Grandma's Stories - The day the Japanese came

The tension is running high as news of the Japanese imminent invasion rolled to their small town. People are hording food and holing up in their fortified houses. Some even went that extra mile and obtained, illegally, some small firearms but most are armed with planks of wood and parangs (*long knives).

However, none of them had expected this.

The air raid siren blared through the hot sunny evening as my grandma's father and eldest brother were making the final preparations in closing up their grocery shop. Curious as they were, they and some other shop owners came out of their shops just to be greeted by a hail storm of bombs raining towards them. Her eldest brother, being a hot-blooded young man who ran out first to 'watch' the bombings, was caught by the first of the bombs and died on the spot. Her father was caught by the second wave. He also died that day. 

When she heard the news from a surviving shop owner who ran all the way back from the site of the bombings, she and her 7 sisters cried. They had lost their brother and father on that day. Not to mention, in her family of 12, the only two males who were able to work for a living were dead. Only a second brother who was around 10 years old was left. My grandma's mother, who was a strong woman, quickly gathered her children around and told them not to leave the house under any circumstances - to wait until the bombings in the distance stopped. They all cowered in fear in their home as the air raid siren continued to be sounded. It was until night fell did the siren stopped.

The following days were deary once the bulk of the Japanese troops on bicycles arrived. They conducted a house to house search for adult males to be sent to work in prison camps and (there were rumours) for pretty females to satisfy their 'needs'. During the searches, my grandma and some of her younger sisters, being only young girls, hid under the bed under their mother's instructions. They were very lucky as no harm had come to them.

Food were, too, hard to come by and getting rations were even dangerous as people were known to kill other people for their rations. 

But considering the stories from other places in Penang at the time of the Japanese invasion, my grandma's family and the district she lived in got rather off lightly. Thank goodness.

This is one of the stories my grandma told me constantly over the years as she recalled the death of her father and brother. Despite not being very close to both of them, the death of a family member (in this case, two family members) are traumatic and very saddening. They were a family after all.