THE MEMOIRS OF MUSTAPHA HUSSAIN - Malaysia Today

Saving Soldiers and Freeing KMM Members 213
burning vehicles, holes and craters. Everything looked deserted and in
complete shambles. Here and there, Japanese forces were slithering,
crawling, shooting and moving under orders.
I am a pacifist who had buried my pet bird with recitations of
Qur’anic verses. I had no interest in things military. I kept entering and
leaving the FMS Volunteer Force. Now, against all my intentions, I was
right smack in the middle of an arena where two warring parties were
shooting and killing each other!
This was the day I witnessed a horrifying incident that will remain
etched in my memory for as long as I live. I was summoned by a Japanese
and four Indian Independence League (IIL) members, including Hamzah
A. Cunard, to a certain wooded area. There, in front of me were two
platoons of Malay soldiers and Volunteers in an irreversible death trap.
Four of them were already strapped to rubber trees for, I guessed, bayonet
target practice. One of the Japanese had in fact ‘flicked’ at a target.
Amidst the grim spectacle, an unhurt Japanese Sergeant was jumping
up and down, stomping his feet, shouting, and crying, all at the same time.
In a hysteria of rage, he was ready to do something devastating. No one
dared to calm him down. I decided to act on impulse. I began to shout as
loudly as the hysterical Sergeant, and this shocked him. He came around
and began to take notice of his surroundings.
When asked, in a gush of words between sobs, he recounted what
had happened. According to an F Kikan interpreter, the Sergeant accused
the Malay Regiment of not observing war ethics. These captured Malay
Regiment soldiers, under a Malay Second Lieutenant, had raised a white
flag. But when the Japanese troops merrily climbed up a slope to relieve
them of their weapons, the Malay Second Lieutenant ordered the Malay
soldiers to spray the Japanese with fire from two machine guns and forty
rifles. As a consequence, a Japanese Captain and many soldiers lost their
lives. The Japanese Sergeant insisted, “This is unforgivable!”
A petrified Malay soldier confirmed the story but explained they shot
strictly under orders of the Malay Second Lieutenant, who had vanished.
Sergeant Major Mohd Noor, the most senior in the group, was left to take
the brunt. To calm the furious Japanese Sergeant, I expressed my deepest
sympathy and apologised to him and his men. I reasoned that the Malay
soldiers were not responsible for their actions as they were merely
following orders of a superior who absconded. After he calmed down
slightly, I appealed to his mercy that the forty-eight or so Malay soldiers
be released to me. After much discussion, he agreed on one condition,
that I bring back the Malay Second Lieutenant who had fled, to face the
Japanese. The 48 soldiers under Sergeant Major Mohd Noor were taken