BSG 2023: a rare opportunity to visit the ruins of Connaught Battery

The remains of Connaught’s No 3 Gun emplacement

Among the highlights of National Heritage Board’s (NHB) Battle for Singapore (BSG 2023) programme, which runs from 10 February to 5 March 2023 and will feature 30 unique programmes and offer 100 tour runs, will be the rare chance to visit one of the lesser known ruins of Sentosa’s coastal defence batteries, Connaught Battery (Fort Connaught Rediscovery Tour). Normally a restricted site due to reasons of public safety, the site has been opened up to guided visits conducted during BSG 2023. Participants will be able to visit the battery’s badly damaged No 3 gun emplacement, see a Battery Observation Post (BOP) and have a glimpse of the entrance to an underground magazine, a retaining wall of the underground structure, as well as ventilation openings.

The pockmarked BOP

Established in the 1930s on the site of the former Fort Connaught (established in 1878-1879), the battery comprised three 9.2 inch guns that protected the harbour against naval attack from its eastern approaches. Contrary to popular belief, the guns did turn north, firing in the direction of the Causeway, Jurong, Tengah and Bukit Timah at the advancing Imperial Japanese Army during the Battle for Singapore. The guns were spiked and destroyed on 14 February 1942 — the day before Singapore capitulated, but not before all ammunition was used. The guns had little impact on the enemy’s ground forces however as most of the ammunition they had been supplied with were of the armour piercing type. More information on Connaught Battery can be found at: The hidden remains of Sentosa’s big WW2 guns.

The Fort Connaught Rediscovery Tour, which is being held from 9am to 11.30am and 1 pm to 3 pm over three weekends on 11 and 12 Feb, 18 and 19 Feb and 25 and 26 Feb 2023, is priced ar $20 per participant and is recommended for ages 13 and up (minor below the age of 16 must be accompanied by an adult/guardian). Tickets will be released on 8 Feb 2023 at 10 am at https://bsg2023.peatix.com.

I would be personally involved in two programmes, one of which will be a twinned tour of Changi Chapel and Museum (CCM) and Changi Point (two tours on 12 Feb 2023). I will be conducting the outdoor segment of this tour at Changi Point, where I shall be touching on the history of Changi, the reasons for its military sites, why it was chosen as a site to house POWs and touch on some of the documented experiences of POWs in Changi and site that may have been associated with them. Information on this can be found at the CCM website. As with the main BSG 2023 programmes, tickets (priced at $20) will be released on 8 feb 2023 at 10 am.

The second programme that I am involved in is Sembawang, Gibraltar of the East, which will involved a virtual visit on 16 Feb 2023 to some of the sites associated with the former British naval base in Sembawang, an important component of the set up that gave Singapore its reputation as being the “Gibraltar of the East” prior to its inglorious fall. Admission to this, which is being hosted on MS Teams, is free.

Information on the full series of programmes for BSG 2023 can be found at https://www.nhb.gov.sg/what-we-do/our-work/sector-development/museum-roundtable/2023-battle-for-singapore.

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  Remains of the gun emplacement

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  Remains of the gun emplacement

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  Remains of the gun emplacement (hinge)

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  Remains of the gun emplacement (ammo hoist)

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  Remains of the gun emplacement (ammo hoist)

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  Entrance to Underground Magazine

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  BOP (View East)

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  BOP (View East)

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A sneak peek at the Fort Connaught Rediscovery Tour for BSG 2023 (featuring Saifullah of SDC)

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The hidden remains of Sentosa’s big WW2 guns

Do note:

The photographs of the remains of Connaught Battery contained in this post were taken during a recent recce accompanied by a member of Sentosa’s staff. Do note that the area in which the remains are found is out of bounds. It contains a number of hazards and it is not only not advisable not to visit the area without the necessary permissions and supervision, you would also be trespassing if you do so.

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The remains of Connaught’s No 3 Gun emplacement.

Hidden in the vegetation of Sentosa’s two easternmost elevations just a stone’s throw away from one of Singapore most luxurious residential quarters, are the remains of its guns from the era of the Second World War. The better known of the two elevations, is of course Mount Serapong, which has been made accessible through public tours. A second set of guns, three 9.2 inch guns, were placed on the neighbouring elevation. These went into action during the Second World War, and were turned north and north-west to fire towards advancing Imperial Japanese Army troops in the direction of the Causeway, Jurong and Bukit Timah. All available ammunition, a large proportion of which were armour piercing and therefore ineffective against the advancing foot soldiers, was used before the guns were spiked and destroyed on 14 February 1942 — a day before Singapore capitulated. What remains of Connaught Battery include the badly damaged No 3 gun emplacement, a Battery Observation Post and an underground magazine, a retaining wall of the underground structure and several ventilation and other openings.

One of Connaught Battery’s 9.2 inch guns with its concrete emplacement.
BEFORE THE FALL OF SINGAPORE, C. 1942 © IWM (K 714)

Another view of the No 3 Gun Emplacement (inside – the shaft and opening for the ammunition hoist can be seen)

A Battery Observation Post

Fittings for railings and a hinge on the emplacement

Inside the BOP

Inside an underground magazine (note the red brick cavity wall)

The cavity wall arrangement, which was possibly installed for moisture control

A view up the ammunition hoist

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Background to the development of Sentosa’s Coastal Defence Positions and Connaught Battery

For large parts of its history, Sentosa was not as tranquil an island as its name would suggest. The so-called isle of tranquility, was previously called Blakang Mati, a name that carries with it a suggestion of death or even violence, even if little seems to be known about the origins of a name that it was known by since at least the early 17th century.¹ Blakang Mati was also an island that has long had a reputation of being a pirates’ lair. This seemed to be the case as far as the 14th century, with the accounts of Yuan dynasty Chinese voyager, Wang Dayuan, describing what is now thought to be the waters in the area of the island as being infested with pirates².

