IN the north, they captured Penang and by the following month, it was Kuala Lumpur’s turn to be taken over by the Japanese forces. Four days later on Jan 15, 1942 Melaka too was theirs, just another stepping stone during a grim conquest which remains an indelible stain in the history of mankind.
At that time in Melaka, one man — a local primary school teacher with St Francis Institution (SFI) — was preparing to travel southwards in a convoy to help evacuate British expatriates and their families to Singapore which was considered safe from the enemy.
“I always knew that my father was a volunteer soldier because the hat is still in the house,” begins Audrey Lim Swee Peck about that teacher, Lim Keng Watt, who is the subject of her book, Memories Of A Malaccan, published last year. In it, she chronicles her father’s life while highlighting his personal war-time experiences during the Japanese Occupation, expressed through his vast collection of photographs, postcards, documents, notes and other memorabilia.
Continuing, Audrey shares: “But it’s not the original hat. That’s just an educated guess because when the British surrendered unconditionally to the Japanese in Singapore, his commanding officer advised them to blend in with the Singapore crowd. Don’t report yourself to the Japanese. So my father must have chucked his uniform and hat.”
Leaf through the book and you’ll learn that Keng Watt, also known back then as Sergeant 80047, was among those who were caught when Singapore unexpectedly fell to the enemy. He was 33 at the time with a wife and three kids back in Melaka, thankfully in a safe haven.
But his own safety in Singapore was uncertain because the Japanese Imperial Army began the Sook Ching, a horrific operation to execute tens of thousands of Straits Chinese out of revenge. Back then, Melaka was part of the Straits Settlements, a Crown colony under British control, which made Keng Watt and anyone from these territories a British citizen.
VAST MEMORABILIA
“My father didn’t talk much about the war because when he did tell us stories and all that while growing up, my siblings and I were not really interested. It was only much later that we became intrigued but by that time he was gone,” confides the lively 71-year-old as we chat in present-day Melaka in a bustling Jonker Street cafe.
As the patrons enjoy their peaceful Monday while sipping their morning beverage, the retired English and history teacher paints a picture of her outgoing, adventurous father while eagerly showing me some of his things that she’d brought along.
A lifetime’s worth of his memorabilia, literally thousands of photographs, postcards and mementos, had been stored in her house, as her parents were living with their only daughter. “My father saved everything. He was like a hoarder and I’m the same!” she reveals before continuing: “I found that he had written on various pieces of paper things like his memories of the war years, but it’s all very disparate, you know, here, there, everywhere. Some of it repeated. It was like a jigsaw puzzle that I had to put together.”
Pulling out a couple of items from a folder, Audrey proceeds to show me a thin school exercise book that her father had used for lesson plans but later, for writing notes (“When the Japanese came, it wasn’t easy to get paper”), along with photos of her father with his battalion (“They’d just won a shooting competition so the trophy is there”).
I ask her what went through her mind during this process of sifting through these countless items. A pause ensues and she eventually replies: “I would have liked to know more about how the Lim family survived.”
At first, there was not even a spark of intent to produce a book of his memoirs. Audrey began with a small calendar project in 2013 featuring some old photographs, which she found in her father’s collection. “As I was going through all his things, I realised I would have to produce many calendars, and now you can get calendars in here”, she remarks, gesturing to her phone.
Spurred on by family and friends who encouraged her to produce a book, the former newspaper language columnist started carrying out research and laying other foundations for the book. But a nostalgic calendar project is still on her mind. “My father has these colour postcards of Singapore and Penang, and luckily my friend Colin Goh has some colour photos of old Melaka. I’m going to do a calendar, which will come out in 2020.”
STRAITS SETTLEMENTS
Taking readers on a journey from 1909 to 1996, Memories Of A Malaccan is more than just a pictorial-driven biography about Keng Watt’s eventful and gregarious life. From her extensive research, Audrey also covers some important historical episodes and dates to “put his narrative in wider perspective”, providing the socio-political backdrop to her father’s experiences.
