 In 1942, war came to Southeast Asia and his education was disrupted by the Japanese occupation of Malaya.When his father was transferred to work in Butterworth, Penang by the Japanese, Namasivayam continued his studies at a Japanese school in Prai town in Butterworth for 18 months before he was deployed to work as an engine mechanic at the local Japanese-controlled Railway Station.In 1943 the 17-year-old was press-ganged by the military authorities into working as a translator on the infamous Thailand-Burma Railway.