While an air of tranquility may have descended on the island following the Honourable East India Company’s (EIC) entry into Singapore with its second Resident, Dr John Crawfurd, describing it as a “beautiful and romantic spot”³, the spectre of death seem to still hang over Blakang Mati. Outbreaks of “Blakang Mati Fever” occurred. These were “of so deadly a character as to carry off three quarters of those attacked”, prompting some of those who settled on the island to flee in “fear and horror”.

The threat posed by “Blakang Mati Fever” however, did little to stop the one square mile island from being turned into one of Singapore’s most heavily armed and fortified square miles. Suggestion were in fact made as early as 1843, for an infantry garrison to be placed on the island as part of a plan to defend Singapore. While little came out of this plan in relation to Blakang Mati, the threat posed by Imperial Russia through it establishing a base in 1872 at Vladivostok on land it acquired from China, and the fact that advances in naval shipbuilding had greatly improved the speed, range, armour, and armament carrying capability of warships, prompted the building up of a coastal defence system to protect the Singapore and New Harbour. Measures taken included the placement of coastal artillery batteries on Blakang Mati. By 1878-79, batteries with fortifications were established at Fort Blakang Mati East (renamed Fort Connaught in 1890 to commemorate the visit of the Duke of Connaught to Singapore) and Fort Siloso. This effort also saw an infantry redoubt built at Mount Serapong.

Blakang Mati’s coastal defence positions and armaments on Sentosa would see overhauls over the years. Among the upgrades was the setting up of a battery at Mount Serapong following a review undertaken in 1885 with Singapore’s growing importance as a coaling station ii mind. Another upgrade, made from 1907 to 1911, came in the wake of Japanese successes in the Russo-Japanese War. This saw the battery at Mount Imbiah added, which was completed in 1912 with Fort Connaught’s battery being decommissioned as a result of it. Imbiah Battery would itself be decommissioned in 1937, when a rebuilt Connaught Battery came into play. The battery, along with a battery at Mount Serapong, remained in service up to the time of the Second World War. The rebuilding of Connaught Battery resulted in the removal of all traces of the 19th century fortifications of Fort Connaught.

While the guns at Serapong seemed to have been damaged during Japanese air raids in January 1942, the three guns at Connaught Battery were turned northwards and were fired in the direction of the Causeway and later at advancing Japanese troops at Jurong on 11 Feb 1942 and Bukit Timah on 12 Feb 1942, expanding all the available ammunition, before being spiked and destroyed on 14 Feb 1942.

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¹ The first instance of the island being positively identified as Blakang Mati was through a map made by the Malacca-based Manual Godinho de Erédia. This was published in 1604 to aid in the discovery of the legendary islands of gold. In the map, the island is identified as “Blacan Mati” with the “c” being pronounced as a hard c.

² In Wang Dayuan’s accounts contained Daoyi zhilüe (島夷誌略) or “Description of Barbarians of the Islands”, he provides a description of a pirate infested “Longyamen” (龍牙門) or Dragon-Teeth Gate, which is now believed to have been a reference to the pair of rocky outcrops at Tanjong Rimau at the western end of Blakang Mati and across the waters at Tanjong Berlayer. Known as “Lots Wife” to the British, they were removed to widen the entrance to New Harbour (Keppel Harbour) in 1848.

³ Among the early uses of the island in the early days of EIC Singapore was the installation of a flagstaff on the island’s highest peak, Mount Serapong, in 1833. The island would also find use for the cultivation of pineapple, jackfruit, guava and chempedak with three villages being established. One was Kampong Ayer Bendera, which was named after the flagstaff. This was located at the foot of Mount Serapong and inhabited primarily by Bugis. There was also a Malay village in the area known as Kampong Serapong, while the third village was Kampong Blakang Mati, another Bugis village. A few Chinese also found their way to the island.

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More photographs:

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Chip Bee Gardens, privately developed to house military personnel

A destination whose attraction is its cool cafes and restaurants, and trendy boutiques, it is hard to tell that Chip Bee Gardens, when it was completed in the mid-1960s, served as an abode for British military personnel based in Pasir Panjang, Tanglin and Alexandra. Architecturally unique as a military residential estate, it wears the look and feel of a typical 1960s private housing development in Singapore and even parts of Malaysia, with its mix of residential and commercial properties.

Terrace houses at Chip Bee Gardens

Designed by Yang Tye Tai Architects, its developers, United Development and Finance Co, embarked on the development of Chip Bee as a private residential housing estate. Plans for it were announced in 1962. A year after construction started, the developer entered into an initial contract with the British military’s Services’ Lands Board for the sale of several housing units. A second contract was negotiated in 1965 that involved the sale of the bulk of the development to the board. Under the contract, a total of 603 units were to have been completed by 1967 for the board, comprising 349 three-bedroom terraced houses, 194 three-bedroom units in seven nine-storey apartment blocks, and 20 shop lots with 40 flats above.

Princess Margaret visiting Chip Bee Estate in October 1972 (via National Archives of Singapore).

The acquisition, which cost the Services’ Lands Board a reported $17 million, signalled a shift in the British military’s housing policy. The board had been renting civilian properties to address a housing shortfall with the expansion in the numbers of personnel being brought into Singapore and Malaya in the early 1960s. Parts of “Chip Bee Gardens Married Quarters Estate” would be ready for occupation by 1966.

The demolished apartment blocks would have been on the right.

While the acquisition of Chip Bee Gardens was carried out in anticipation of a long term British military presence in Singapore, circumstances would very quickly change and the estate had to be sold almost as soon as it was completed in 1968. Britain had then already announced its intention to withdraw its military forces from Singapore. The sale of the estate was negotiated with the Singapore government, who paid just over 40% of the price that Britain had invested in the estate with the understanding that British military families could stay on after the properties changed hands in 1970, up to the point of the British withdrawal in late 1971. Chip Bee Gardens’ function as a military estate however, went beyond the pull-out, with members of the Australian-led ANZUK Force occupying the estate until Australia’s 1975 withdrawal from the ANZUK arrangements. The Singapore government, through the Housing and Development Board, then put the properties up for rent. Shops and popular eateries snapped up the commercial spaces, but the take-up rate for residential units was poor.

