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Part 2
Section XLIII: — Implementation of the Evacuation Policy.
417. The policy as regards the evacuation of women and children and the measures taken to carry out this policy have already been explained in Section XXVIII. The arrangements worked smoothly and by the end of January only comparatively few European women and children remained on Singapore Island. The majority of those who did remain were engaged on important war work. Practically all ships re turning from Singapore to destinations within the British Empire had carried their complement of women and children. In some cases, as had been foreseen, the departure of European women, especially those engaged in the Civil Defence Services, had given rise to adverse comment on the part of the Eurasians and Asiatics.
In the end some 300 European women were interned in Singapore.
418. The difficulty as regards Asiatics was to find a country willing to accept them. There were no sailings to the China coast and ships to India were not very large or frequent at that time. Eventually Australia agreed to accept 1,500 Chinese and a number were sent to Ceylon.
419. Our task being to protect the Naval Base, there was obviously no question of evacuating the Army even if shipping had been available, which in fact was not the case. I refused to allow any discussion of the question of evacuation.
I approved, however, of secret arrangements being made with the Dutch Authorities for the preparation of a route across Sumatra for the use of individuals or small parties who might for one reason or another be given permission to leave Singapore. I refused, however, to allow information of the arrangements made to be circulated among the troops as I feared that any talk of evacuation would cause a loss of confidence both among the troops and among the civil population.
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