Reflections At Bukit Chandu Labrador Park Civillian War Memorial Cenotaph Indian National Army Monument Lim Bo Seng Memorial Changi Chapel & Museum Fort Canning Park Kranji War Memorial
Visits:
Nabilah: When we went to all the places, I could feel how this people suffered. When we at Reflections at Bukit Chandu, we listened to the voices of the past. One of the voices really touched my heart. She was really sad when talking about her husband. Her husband was one of the soldiers. What I have learnt from this trip is that, my group were all cooperative and we also have teamwork. I was so happy and tired. I’m happy because we enjoyed our trip. I’m tired because we spent our time by walking and running..hehe. Overall, I had so much fun!
Adilla: Throughout the journey to the place that we visited, I had a lot of fun with my group members. We work together as a team to visit all the places that we wanted to go. Although it was tiring and the weather is hot, as a team we did our best for this project. Along this journey I did learned something from this trip, now I have a better understanding about World War 2 and I am really proud for Lieutenant Adnan Saidi, for his braveness in fighting the Japanese soldier until his last breath.
Malisah: Based on the project, I’ve learnt a lot of things. First of all, I’m really lucky to be working with Nabilah, Adilla and Fatin. We worked in a team really well as we all understand each other’s weaknesses and strength. I’m proud of my team members because of their perseverance and participation in this project. I’m extremely thankful. Without them, we can’t finish the project on time and we can even lack of ideas being contributed. Travelling to Bukit Chandu, Kranji War Memorial and also to the Labrador Park can be very tiring and I was about to give up but within my group members and their support, I move on with them.
Fatin: For our LPDX project, we went to several places related to World War II in Singapore. Of all the places, I like the Reflections At Bukit Chandu the most. The place is interesting and it gives alot of information. When we first arrived, we were brought by the person in charge to a particular room. There, we watched a short clip of the history of Bukit Chandu and I could feel the fear surrounded me. After that, we were able to hear voices about the past through telephones. The voices sounded sad, it brought me back to the past. Besides that, there were also displays of the past uniforms, army sculptures and many more. I do not mind going there again!
Reflections at Bukit Chandu is a World War II interpretative centre developed and managed by the National Archives of Singapore, located on Bukit Chandu (Opium Hill) off Pasir Panjang Road in Singapore.
The Centre was officially opened Dr Tony Tan on 15 February 2002. This date also marks the 60th anniversary of the fall of Singapore in 1942.
The Building
The bungalow in which the permanent exhibition is housed is one of the last remaining bungalows in Singapore, built at the turn of the 20th century for British senior officers.
The building was restored to preserve its original structure and design, retaining the original style of arches and windows but altering the roof for safety reasons.
History
Bukit Chandu hill was the site of one of the fiercest and last significant battles, the Battle of Bukit Chandu, before the British surrendered Singapore to the Japanese on 15 February 1942. The battle took place just two days before the surrender. The battle saw Malay Regiment soldiers, led by British Commanders, defending the western sector of Singapore, forced to retreat to this hill. For 48 hours, the Malay Regiment C Company and remnants from the 1st and 2nd Battalions engaged in one of the fiercest battles fought in Singapore. They were greatly outnumbered, and when they ran out of ammunition, they resorted to hand-to-hand combat to defend this hill. Many soldiers died on the hill. Those who survived were captured and massacred by the Japanese.
Labrador Nature Reserve contains many historical relics from World War II and earlier, left behind by the British. That is because it has a long history, dating back to the 19th century. It also played a significant role in the history of Singapore.
The entire nature reserve, together with the current park, used to be called Pasir Panjang Beach, or Long Beach. The area used to be a long strip of coastal land at high tide, and a rocky beach at low tide, before land reclamation took place, formed the seawalls and grassy park seen today.
There was an old British fort, the Fort Pasir Panjang, located on the hill and cliff next to the sea. The cliff’s high vantage point led the British to identify it as a defence site to protect the entrance to the harbours of Singapore. It became one of nine sites in which the British had set up their batteries, and is part of the British overall defense system for Singapore.
The rocky beach below the cliff was accessible to the public. This area was a popular recreational sport and seaside resort for the residents living in the villas, as well as the villages nearby. In fact, there were even private beach houses, sea walls, and small jetties built along the coast.
