Women Heroes of World War II—the Pacific Theater by Kathryn J. Atwood

Author:Kathryn J. Atwood
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 2017-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Comfort Woman: A Filipina’s Story of Prostitution and Slavery Under the Japanese Military by Maria Rosa Henson (Rowman & Little-field, 1999).

Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery in the Japanese Military During World War II by Yoshimi Yoshiaki (Columbia University Press, 1995).

50 Years of Silence: Comfort Woman of Indonesia by Jan Ruff-O’Herne (Editions Tom Thompson, 1994).

PART III

Malaya, Singapore, and the Dutch East Indies

10

SYBIL KATHIGASU

“This Was War”

ON DECEMBER 8, 1941, one of Sybil Kathigasu’s neighbors popped his head inside her door. “Have you heard the news, Mrs. K?” he cried. “It’s war! The Japanese have bombed Singapore!”

Sybil—“Mrs. K.”—was not surprised by this report. But it still filled her with a cold dread she tried to hide from the rest of her family. She wanted to be a source of strength for her physician husband, her elderly mother, and her three children, who all lived together in a house at the center of Ipoh, a bustling Malayan town.

During the next few days, Sybil—a nurse and midwife—was encouraged by the stream of military convoys she saw pass through Ipoh’s streets, their trucks loaded with Malayan soldiers heading north to fight the Japanese who had landed there.

After they had gone, Ipoh became so quiet, its residents could almost imagine Malaya was not at war. That would soon be impossible. On December 15, while traveling north of Ipoh to visit a patient, Sybil noticed planes circling high off in the distance. Her driver said they must be British Royal Air Force planes.

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