Two blocks were built with 40 apartments above and 20 shop lots on the ground floor. The shop lots were used for communal facilities and to house amenities.

Through the years, several agencies have managed the properties. The Land Office took over the management in 1989 before handing it over to Jurong Town Corporation (JTC) in 2002. It was during the watch of the Land Office that the apartment blocks demolished in 1992 and the land sold to private developers. The Singapore Land Authority, the successor to the Land Office, has managed the properties since 2015.

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The origin of the name Chip Bee

“Chip Bee” is Hokkien for Jimei (集美), a village and district near Xiamen (Amoy) in Fujian province in China. It was from Chip Bee that the likes of rubber magnate Tan Kah Kee and his one-time employee and founder of Nanyang University, Tan Lark Sye, hailed from. Tan Lark Sye’s nephew, Tan Eng Joo, was thought to have owned the land on which Chip Bee Gardens was built and was a associate of Ko Teck Kin, then President of Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Chairman of the developer of Chip Bee Gardens, United Development and Finance Co.

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The information above has been based on research that I carried out for Uncommon Ground: the places you know, the stories you don’t.

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Elizabeth House, nurses’ quarters to part of a nursing home , or will that be just a mirage?

Developments around Singapore General Hospital in the last five years or so, have altered the complexion of its much storied surroundings. With that, a number of markers, which linked the area to its much storied past were permanently lost. Future developments threaten to do the same with old Alexandra Hospital, with plans to redevelop a part of its grounds as a nursing home for dementia patients recently announced. While it may seem to involve only a small part of the grounds, what it signals is the beginning of the end for the hospital campus and some of its historically significant sites as part of what will eventually be the “Alexandra Health Campus”. 

Alexandra Military Hospital

It is good that three of the hospital’s existing buildings, ones that serve as the face of the hospital, are already protected for conservation. There is however a question of context in keeping older structures, especially when they are drowned or find themselves minimised by the scale that new developments are often given.  Given the history of the hospital and the significance of many of its structures and spaces, there must be more of the campus that deserves to be considered for conservation.

The spacious, green and quiet grounds of the hospital could be overtaken by the mess of concrete in the near future as there are plans to turn it into the Alexandra Health Campus.

Alexandra Hospital’s roots lie in its construction as Singapore’s main military hospital. This came at the tail end of an effort to turn Singapore into the “Gibraltar of the East”, and a naval outpost to which the British fleet could be sent to in event that its assets in the Far East could be defended. This brought new garrisons of troops to the island. With only the aging and glaringly inadequate Tanglin Military Hospital to serve the huge contingent of European soldiers on the island, there was a need for a large enough hospital. In July 1940, Alexandra opened as the British military establishment’s most modern hospital this side of the Suez and counted among the largest medical facilities that were built for the British army.

In Alexandra Hospital’s campus, there is a mix of pre and post World War II buildings.

Tragedy was to befall the hospital within a year and a half of its opening when on the eve of the Fall of Singapore, the hospital became the scene of a most horrendous of atrocities. In spite of the hospital being clearly marked and identified as a medical facility, Japanese troops entered the hospital late in the morning of 14 February 1942, allegedly in pursuit of British Indian Army soldiers who had fired on them. What followed was the wanton killing of staff and patients over the course of two days. Estimates of those killed in the course of the two days of savagery go as high as 300. More information on the massacre can be found in this link.

One of the hospital’s ward blocks not protected for conservation. This houses the auditorium, which was a chapel during the war and one of the points of entry of Japanese troops.

Two buildings, Blocks 18 and 19, are threatened by the development of the nursing home. Even if the signs seem to point to the buildings’ retention, how that will work could involve the buildings being incorporated as parts of larger structures. Block 19, also known as Elizabeth House, is the newer of the two blocks and is particularly unique. Having been constructed in two parts to house female nursing staff in 1949 and in 1958, what distinguishes the modernist blocks are exterior ventilation blocks that serve as privacy screens.

The former Elizabeth House, Block 19, with its older and newer sections and its privacy screens.

The construction of Elizabeth House came at a time when Britain was involved in the counter insurgency efforts against the communists in Malaya in a campaign known as the Malayan Emergency. With Alexandra Hospital, also known then as British Military Hospital Singapore, being Britain’s principal military facility in the Far East, it played a crucial role in supporting the effort. New buildings were built on the campus including Elizabeth House in support of the large amount of military personnel sent by Britain to Singapore and Malaya. Elizabeth House was closely associated with nurses with the then exclusively female Queen Alexandra Royal Army Nursing Corps or QARANC in short and known as tyhe “Garden Billet” to what were known as the QAs or nurses. Among the stories that have been told of the block was how its residents would sunbathe at the badminton court behind it.

Alexandra Hospital is a historical site with a plaque to recall its history placed in its gerden,

Based on what the Ministry of Health (MOH) has announced, as reported by the Straits Times on 26 June 2022, it is hard to see Elizabeth House surviving without substantial change or even demolition. While the sounds are for keeping the structure, there seems ample leeway given to the the successful tenderer (for consultancy services in regard to the nursing home development). What will be required of the tenderer is an assessment as to what opportunities there are to design the nursing home with respect to the heritage value of Blocks 18 and 19 — whatever that means. It seems quite possible that the option or a “documentation and heritage interpretation” route, with “elements of the blocks incorporated in the nursing home’s design” could be possible given the site’s constraints. If that is the case, Blocks 18 and 19 may just be a reinterpreted illusion. Without an actual form, and certainly without substance, we could just be left with a mirage that we in Singapore seem so fond of creating.

Block 18, built as the Commanding Officers’ residence.

Corridors of Block 19 – the former Elizabeth House.

Breaking KD Malaya’s last ship up

For those whose connection with Singapore’s far north go back to the 20th century, the road to the causeway was one littered with an interesting range of sights. One such sight that would certainly have caught the eye, was that of KD Malaya, a camp from which Malaysia’s navy – Tentera Laut DiRaja Malaysia (TLDM) or Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN) had its fleet based at until 1979, and which was used as a TLDM training facility right until 1997.