In the late 1930s, war was going on in Northern Asia, particularly China and Manchuria, with the onslaught of the Second Sino-Japanese War. It was then that the British conducted a review of the beach defences. The findings showed that Pasir Panjang Beach would be an easy place for the enemy to land.
As a result, the land was obtained by the government, and redeveloped into an expansion of Pasir Panjang Fort. Machine gun posts and barbed wire entanglements were built, together with a fence running along the beach. The guns facing the sea were also upgraded. Two six inch 37-ton guns, which could fire 102 lb shells 10 miles, were installed in 1938, together with searchlights that faced the sea.
Japanese forces occupied Singapore and they started an operation against the native Chinese community called the “Sook Ching” during the world war II (1942-1945). Back then, the Japanese target is to minimized all the anti-Japanese Force from Singapore and thus make a rule that all Chinese men aged from 18 to 50 years old should report to the Japanese Military police which is known as the Kempetai.
This "Sook Ching" operation is blamed for the brutal deaths of purportedly 50,000 Chinese civilians. The remains of the civilians, who were casualties of the Occupation, were exhumed from places like Changi, Siglap and Bukit Timah in 1962. The Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce took the responsibility to bury the remains of the dead civilians. The constructions-work for the Memorial started on 23rd April 1966 and it was finally complete by January of 1967 at a cost of approximately SGD 500,000. The Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew inaugurated the Civilian War Memorial on 15th February 1967. A memorial service is organized on the 15th of February every year at the Civilian War Memorial in commemoration of the civilian victims, killed during the war. It also marks the day when the Allied soldiers surrendered Singapore to the Japanese forces in 1942.
Founded in memory of the civilians who were brutally massacred by the Japanese forces during World War II, the Civilian War Memorial stands on a calm and tranquil park amidst the din and bustle of the frenzied traffic near the City Hall and Padang. The locals describe the Civilian War Memorial as a structure which resembles 4 huge chopsticks each of them standing tall at 67 meters.
The Cenotaph was built in memory of the 124 British soldiers born or resident in Singapore who gave their lives in World War I (1914–1918), with a second dedication (but no names) added in remembrance of those who died in World War II (1941–1945).
The structure was designed by Denis Santry of Swan and Maclaren. The foundation stone was laid by Sir Lawrence Nunns Guillemard, the Governor of the Straits Settlements, on 15 November 1920. In attendance was the visiting French Premier, George Clemenceau who was the French Minister of War from 1917 to 1919.
The memorial was completed in 1922, and was unveiled on 31 March that year by the young Prince Edward of Wales, later Duke of Windsor and King Edward VIII, during his Asia-Pacific tour. During the unveiling ceremony, a chaplain blessed the Cenotaph with the words, "The stone is well laid and truly laid to the Glory of God and the memory of the illustrious dead." Against the backdrop of the sea then fronting Queen Elizabeth Walk, Governor Guillemard awarded medals of courage to those who had served in the war.
In Prince Edward's entourage was Louis Mountbatten. At the end of World War II, Mountbatten returned to Singapore as the Supreme Commander of the South East Asia Command to receive the surrender of the Japanese at City Hall on 12 September 1945.
The Former Indian National Army Monument is a historical site and a war memorial at the Esplanade Park located at Connaught Drive within the downtown of Singapore.
The monument was constructed to commemorate the "Unknown Warrior" of the Indian National Army. The words inscribed on the war memorial were its motto, which is Unity (Ittefaq), Faith (Etmad) and Sacrifice (Kurbani). It was built during the Japanese Occupation of Singapore as the Japanese and the INA had one enemy in common, i.e. the British. Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose laid the foundation stone on July 8, 1945, months before Singapore was recaptured by the British. After its foundation by Bose, the monument was erected in a month by the Japanese. The structure of the monument was influenced by Subhas Chandra Bose, the co-founder of the Indian National Army and Head of State of the Provisional Government of Free India. This army (the INA) was backed by the Japanese forces for its goal of liberating India from its British colonial masters. Later in 1945 after the Japanese retreat from Singapore and the subsequent surrender of the remaining divisions of the Indian National Army to the advancing British, the British commander Lord Louis Mountbatten ordered the memorial to be destroyed. Mountbatten's intention was to remove all traces of rebellion against British imperial authority. By attempting to completely erase all records of the INA's existence, he sought to prevent the seeds of the idea of a revolutionary socialist liberation force from spreading into the vestiges of British colonies, amidst the spectre of Cold War politics already taking shape at the time, which had haunted the colonial powers before the war.
