Serious SR Nathan- Death of the last War Time Criminal and Japanese collaborator

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

So some stupid friends of mind were talking about the death of Nathan and how sad that was and what a great guy he was and all that nonsense. I barely restraint my fury as I gave them an education on his war time role in the Japanese occupation of Singapore. I might as well give that same reminder to others here on this forum.

Lets be clear on one thing. Nathan worked for and collaborated with the Japanese during WW2. In other words, he betrayed his country by working for the enemy during wartime. There is no denying this, even the prostitute press and Nathan himself does not object to the fact that he worked for the Japanese during the War. What is questionable is the spin that is put on it by himself and echoed by the prostitute press, much like the spin put on by The Founding Father about his wartime role. In many countries, such collaborators would have been put on trial or have street justice meted out to them after the war, as in Norway, and France and other countries. Only in Singapore is such a traitor to his own country glorified and given the highest post in the country.

He has claimed that he worked as a translator for the Japanese in 1942 until the end of the war in 1945. He has stated in his memoirs that he was given a Japanese-English dictionary as a gift by a Japanese army officer and he learned the Japanese language from that dictionary. Ok, lets consider that for a moment, If someone were to give you that same dictionary, would you have been able to learn the Japanese language in such a short time? Not me. Even if you were gifted in languages, it takes a very long time to learn Japanese from a dictionary, which only translates words and does not put together sentences and context for the use of that language. I am calling bullshit on this. I am saying that in addition to having and studying this dictionary, he also had direct Japanese lessons from a Japanese speaker, perhaps even a native Japanese speaker, likely the same Japanese officer that gave him the dictionary.

He seems to be very proud of his days spend working for the Japanese and happily reminisce about those days, not even once acknowledging the role that his employers played in the massacre, torture and imprisonment of his fellow countrymen.

"World War II brought about a change in fortunes. Encountering a Japanese officer seeking directions, Mr Nathan, who spoke English, was asked to accompany the officer to the market.


Soon, he began running errands for Japanese officers, and, at the encouragement of the officer, who gave him an English-Japanese dictionary, he began learning Japanese.


When the company was due to be pulled out from Muar a few months later, a new job was secured for Mr Nathan at a Japanese firm.

There, his command of Japanese caught the eye of another Japanese officer working for the inspector-general of police for Johor, and he was hired to join the Japanese civilian police, with which he stayed for the rest of the war until the Japanese surrendered.


Recollecting the war years, Mr Nathan reflected: “For many people, World War II was an appalling time. For me, in my teens and with little knowledge of the world or the impact of the war on others, it brought opportunity, after I learnt to speak some simple Japanese.

“It was the first time anyone had told (me) I had a good mind ... With just a little encouragement from an unexpected quarter, my confidence began to rebuild itself.”"

Instead, he happily admits that WW2 and working for the Japs brought him opportunity. What kind of a sick sychophant shows no remorse and no regret at all, and never mentions the Japanese in a poor light. It seems that he was so skilled in the Japanese language, he ended up being the translator for the top Japanese "civilian" police officer in Singapore. No doubt he was in a position of trust and was able to see and hear many things at the police HQ. You are telling me that he did not see anything going on in the Police HQ? People being arrested and tortured there? People coming into the police office to look for missing relatives arrested by his employers? How many incriminating documents did he translate for the Japs? He did not catch glimpses of conversations between Japanese officers to understand what was going on? How many singaporeans died or were arrested and tortured due to his translations? Why did he conveniently fail to mention any of these while he was still alive?

Also, what is the Japanese Civilian Police? I could find no evidence that there is such an organization in Singapore during the Japanese occupation. There was already a British run civilian police force before the Japs came. I am sure that this police force continued on without its British officers during the occupation. The Japs came with the Kampeitai, their secret police/military police force. The Kampeitai has several departments, such as the Keimu Han, which is the closest to being police section. If this was the section that Nathan worked for, well then, he was still working for the Kampeitai. Why would the Japs bring in a civilian police force when they are an occupation force and would have used their Military Police augmented by a regular Army detachment to enforce order? What I am trying to say is that Nathan never worked for no bloody Japanese civilian police force, rather, he worked for the only Japanese police force, which was the Kampeitai. If there is any information out there to correct me, please do so.

Do you know they were still finding mass graves of people killed by the Japanese as late as 1962 in areas like Siglap? In fact, 5 mass war graves were found there in 1962 and the area was dubbed The Valley of Tears by the press. A total of 30 mass graves of victims killed by the Japanese were found. And that does not include the many victims who were machined gun on the beaches of Tanah Merah and Sentosa and whose bodies were carried out to sea. A total of 50000 people killed by the Japs during the Sook Ching massacre and some claim as many as 100,000. On 25th August 1963, 100,000 people marched to City Hall and demanded war reparations and compensations for the atrocities that the Japs committed on Singaporeans. Think about that. 100,000 people took to the streets and when to City Hall to demand the govt do something about this. Today, they would need a police permit or some idiotic thing to do that.

Nathan was a part of these atrocities. He did not play a direct role, this is true, because they never went so far as to trust him with a gun. But he definitely played a much more active role then the ordinary singaporean of his time. Being a direct member of the Japanese occupation force and working for them. Its not the same if he was cleaning toilets for them but the translating of documents implicating singaporeans is a different active level altogether. All of us have older relatives that lived through WW2, and some like me, have lost relatives to the Japs during the war. Nobody put a gun to Nathan's head and forced him to work for the Japs just like no one did for Founding Father. The vast majority of people including my relatives, got through the war without having to work for the Japs. He chose to work for the enemy. That says a lot about where his moral compass was.

Its interesting to note that after many years of back and forth negotiations, The then Japanese Prime Minister Morihiro Hosogawa apologized for the Japanese atrocities in 1993. Its too bad we never got an apology out of Nathan before he died.




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