Word: islanded
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Singapore has been an Asiatic paradise for Occidentals and it was built to withstand attack from the sea. Singapore Harbor on the seaward side is protected by the strongly fortified islands of Brani, Blakang Mati, East St. John. Heavy and light guns perch atop the island's 1,000 hills. Location of the biggest guns of all, the 18-inchers, is a secret, but they are probably at the Changi entrance to Johore Strait. Around the entire island on all the beaches there are barbed-wire entanglements with concrete pillboxes at intervals...
...attack and siege by land, Singapore is not so well prepared. Most of its big guns are concentrated on the seaward side, not opposite the Malay Peninsula. Its main reservoir of water is across the Strait in Johore and although there are emergency reservoirs on the island itself, the Jap might be able to thirst out the city's 600,000 inhabitants. This week the enemy was within 40 miles of the main water supply...
...come and Singapore is not ready for them. Its clammy soil is too wet for underground shelters, so, if raids get too bad, plans have been made to evacuate 200,000 Chinese and Malays to crudely built dormitory huts in the uninhabited wooded spaces of the island. For those who cannot be evacuated, there are some private concrete shelters and modern buildings, which can offer protection. For those who can find nothing better, there are the city's two-to 20-feet-deep concrete drainage ditches...
...great naval base itself, which took 17 years to build and cost $170,000,000, lies along the northern shore of Singapore Island on the far side of the island from the city but on the near side for the Japs- just across the Strait from Johore. By last week, it was already growing worthless as a base to British and American ships in the Far East. But if it is valueless to them, the British want it to remain valueless...
Since Dec. 8 a good proportion of British Columbia's fishing fleet, about 1,100 boats, has been gathering barnacles under the watchful eyes of the Canadian Government at Vancouver Island. Their coastwise owners, like the rest of the Province's 24,000 Japanese, have been staying close to home...