Apart from this book, Audrey has also authored an English guidebook but is nowadays content to just focus on historical matters, particularly those close to home in Melaka.
With flawless diction and proper speech, she explains to me the context in which her father, an enthusiastic letter writer, came to serve in the Straits Settlements Volunteer Forces (SSVF). “Many residents wanted to take care of their own defences because the British had this vast empire but obviously they couldn’t send so many of their own soldiers, leading to local volunteers.”
People from the Straits Settlements were generally British loyalists and fans of the royal family; hence they were very loyal to King and country.
At the prestigious SFI where her father worked, the second oldest de la Salle school in Malaya, it was common for teachers to become volunteer soldiers. This part-time duty took place during evenings and weekends, alongside their full-time occupation. Apart from planning school lessons and teaching general topics, Keng Watt received military training in Melaka, taking part in drills, marching exercises and competitions.
He was already a pioneer King Scout (he was one of the first King’s Scout of Melaka), an amateur dramatist, a musician, a sportsman (he served as the first secretary of the newly-formed Badminton Association of Melaka and was a champion badminton player), a photographer and of course, a keen patriot.
On Dec 1, 1941, his battalion was mobilised and deployed to Singapore the next day, one week before Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbour.
When Singapore fell after Malaya, the Japanese wanted all men aged 18 to 50 to report to them. “There was no standard operating procedure; some were let off, some killed. Those Chinese volunteers who reported themselves were brought to Changi Beach or wherever and killed. It was the Killing Fields before the Killing Fields,” asserts Audrey grimly. Amid this dangerous time, Sergeant Lim quickly went into hiding for a while, fortunate to have relatives there and familiarity with Singapore.
LUCKY STARS
One of the stories that she pieced together from this period tells of her father’s experience trying to return home to Melaka. “I think my father must have pretended that he was visiting his relatives and they allowed him to go back so he bought a train ticket,” recalls Audrey, before continuing to explain that the train only went as far as Tampin where Japanese military trucks would then transport people to Melaka town itself.
“Somebody recognised my father and shouted, “Hi, Sergeant Lim!”. That threatened to alert the Japanese that he was a volunteer soldier. He slunk back and pretended not to know the person and luckily the Japanese guy there didn’t understand what was going on.”
There were other narrow escapes to come. Her eyes misting, Audrey goes on to share that once her father went into town, he couldn’t hide the fact that he was a volunteer soldier. He was interned by the Japanese for nearly a month before being released.
“My father seemed to have been born under lucky stars because first of all, he was very sociable and people took to him very easily. Secondly, he escaped the Sook Ching so he wasn’t killed by the Japanese.” Continuing, Audrey reveals that her father did some work for the Japanese later on because “… they had this rukun tetangga thing where my father was chosen as a Dancho, headman of a group”. This meant that he was put in charge of an area and given the duty, among others, of safeguarding the peace and order in that area.
“I think the fact that he knew Japanese well combined with his winning personality helped. So during the occupation, the Lim family did not have it so bad because of my father’s position as a Dancho,” muses Audrey, the youngest child in the family, born after the Second World War.
Among the highlights of Keng Watt’s memories as a volunteer soldier is the Victory Parade in June 1946. Chosen to represent the B (Chinese) Company of the SSVF/4, he had the great fortune and privilege to attend the momentous post-war celebrations in London as part of the Malayan contingent. Naturally he took every opportunity to collect many mementoes during the trip, including the official programme of the victory celebrations.
Apart from war-related experiences and happier occasions, the book provides a detailed insight into his overall life right through his retirement period. The pages are filled with nostalgia from the 20th century but also exudes a great sense of pride from a daughter who wants dearly for the stories and memorabilia to evoke warm memories of him while reminding people of the colourful legacy that he left behind.
As she puts it in the book: “He was an ordinary man who lived through some extraordinary times...”
More details can be obtained from the Facebook page entitled Memories of a Malaccan www.facebook.com/MemoriesOfAMalaccan/