KD Malaya from Admiralty Road West – the layout of the buildings gave an appearance of the bow of a huge ship.

The centrepiece of the base was it large parade ground, beyond which an administrative building and two barrack buildings took on the appearance of the bow of a huge ship with the camp’s flagstaff seemingly a foremast. This was quite a remarkable sight, as one came around an area of Admiralty Road West that contained Hawkins Road refugee camp and View Road Hospital (the area was featured in Secrets in the Hood Episode 5).

The former KD Malaya, seen in 2020 after Admiralty West Prison vacated it.

The wondrous sight of the former KD Malaya is now one has quite sadly been lost to the frenzy of redevelopment has now reached Singapore’s once sleepy north, with the Woodlands North Coast development beginning to take shape. While the camp’s streamline moderne inspired former administration block may have been kept for posterity, the two barrack buildings that contributed to the sight has since been demolished. Along with that, the parade square, which had provided the setback to take the wonderful view in, has also been consigned to history. This breaking of a link with our shared history with Malaysia, through the removal of a significant physical reminder of it seems especially ironic with the development nearby of a new link to Malaysia through the Rapid Transit System.

Only the administration block remains today (with a granite-faced staircase leading up to it).

I shall miss the sight of the former KD Malaya, with which I have been familiar with since my childhood. Together with the wonderful spaces and landmarks in and around it, it has provided great joy and comfort, especially with much of the rest of a Singapore being transformed in a way made it hard to identify with. While KD Malaya’s administration block is being kept, my fear is that it becomes just another building in a space overcrowded with a clutter of structures of a brave new world – as seems the case many other developments in which heritage structures are present. An example is the transformation of the joyously green space around old Admiralty House into the monstrous Bukit Canberra development into which a ridiculous amount of concrete has been poured in and around which a clutter of structures has conspired to reduce the presence of the stately arts and crafts movement inspired old Admiralty House.

A road is being built around the site.

There is also the matter of KD Malaya’s gateposts, which will have to be relocated. Whatever happens to it and wherever it will eventually be re-sited, my hope is that it doesn’t go the way of the old National Library’s gateposts. Originally left in situ to mark the site of a much loved Singaporean building, the gateposts have since suffered the indignity of being displaced and put in a position in which it has become …. just another part of the scene.

KD Malaya’s old gate.

The road to perdition. Work on the Rapid Transit System is taking place, which will cross over that body of water that is seen to Johor Bahru.

Will the former Rimau Offices / View Road Hospital (and its unusual above ground “bomb-proof” office) be the next to go?

Old Changi Hospital — a chance to visit for the 80th Anniversary of the Fall of Singapore

The three blocks that make up the former Changi Hospital are probably some of the most misunderstood buildings in Singapore. Much has been speculated about them and how they were used during the Second World War, leading to the buildings having gained a reputation for something that they are not.

A tour of the former hospital in 2017.

Just what role did two of the hospital’s original blocks play? Why were they built in Changi? How were they part of the overall strategy for the defence of Britain’s possessions in the Far East? What happened in them during the war? These are questions that I hope to answer during a specially arranged visit that will permit us to have a look at the buildings behind the security fence for a tour that I will be conducting in conjunction with Changi Chapel and Museum’s (CCM) programme being organised to mark the 80th Anniversary of the Fall of Singapore.

Block 24. What role did it originally play?

Two sessions of the tour will be conducted on 19 Feb 2022, which will begin with a docent-led tour of CCM through which will provide participants with a better understanding of Changi as a military site, how it became associated with captivity – both military and civilian, and provide a deeper appreciation of the experience of the civilian and military internees. Following the docent-led tour at CCM, participants will travel by coach to the site of the former Changi Hospital where my section of the tour will begin.

In a hospital ward with a view that will change the perspective of what the hospital was and what it meant.

Registration for the tour will begin at 10 am on 10 February 2022. Please visit https://ccm1-och22.peatix.com/ for more information, tour times and to register. Information can also be found on the CCM website. I will also be doing two tours of the former Tanglin Barracks (Dempsey Hill) to explore its connections with the Second World War, one on 12 February and another on 5 March 2022, both from 9am to 10.30am (more at this link).

The soon to reopen Reflections at Bukit Chandu

Among the places in which the echoes of a battle fought eight decades ago can still be heard is a point on Pasir Panjang Ridge that has since been named Bukit Chandu. It was where the final acts of heroism and sacrifice were enacted early in the afternoon of Valentine’s Day 1942 – at the culmination of a fierce two-day battle across the ridge we know today as Kent Ridge. The site today, is right next to where an interpretive centre “Reflections at Bukit Chandu” (RBC) can be found. Housed in a colonial bungalow of 1930s vintage, the centre recalls the battle and the acts of bravery of those defending the ridge. Having been closed for a revamp since October 2018, the centre is due to reopen at the end of next week.

Set up in 2002, the focus of RBC has been the retelling the story of the Malay Regiment and the stout but vain defence it put up on Pasir Panjang Ridge in what was one of the last major battles to be fought before Singapore’s fall during the Second World War. The regiment, formed in Port Dickson as an “experimental regiment”, played a key role in holding off the vastly superior and battle hardened Imperial Japanese Army troops as part of the 1st Malaya Infantry Brigade over two days; with its survivors taking a last stand at Point 226, as Bukit Chandu was identified as. A name now well known to us, Lieutenant Adnan Saidi, a war hero in both Malaysia and in Singapore, was also associated with the battle. Lt Adnan led a platoon of 42 of the regiment’s men and was among those who made that last stand. He would pay the ultimate price for refusing to remove his uniform after the Japanese overran his position in the cruelest of fashions. Hung upside down from a tree, Lt Adnan was bayonetted to death.

A view of the unique segmented arches that are a feature of the bungalow’s architecture.