Lim Bo Seng was born in1909 to Lim Loh (alias Lim Gee) a wealthy businessman who owned a biscuit and brick manufacturing business in Singapore, as the 11th child but the first male child in the family. In 1917, Lim Bo Seng came to Singapore at the age of 16 to study in Raffles Institution under the British colonial government. He went to further his studies at the University of Hong Kong.
In 1930, Lim married Gan Choo Neo, a Nyonya woman from the Lim Clan association hall of Singapore. They had eight children, one of them died in infancy. Initially a Taoist, Lim converted to Christianity due to a strong European influence.
Capture And Death
Lim Bo Seng was captured by the Japanese under Marshal Onishi Satoru at a road block in Gopeng the next day Lim was taken to the Kempeitai headquarters for interrogation and he refused to provide the Japanese with any information about Force 136 despite being subjected to severe torture by the Japanese. He protested against the ill-treatment of his comrades in prison. He fell ill with dysentery and was bedridden by the end of May 1944.
Lim died in the early hours on June 1944. He was then buried behind the Batu Gajah prison compound in an unmarked spot.
His funeral service was held on 13 January 1946 at City Hall to mourn Lim’s death. Lim’s remains was transported in coffin to a hill in MacRitchie Reservoir. Lim was awarded the rank of Major General by the Chinese Nationalist Government.
Change mural chapel is also known as St Luke’s chapel. The chapel is also a source of comfort and focal point of social activities for the allied prisoners of war in change during the 2nd world war. The previous location is in the “dysentery wing” of military barracks in change and the Murals were painted by Stanley warren. Block 151 at the change military base was turned into a make-shift hospital for the prisoner of war of the Allied Forces during the Japanese Occupation. One of them, Rev. F.H. Stallard, C.F. had obtained the permission from a Japanese commander to convert part of the ground floor of the hospital’s "Dysentery Wing" (Blk. 151) into a chapel. The activities were dedicated to "St. Luke the Physician". The altar rail was also built by the officer of the 18th Division. The font was made and presented to the Chapel by Captain Cook, 5th Suffolk Regiment. The chapel was opened on the 12 July 1942 for sick patients and particularly for all the 196,197 and 198 Field Ambulances R.A.M.C staff. Service was celebrated daily with the distribution of Holy Communion.
All the chapel’s furnishing were moved to Selarang barracks on the 27 august 1943. The buildings and the chapel back in the days were used by the Japanese Air Force as a storeroom. Changi murals were painted over once again as one of the images were almost totally destroyed by the Japanese who blasted the wall to make a doorway. In the 1950’s, the change chapel were rebuilt in Australia and though, a copy still remained in Changi prison. The chapel and the museum were relocated outside of the new prison complex once the Changi prison were redeveloped. Now, we can find a copy of the chapel and its mural at the change chapel and its museum which is located at 1000, Upper Changi road north. The original Warren murals, however, are still at the army logistics training centre in the Changi camp.
One of a pair of cannons that was meant to shoot 9-pound cannon balls. Playing a decorative role rather than a defensive one, the cannon was fired three times a day at 5 a.m., 1 p.m., and 9 p.m. to announce the hour. It was also fired as a salute and warning of town fires. Next to the cannon is South Battery, the site at which the main battery of guns was mounted to defend Singapore in the 19th century.
It is dedicated to the men and women from United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Sri Lanka, India, Malaya, the Netherlands and New Zealand who died defending Singapore and Malaya against the invading Japanese forces during world war 2, it comprises the War Graves, the Memorial Walls, State Cemetery, and the Military Graves.
The Memorial’s walls inscribe over 24,000 names of allied servicemen whose bodies were never found, spread over both sides of 12 columns of the war memorial itself.
The grounds are immaculately maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and accessible only from Woodlands Road, the same road where the Japanese invading Imperial Guards had marched down on 9 February 1942.
