World War S: An Oral History Of The Siren War

The Beginning Of The Storm - Part Four

"We can hold them back for two more weeks. But I cannot assure anyone what happens after that...we need ammunition, desperately, we are getting dry."

- General Abijah Bunuhaji's report to the newly formed ASEAN Defense Forces, Supreme Commander of IMSCOM (Indonesian-Malaysian-Singaporean Command.)

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Deng Zi Yi

A former Singaporean Leopard 2SG commander, Deng Zi Yi participated in the 1 month long - and failed IMSCOM defense of Peninsular Malaysia after the Battles of Jakarta and Singapore. We walked into the Kuala Lumpur War Museum, and we stop at a Leopard 2SG, boasting 34 white stripes in its barrel. He frowned as he looked at it.

Retreat, retreat, retreat.

Fall back, fall back, fall back.

Evacuate, evacuate, evacuate.

Those are the words that etched themselves in our minds. Again and again, battle after battle, those words would be uttered in our ears. One could say, it was almost a broken record.

When would we push back? I asked myself, those days, we were truly in the backfoot. We were being beaten, mauled... destroyed. And all we could do was delay, fall back, delay, and fall back, over and over, until a miracle happens. Frankly, I think almost no one believed there would be a miracle to save us.

It was a long trek from my homeland, Singapore. It only took days of heavy combat for us to realize that we won't win. Fuckers broke through every defense line before we were even able to evacuate most of the civilians. The bridge to Johor was chocked full of escaping civilians, and that was where I and my Leopard 2SG was initially stationed.

By morning, we crossed the bridge straight to Johor, where the rest of the surviving remains of Singapore's armed forces were retreating.

(He laughs.)

Considering the number of troops and civilians escaping on that bridge those days, I'm still surprised that the Sirens didn't blast it. It would have been a massacre. They would even trap half of the army. Who knows why, perhaps they are just toying with us back then? We will never know.

There, most of the SAF and elements of the Malaysian army stood, but I was a part of the 6th. While the rest fought there, we retreated further into Malaysia, some elements of us providing a modicum of security to fleeing Singaporean civilians.

But of course, the Sirens never stopped in Singapore. 3 days after Singapore, Johor fell, then air attacks ravaged many of the Malaysian cities. It was a relentless ground, naval, and air campaign in Southeast Asia. And Singapore, and consequently Malaysia, was its epicenter.

We would find so many refugees from both nations on roads those days. You know, it still irks me how it all went down. You see, we Singaporeans, before the war, had a bit of an idea that...we were "superior" to our neighbors.

We were wealthy, well-developed...powerful. And that led to all sorts of problems when desperate Singaporean civilians were with equally desperate Malaysian civilians.

One time, I saw this...wealthy Singaporean dude, he didn't catch his plane, so he was stuck in the traffic jam, with us. But you see, he had money, and he ran out of fuel. So there he was, shouting at everyone, Malaysians usually, to give him fuel, for a good sum.

He would threaten and insult people while he was at it. He was throwing a goddamned tantrum in the middle of the road. But he wasn't just the asshole.

Everywhere, there would be people desperately bartering for supplies in the middle of the road. It was refugees versus refugees. I think the worse we saw was when someone shot a car with his pistol while demanding water. Malaysian and Singaporean troops had to arrest that guy, and it also caused panic among the refugees.