The revamp sees little change to the central thrust of the centre, which is in remembering the Malay Regiment and the heroics of men such as Lt Adnan. Where change is seen, is in the way the story is told. An immersive 5-minute video projection now sees the battle is relived as part of the “Bukit Chandu: Battle Point 226” exhibition that sees the ground floor the the RBC now dedicated to. Along with this, the revamp also adds another dimension to the centre in providing greater context to the bungalow in which RBC is housed in, which was apparently built as part of a cluster of residences for senior members of staff of an opium or chandu packing plant established at the foot of the hill (after which the hill was named). To provide a more complete picture of the area’s rich history, exhibits found in the house and on its grounds have been added to tell the story of Pasir Panjang.

The headdress of the Malay Regiment with the badge.

For those familiar with the RBC prior to its revamp, one change that will be quite glaring as one enters its grounds, is the missing “mural”. In place of the “mural” – a replica of an oil painting by Malaysian artist Hoessein Enas that depicted the Battle of Pasir Panjang that was suspended across a segmented arch – is the revamped centre’s main entrance. Also noticeable will be the re-sited bronze sculpture dedicated to the Malay Regiment, which now has a more prominent position on the grounds, across from the entrance. Heading inside, the entrance lobby beckons, beyond which the “Bukit Chandu: Battle Point 226” exhibition begins. First up is an introduction to the Malay Regiment and its formation, presented in the exhibition’s first section “The Malay Regiment”. Rare footage of the Malay Regiment and of Lt Adnan undergoing training drills can be viewed here, as well as the regiment’s specially designed uniforms, weapons and kit items (which we are told were very well maintained by the regiment’s soldiers).

The (new) entrance to the centre.

The next section “Into Battle” is where the immersion into the battle takes place through a 5-minute video projection. Here a map on the floor traces the advance of the Japanese across the ridge over the course of the 13th and 14th of February 1942. Also on display in this section are items that were carried by both the Malay regiment’s soldiers as well as the Japanese. Spent rounds from the battle, dug up around the ridge by a resident in the 1970s, are also on display.

In the next section “Aftermath”, a bronze bust of Lt Adnan and a tin cup that belonged to Lt Ibrahim Sidek that was donated by his widow, are on display together with the names of those who fell in the battle. Lt Ibrahim is among the names on the wall, having also been killed by the Japanese for refusing to remove his uniform. His tin cup sits on display at a stand fitted with a speaker through which an excerpt of an interview with his widow in Malay can be played back.

The bronze bust of Lt Adnan and the tin cup that belonged to Lt Ibrahim Sidek.

Up the stairs on the bungalow’s second level, one comes to a verandah. Turning left along this is where the room containing an exhibition “Packing Chandu” can be found. It is one of several sections of the centre in which the bungalow’s and the area’s past can be rediscovered. In this section, an attempt is made to re-create the machinery of the chandu packing plant. Tin tubes, in which two-hoons of opium were sealed in as part of an effort to stem the “illegal” distribution of opium (on which the colonial government maintained a monopoly), along with scales are found next to the “machinery”. Paraphernalia connected to the packing and use of opium, photographs and leaflets connected to the opposition by prominent members of the community to the sale of opium, are also on display.

Packing Chandu.

At the centre of the verandah, “The Lounge” can be found. This recalls how the bungalow was used and lived in. The house, which is similar in design to many pre-war colonial bungalows built by the Public Works Department, features generous openings for ventilation and light, as well as verandahs. The lounge, an extension of the verandah, would have had great views of sea at Pasir Panjang. It would also have served as a living room and was where the house’s occupants would have chilled-out in during cool sea-breeze ventilated evenings. On display in “The Lounge”, are objects found during archeological digs around the house. These include a broken piece of Marseilles roof tile, as well as several other objects unrelated to the house. Cards from which the history of Bukit Chandu and Pasir Panjang is told through archival photographs, will also be on display.

The verandah and “The Lounge”.

The history of Pasir Panjang will also be discovered “On The Lawn”, through two installations laid out on the grounds of RBC. The first takes the form of a bronze replica of a boat used by the Orang Laut (who once inhabited the Singapore Strait), and this relates to Longyamen or Dragon’s Teeth Gate – the rocky outcrop that marked the entrance to what is now Keppel Harbour and appears in Chinese navigational maps of the 14th century. The second installation is a bronze pineapple cart, which recalls a more recent past when the ridge was home to Tan Kim Seng’s vast pineapple plantation. The plantation was well known for the superior quality of pineapples that it produced.

An installation on The Lawn – a replica of a Orang Laut boat.

Recalling Tan Kim Seng’s pineapple plantation.

The refreshing revamp now places the RBC back on the map of must-visit locations that will help us develop a better appreciation of the past, and more specifically, the sacrifice made by the men of the Malay Regiment (along with the others who fought alongside them including members of the 2nd Loyal Regiment, the 44th Indian Brigade and machine gunners from the 2/4th Machine Gun Battalion of the Australian Imperial Force). A visit to the centre will not be complete without a walk along at least part of the ridge. Across Pepys Road from the RBC lies the entrance to the canopy walk leading to Kent Ridge Park, which provides some wonderful views of the Alexandra Park area and provide an appreciation of the difficult terrain across which the battle was fought and the conditions that the troops defending the ridge must have faced.

The bronze sculpture dedicated to the Malay Regiment.

Reflections at Bukit Chandu reopens on 9 September 2021. It will be open from Tuesdays to Sundays from 9.30am to 5.30pm (last admission is 4.30 pm). Admission is free for all Singaporeans and Permanent Residents. Admission charges do apply to tourists and information on this is available at the centre’s website.

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Opening and Opening Weekend Information

To commemorate the reopening of RBC, all visitors will enjoy free admission from 9 to 26 September 2021. Singapore Citizens and Permanent Residents will continue to enjoy complimentary admission beyond this period. 

