SINGAPORE'S FATE

New Zealand Herald, Volume 79, Issue 24203, 19 February 1942, Page 7

SINGAPORE'S FATE

PRISONERS OF ENEMY EXACT NUMBER NOT KNOWN ESTIMATE OF NEARLY 30,000 LONDON, Feb. 17 No fresh news has been received of events in Singapore or the precise number of troops taken prisoner. One report estimates the number at nearly 30,000. Evacuees reaching places of safety say the scene when they left the island was one of an inferno. The landscape was red from flames of burning oil tanks. The incessant roar of artillery was heard over a wide area far from the battleground. Asserting that the loss of Singapore was due, at least partly, to bureaucracy, complacency and a legion of fifth columnists, the British United Press representative, Mr. Harold Guard, who is now in Bataviai, recalls that he wrote a despatch in April, 1941, quoting military authorities as saving that the Malayan jungle did not offer sufficient protection against e»emy infiltration. The censor passed it. but said it was so absurd that it would make the British United Press look ridiculous.

"During the next four months," he adds, "the natives who had a grudge against the British showed the Japanese paths through the jungle thickets. I followed the battle down the Malay Peninsula and fifth columnists swarming through the jungle. 1 believe that in December the natives might have been rallied, but it did not happen. The battle of Mala.va, as reported officially, might give the impression of a bitter, hard-fought, planned defence. Actually it was a retreat, improvised from day to day." It is now said that Japanese Imperial Headquarters announce that Singapore will be renamed Shonan Port, meaning "Light from the South." Still another agency gives the _ new namtf as Shonank. meaning "Shining. South Port " A German version given yesterday was Schonanko, meaning "Bright Father of the South."

TWO HARD YEARS VICTORY BEGINS IN 1944 NEW YORK MAYOR'S FORECAST NEW YORK. Feb. 17 The Mayor of New York, Mr. LaGuardia, addressing 350 engineers and architects, representing cities throughout America, to-day said that the construction of air-raid shelters was impracticable. "You cannot put ceilings over cities to protect them, although xi cities were at the foot of a mountain you might be able to die: shelters without too great an expense." He emphasised that 1942 and 1943 would be hard years. "We are not accustomed to disaster or hardship, he added. "Not until 1944 shall we to see the beginning of the victorious end. We are going into a new world, a world of technicians. Let us have actions, not. words. Technicians must replace committees of estimable persons."

' IMPRESSED LABOUR BUILDING FORTIFICATIONS (Reed. 5.5 p.m.) STOCKHOLM. Feb. 17 Sixtv thousand workers in Norway have been precipitately transferred from their own jobs to assist in building fortifications on the Norwegian coast under the direction of Herr Spehr, Dr. Todt's successor. Several industries in the south of Norway have already stopped for lack of labour. Thousands of foreign workers, in addition to Norwegians, are already building fortifications at Trondheim and other coastal regions, also inland, including the eastern frontier. As part of a gigantic food programme the Germans have transferred 400,000 Russian farm workers from the Kiev and Jitomir regions to the former industrial areas of Dnepropetrovsk, Nikolavev and Krivoirog, from which the Russians evacuated most workers last summer, states a message from Berne. The German are planning to resettle large sections of White Russia with farmers from Denmark, Holland and other countries.