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Press Cutting - Days Of Occupation (An Article From The Star - 15th May 2005)
The article from The Star dated 15th of May 2005 in this entry entails the eye witness accounts of two brothers of the days during the Japanese Occupation. Christina Koh of The Star interviewed brothers, Victor and William Sankey on the events and their experiences of how things were in Ipoh when the Japanese tookover Ipoh after the British troops had lost their grip on Malaya.
William, the elder of the two, described the events a couple of days after the attack, where the family of 9 (Mr. & Mrs. Sankey and their seven children) spent the next two months escaping to Parit in their car that was loaded with canned food and rice and then to Batu Gajah, moving from house to house like refugees.
The Japanese occupation had also changed their perception of the Japanese, where before the war they knew them as some of the friendliest people around, that it all changed when "They started turning to torture and executions to subjugate people."
William mentioned that one of the positives of the Occupation was that the Japanese kept the crime rate low. "More than once, he would see the heads of decapitated criminals, such as armed robbers, stuck on poles on road corners like Belfield Street. The heads were there to remind people that would happen if they didn't behave. After a few beheadings, we never heard of any robbery or the like again."
Out of all the hardships, William believed that the Occupation help changed the mindset of an entire generation where they learned that they had to be resourceful and resilient, otherwise they would have never survived the war.
The article also included a short write up about how the bronze statue of St. John Baptist De La Salle that was at St. Michael's Institution, Ipoh was saved, the article entitled 'Saving La Salle' was an account given by Brother Vincent Corkery.