The opening weekend for RBC will take place from 11 to 12 September, which also coincides with the anniversary of the surrender of the Japanese on 12 September 1945. Visitors can look forward to a self-guided scavenger hunt through the RBC galleries and complimentary live-streamed tours by the curators of RBC and Changi Chapel and Museum on Facebook Live.

(See also: https://www.nhb.gov.sg/bukitchandu/whats-on/programmes).

Visitors are encouraged to pre-book their museum admission tickets and sign up for the opening weekend programmes ahead of their visit. Please visit www.bukitchandu.gov.sg for the latest updates on the museum. 

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More photographs of RBC

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  Uniforms of the Malay Regiment.

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  In Battle

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  In Battle

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  In Battle

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  Rachel Eng, curator.

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  Tin cup belonging to Lt Ibrahim Sidek.

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  Opium smoking paraphernalia

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  Packing Chanmdu

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  Cover of an interim report by the Anti-Opium Clinic

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  Packing Chandu

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  Tubes for packing opium

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  Type of rifle used by the Malay Regiment.

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  A Japanese Bugle

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  Sake Bottle

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  A Revolver

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  Spent Ammunition dug up along the ridge.

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  Packing Chandu

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  Packing Chandu

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  Packing Chandu

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  Verandah

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  An amulet dug up on the grounds.

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  More objects dug up

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  The Lounge

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A beautiful campus by the sea

A peek into the beautiful BNP Paribas Asia-Pacific Campus. Established in 2014, the campus occupies two beautifully restored former barrack blocks of the former (Royal Engineers) Kitchener Barracks in Changi. The two blocks, currently Block 34 and 35 and formerly B an C Blocks, were among the first to be built in the Changi Cantonment that was developed from the end of the 1920s into the late 1930s and provide an excellent example of how such buildings could be restored and repurposed in the light of the recently announced Ideas Competition for Changi Point and old Changi Hospital (see also: Ideas sought to repurpose Old Changi Hospital, enhance surrounding Changi Point area).

The former B-Block, together with the former H-Block (now Block 24, which in 1947 was repurposed as RAF Hospital, Changi), were in fact the first barrack blocks to constructed in Changi and were completed by 1930. The cantonment also included barracks for the Royal Artillery at Roberts Barracks — now within Changi Air Base (West) and for the infantry at Selarang Barracks, as well as smaller camps for various Indian Army units.

In the 1920s, Britain had moved to establish a large naval base in Sembawang to defend its Far East interests in the face of rising Japanese ambition. The setting up of the cantonment followed this decision and was carried out to install, maintain, man and secure coastal artillery being placed around the eastern mouth of the Tebrau or Johor Strait to protect the naval base against naval attack.

The cantonment, which sustained some damage in the lead up to the Fall of Singapore but remain largely intact, was evacuated on 12 February 1942. Singapore fell on 15 February 1942 and with Japanese forces overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of surrendering Allied troops in Singapore, they found a solution to accommodating some of these troops in the emptied barracks in Changi. On 17 February 1942, close to 50,000 British and Australian Prisoners-of-War (POWs) were marched to Changi and placed in the various camps. The troops forming the last line of defence in Singapore, the Singapore Fortress Southern Area troops, which included some volunteer units, were allocated Kitchener Barracks. The Australians were kept separately in Selarang. POW hospitals, which were set up in former field hospitals in Roberts and Selarang, were consolidated at Roberts Barracks — this is where the Changi Murals were painted.

The POWs would initially have little contact with their captors, who got them to wire themselves into the various camps. Discipline was maintained by the officers among the POWs, who also took it upon themselves to keep the morale up. Sports, theatrical performances and even university classes were organised — there were several professional sportsmen amongst the ranks and also lecturers from Raffles College who were with the volunteer units and in Kitchener Barracks, the Southern Area College operated. With the Fortress troops — who were not involved in the retreat down Malaya — being amongst the fittest of the POWs, the men of the camp at Kitchener were among the first to be picked for the Japanese organised work teams, many of which would be sent to provide labour in places like the Thai-Burma ‘Death’ Railway. The numbers in Kitchener dwindled to the point that it could be closed as a POW camp in May 1943, followed by Roberts in September 1943. In May 1944, the POWs, which included those who had survived the Death Railway, were concentrated at Changi Prison, which had previously been used as a civilian internment camp (the civilians were moved to Sime Road Camp).

The two camps would then be occupied by Japanese units involved in the construction of the Japanese airstrip at Changi (operational at the end of 1944), around which the Royal Air Force would establish RAF Air Station Changi (RAF Changi) in 1946. The blocks of the former Kitchener Barracks were then used by the RAF, with RAF Hospital Changi being established in 1947. Among the renumbered blocks, Block 35, housed HQ Far East Air Force (FEAF) Command. The various roads within the former Kitchener Barracks were renamed after RAF Air Stations. Following the British pull-out in October 1971, the barrack buildings (except for Block 24 and 37), were used by the Singapore Armed Forces as Commando Camp. Of the various barrack developments, only the former Kitchener remains largely intact today.

Escape from Tanglin Barracks

Tanglin Village or Dempsey Hill, a spacious and joyous site on the fringes of Singapore’s city centre, has a history that goes back more than a hundred and fifty years. Established as Singapore’s first purpose-built military camp, Tanglin Barracks, it is a place with stories abound. There are quite a few that I find especially intriguing, including one which has as its leading protagonist a rather flamboyant German mariner by the name of Julius Lauterbach, whose exploits on and off the high seas make for quite an interestIng read.

Tanglin Village today

Lauterbach’s chapter in Tanglin’s history is set against the backdrop of the First World War, a conflict which pitted his native Germany against Singapore’s colonial master, Great Britain. Almost overnight, friends found themselves on opposing sides and even if the war may have been raging far from Singapore’s shores, its fallout extended to the island in one way or another. On 24 October 1914, some three months into the conflict, nationals of Germany and Austria in Singapore received an order to report to the P&O Wharf. There were a number of prominent members of the mercantile community amongst the group. Initially interned on St John’s Island, the group would be moved into Tanglin Barracks‘ vacant blocks and were joined by internees who had been detained in Malaya.

