Past Happenings: GnMamoru Shinozaki. Japanese Spy who secretly saved 50,000 Malayans during WWII
While the atrocities of the Imperial Japanese Army in WWll are well-documented in history, it's sometimes easy to forget that even the Japanese had a few good apples who were on our side during the most destructive conflict in human history.
Mamoru was tasked by the Japanese govt to escort some high ranked members of the Imperial Japanese Amy to investigate the condition of the
coasts'. Despite this ominous threat, Mamoru was later charged with espionage for spying on Malaya, and sentenced to three years' rigorous imprisonment (a fancy term for 'prison plus hard labour).
He would be sent to Changi Prison to serve out his sentence, where he would be placed among the other foreign prisoners (many of whom were Europeans and Eurasians). The friendships and experiences he had here would later influence his decisions during the Japanese Occupation. Rut s according to Mamoru, these uld be transferred and Eventuallv the Japanese Army would launch Operation Sook-Ching (Clean-Up'). which was desioned to 'clean-up' all anti-Japanese elements in Singapore (including one Lai Teck, about whom we've written before). However, the operation quickly devolved into a systematic targeting of local Chinese civilians, as the Japanese were still salty over the Sino-Japanese Wars, and thus hated the Chinese.
According to his own estimates, Mamoru extracted around 2,000 people from these concentration camps. It is unknown exactly how many people he Sook Ching Massacre, but Singapore's first Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew (who narrowly escaped the massacre) puts the figure around 50 000
Sources: Mamoru Shinozaki, 'Syonan: My Story, The Japan Times, World War lI Database. yould aive him a much harder time. Image Sources: Quillette, Wikimedia Commons.
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