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At the end of 1941 many
Chinese clamoured to have a Chinese Force to fight against the Japanese.
Chinese from all walks of life, doctors, lawyers even undergraduates from
Raffles College (the precursor of the University of Malaya and Singapore),
clerks and hawkers zealously wanted to fight. To them the Japanese were
their long-time enemy who committed such inhuman acts of cruelty in Nanking
which they would never forget. The Japanese were their arch enemy who
had been fighting in their mother-land for years. (In pre-war days the
Chinese in Malaya and Singapore regarded China as their mother country).
Moreover, now the accursed enemy were invading their homeland in Malaya
and Singapore. Yes, they were ready to fight. Young men from Chinese associations,
guilds, clubs were crying for a Chinese force. These were sent to Colonel
Dalley to have them knocked into some sort of shape. But time was running
short and arms were not available. At the end, hardly trained, they were
pushed into the northwest war zone to fight against the crack troops of
the Japanese army. Unafraid, they fought with courage rather than weapons
and many were killed and the few left were either massacred in the Cleansing
Exercise of the Japanese or they escaped into the jungle to harass the
enemy as members of the Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army, the M.P.A.J.A.
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