St. John’s Island.

The choice of Tanglin Barracks as a place of internment was only possible as the British infantry units who would have normally be quartered at the barracks were most — in Europe. This arrangement however, would leave Singapore with threadbare defences, although there seemed to be little of concern with the main threat to the island’s security having been ascertained as internal rather than external. The responsibility for maintaining order was placed squarely on the shoulders of the officers and men of a British Indian Army infantry regiment — the 5th Light Infantry, which was quartered at Alexandra Barracks.

The former Gillman Barrack’s officers’ mess – close to the site where the first shot was fired to signal the start of the mutiny.

At Tanglin Barracks, a total of about 250 civilians were held, accommodated in a cluster of barrack buildings which had been ‘wired in’ with scaffolding used as watch towers. The 5th Light Infantry provided the camp’s security details together with a handful of men from the volunteer units. Within the confines of the camp boundary was also a ‘small bungalow’ that was converted for use as a hospital for internees. Tanglin Barracks’ Teutonic flavour was also to be enhanced by a group of about sixty Prisoners of War (POWs) from the German naval cruiser, SMS Emden, which brought the total number of internees at the camp to 309. The POWs were housed separately within the confines of the camp in a barrack block that acquired the name ‘Emden Villa’.

The cricket field and P-Block.

The Emden must have been quite well known in Singapore, having gained notoriety for the damage and disruption to Allied shipping in the Indian Ocean and the China Sea that it had inflicted in the early months of the war. Among the cruiser’s exploits was a daring raid on Penang harbour during which two ships — a Russian cruiser and a French destroyer — were sunk. The Emden, as did many naval vessels on both sides, also employed tactics that could be compared to pirate ships in sending boarding parties to storm merchant ships, either to scuttle them, or if the cargo was valuable enough, to commandeer these vessels as a ‘prize’. The men of the Emden who had found their way to Tanglin were in fact members of ‘prize crews’ of three ships that were recaptured by the Allies, the most senior of whom was Reserve Lieutenant Julius Lauterbach. Lauterbach was taken along with the prize crew of the collier, Exford, which was carrying a cargo of 6000 tons of coal when it was recaptured by the armed auxiliary cruiser, HMS Empress of Japan, off Sumatra on 11 December 1914.

Postcard, S.M.S. Emden, circa 1914, Germany, maker unknown. Te Papa (GH002110)

Lauterbach was already well known in many circles in Singapore in his days as a master mariner who was based at the port of Tsingtao (Qingdao), which Germany held as a concession port from 1898 to 1914. He had been an established fixture on the merchant marine scene and many among the civilian internees had made the passage on ships that Lauterbach had captained. His arrival at Tanglin was said to have been greeted with a loud cheer because of his fame. Being the highest ranking officer among the POWs, Lauterbach was afforded with a degree of respect by his captors, who put him in a three-room house on his own within the camp perimeter and close to the Emden Villa.

Julius Lauterbach at Tanglin

As soon as Leuterbach arrived in Tanglin, he set out plotting an escape and after having observed security arrangements at the camp, he determined that a tunnel would best serve his purpose. On 27 January 1915, with help from a group of trusted men he started on his dig right under the noses of the camp guards, under the guise of doing gardening. It could also have been that the members of 5th Light Infantry who were guarding the camp and who were free to interact with the internees, was under Lauterbach’s influence. Lauterbach was also able to have the company of a French-Chinese Eurasian admirer during his internment, albeit with a locked gate in between them. The young lady, according to a boast that Lauterbach made, had come to Singapore to see to his wellbeing having made her way from her native Shanghai once she got wind of his plight and was also able to hand information such as maps to him to aid in his intended escape.

A very special ward.

Mutiny

All this while, unhappiness was fermenting (some say fermented by Lauterbach and company) among members of the 5th Light Infantry. In January 1915, a decision was made to deploy the 5th to Hong Kong. The destination was however not communicated to the troops. There were rumours abound that the destination was not East, but West in Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq). With it large Muslim contingent, many among the rank and file were incensed by the prospect of having to fight fellow Muslims. In a move to quell the growing sense of unease, the transfer was brought forward. With the 5th due to be sent out on 16 February 1915 — the day after the three day Chinese New Year holiday weekend, the unit stood down from its duties at Tanglin on 14 February 1915 and camp security was left in the hands of one British and three native officers and twelve men of the Johore Military Forces, who were without ammunition, and a deployment of volunteers.

Remembering the victims of the Mutiny – a plaque at the Victoria Concert Hall.

The growing sense of unhappiness and the impending move to what was rumoured to be Mesopotamia provoked members of the 5th Light Infantry into action and just after 3 pm on the afternoon of 15 February 1915, members of the regiment’s Right Wing — numbering just over 400 men, mutinied (infantry regiments were then split into two wings, each with four companies). A group of about eighty rebels headed to Tanglin, intent on freeing German prisoners in the hope that they would lend support to the rebellion. At 3.45 pm, the mutineers reached Tanglin with a group among the eighty laying siege to Tanglin Military Hospital and firing into its administration building. In spite of coming under fire, Staff Sergeant Vickers, RAMC, managed to make his way to the medical officers bungalow some 300 yards away (270 metres). Finding the Medical Officer out, he was able to raise the alarm to the police, Fort Canning and a Dr Fowlie. A group of fifteen men reached the POW camp about half an hour later around 4.15 pm and also fired on the guards. The lock to the gate was then blown up. In the chaos of the attack, four officers were killed along with ten men. One German prisoner was also fatally wounded.

Buildings of the former Tanglin Military Hospital.

