially solved. Since writing this, many of these vehicles have
proved quite unreliable and transport is one of our big problems.
The
take-over was not a very lengthy business and then we looked
round to see what we had taken over.
It
was a sad picture.
If
ever a
Force with a fine reputation has been systematically degraded it is the
Singapore Police.
The
morale of the men was about as low as it could be, the causes
of this were
:-
(a) Prior to the surrender of Singapore, the Police were disarmed
and were told to remain at their posts.
For
the most
part
they
did so and after the arrival of the Japanese, they continued to
do so.
They
had to have some means of livelihood, like other
members of the Government and Municipal Services,
but
because of the very nature of their duties, they have corne to be
regarded by a proportion of the population as collaborators,
much more so than any other branch of the Service.
There
are bad characters in every Force and the behaviour of one man
is, in the eyes of the public, magnified until it embraces a large
number of men.
(b) Japanese police methods bear little resemblance to British.
(c)
The
Japanese had enlisted into the Force anumber of quite
unsuitable men, most of whom were discharged very soon after
our arrival.
(d)
The
rank and file had hardly any uniform
at
all. At a parade
of sixty men whom I inspected soon after our arrival, I could
only find two men dressed alike.
There
are few men in the
world who, dressed in a blue shirt with adirty white armband
marked
"Police,"
a pair of old white shorts, probably no
229
To continue reading
Request your trial