Due to his experience as a military attaché at the Japanese Embassy in the United States c. 1936, Sugita was opposed to starting a war against the United States, but he did not have the ear of the higher officers. He participated in the Malayan campaign as an intelligence officer for the general staff of the Twenty-Fifth Army. On 15 February 1942, during surrender negotiations at the conclusion of the campaign, he served as General Tomoyuki Yamashita’s interpreter of English, and drafted the text of the surrender document of Singapore with British Lieutenant-General Percival.