1940 – The Japanese Occupation Begins

As the Imperial Japanese Army advanced from the North.............	Bro Rupert Kunzelman, a German, was senior science master and he got help to remove all the fittings from the science labs.  These were locked away beneath the stage and the key was kept safely all through the war by the school mandor, our ever faithful Anthony Samy.  When school reopened SMI was the first to have functioning science labs again.
9th August 1940	·        St. Michael’s is requisitioned by the British Army  as a training ground for the British defence of Malaya
8th February 1941	·        The playing fields are commandeered for Volunteer training.
December 1941	·        The School Certificate examination was in progress and fortunately the answer scripts  were sent in good time to Cambridge.They arrived safely but the results were issued only in 1945 – after the end of the war.
19th  December 1941 21st  December 1941	·        The East Surrey and Leicester Regiments arrived at St.Michael’s where the Brothers and the SJAB members helped care for the wounded. ·        The regiments were merged at St.Michael’s to form the British Battalion. ·        The British forces left St Michael’s  for Kampar where the epic Battle of Kampar claimed many lives.
22nd December 1941	·        The Ipoh Railway Station was heavily bombarded for several days by Japanese warplanes. ·        St.Michael’s was machine-gunned from end to end from the air.
	·        The Brothers took refuge in the parochial house of St.Michael’s Church  under the hospitality of Father Jules P.Francois MEP, the parish priest.
28th December  1942	·        The Japanese Advance troops entered Ipoh. ·        St Michael’s was taken over by the Imperial Japanese Army. ·        The school building  became the headquarters of the Japanese administration in Perak. ·        It came to be known as “Perak Shu Sheicho”. ·        The Japanese moved the state capital from Taiping to Ipoh.

What happened to the Brothers during the war?

Brothers Patrick, Edmund and Thomas Francis were detained and later taken to  Taiping Jail where the Taiping Brothers were also incarcerated.Later Brothers Patrick,Edmund and Francis were transferred to Pudu Jail,Kuala Lumpur.  In August 1942, Brother Patrick and his companions were sent with a large group of Brothers from Singapore to  spend more than two years  in a malaria-infested jungle settlement at Bahau in Negeri Sembilan. Their trials and tribulations are recorded in a book “Under the Hinomaru” by Brother Vincent Corkery.