An eyewitness, Corporal J F Bray, RAMC, who was stationed at the prisoner hospital recalled being roused by the firing. German prisoners then told him that a mutiny had broken out. He then rushed to the POW hospital’s dispensary to get dressings in order to attend to the wounded, one of whom was a prisoner in W-Block (now Block 17). Inside W-Block, Bray witnessed six to seven members of the 5th freeing German prisoners before moving them into Y-Block (Block 26). Bray also witnessed the leader of the mutineers shaking hands with the German prisoners. Unsuccessful in their attempts to enlist the help of the Germans, the mutineers then left, promising to return with arms and ammunition. The bulk of the German prisoners, including Lauterbach, had in fact refused to take up arms; some went on to help in attending to the wounded, and transport the more seriously hurt to Tanglin Military Hospital.

Block 17 – a block that many who served National Service in the army will remember as the Enlistment Centre

Lauterbach’s Epic Escape

In the commotion of the disturbance at Tanglin, Lauterbach made a final push to finish the tunnel that he had been working on. Determined to get away unnoticed, he decided against walking out the open camp gate and use the tunnel he had worked on. Selecting a handful of prisoners to go with him for their ability to speak English made the escape as the darkness fell, having to making a vault over a final set of barbed-wire that lay beyond the tunnel exit. Leaving at around 8pm, the group decided that the main roads were to be avoided and took a route through grass, lallang and rubber plantation — a decision that got their guide and themselves lost. With some further help obtained through a handsome bribe, the group eventually found their way to the coast, some five hours after leaving Tanglin. There the scene was set for a voyage to Karimun. The long twelve hours that it would take them to get to the islands, which lay on the neutral Dutch side of the Melaka Strait, would only be the first leg of what was to become an epic journey of escape. The journey was to involve trudging through the jungles of Sumatra, a journey from Padang to Batavia (Jakarta) to Surabaya, a passage on a Dutch steamer to the Celebes (Sulawesi), a five day passage across the Celebes Sea to Mindanao in a leaking boat that required water to be bailed out by hand continuously, a voyage disguised as a Dutchman from Manila to China’s north coast where he made his way down to Shanghai. From Shanghai, he would head east to Japan, then Hawaii, and San Francisco from where he boarded a train for New York. At Hoboken — across the Hudson from Manhattan, Lauterbach signed on to a Oslo bound Danish ship as a Swedish stoke. Making landfall in Europe, he made his way to Copenhagen before finding himself on German soil on 10 October 1915 — some eight months after his escape from Singapore and ten months after his capture onboard the Exford.

Tanglin’s 1884 garrison chapel?

There is little doubt that The White Rabbit, an exclusive dining destination in the former Tanglin Barracks, occupies a building that was built as a small church. The only question is when. Little does seem to have been documented about the building, or its history other than the fact that it was used in the post-British military pull-out era as a chapel — the Ebenezer Chapel — for two different Protestant denominations, before its conversion. There is also that suggestion that the church building dates back to the 1930s, although it does seem to predate that. One less known but well established fact, is that it served the barracks’ Roman Catholic congregation in its post-second-world-war era until the pull-out as the Church of Christ the King (no relation to the Roman Catholic church in Ang Mo Kio of the same name, a period of time when it play host to quite a few weddings.

The White Rabbit at 39C Harding Road.

It is its location, relative to the former Tanglin Barracks’ garrison church of St George — across what used to be the barracks’ parade ground, that holds a clue to its origins. Now a parish church of the Anglican church’s diocese of Singapore and a National Monument, St George’s was built in the second decade of the twentieth century to replace an older and smaller garrison church that based on the church’s publications was erected in 1884 and was located west of St George’s. The position of The White Rabbit, on the western edge of the parade grounds — a venue for the church parade services that the British military had a tradition of — and on a site that is shown in pre-St George’s era maps (including one produced in 1892) to be occupied by a similarly proportioned structure, provides a strong hint that The White Rabbit was that older 1884 church. Along with this, the existence of a photograph taken in 1903 in Tanglin Barracks provides further evidence that the structure, in what is more or less its current form and possessing identical architectural features, was very likely to be that of the 1884 garrison church. The structure is identified as a “Chapel School” in maps of the barracks during the interwar period — a possible carry over from its use prior to St George’s being built. The use is consistent with that of buildings built to serve the religious needs of servicemen and their children in various other late 19th and early 20th century military barracks across the Commonwealth.

A view of the east end of the building with what is possibly the remodelled north side where the 1903 photograph could have been taken.

While St George’s continued in its use as a church following the late 1971 pull-out of British forces, the older church fell into disuse before becoming the Hebron Bible-Presbyterian Church’s chapel in 1979 until 1983 and then the New Life Baptist Church’s chapel from the late 1985 to 1993. It wasn’t until 2007 that the delightful old church saw life breathed into it again, when The White Rabbit took up tenancy. The restaurant opened the following year in 2008 and it hasn’t looked back since.

A view through the grilles of one of the lancet windows. The grille-work dates back to the building’s days as the Roman Catholic garrison church.

A westward view across the former parade grounds to The White Rabbit.

An eastward view across the former parade grounds to St George’s Church.

Another view of The White Rabbit.

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A comparison of the building seen in a Tanglin Barracks photograph dated 1903 with The White Rabbit today. Several of the building’s external features such the position of the pair of lancet windows with respect to a gothic arched doorway at what would have been the altar of the church, the gothic arched windows next to it and the label moulds and label stops above the openings match quite perfectly. (Do note that the top image is flipped along the horizontal axis – one explanation for this is that the photograph is taken on the other side of the building which has since been remodelled. This would also explain the slight differences in the structural column).

 

An 1892 map showing a building on the site of the present day The White Rabbit (just west of the Parade Ground) that is thought to have been the same building.

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The lovely red-brick residences of northern Singapore

Among the earliest permanent residences that the Admiralty’s contractor Sir John Jackson and Co put up in Sembawang as part of the construction of the naval base, are a lovely and quite unique collection of houses that are found in the vicinity of the dockyard.  Built from 1928 and completed in early 1929, three categories of these were built, the largest being those intended to house “superior” officers at Kings Avenue. There were also a number built to house subordinate officers at Canada Road, and a row at Wellington Road for chargemen.

The red-brick chargemen’s residences in the former naval base.

 

The same residences seen around the time of their completion in April 1929 (online at https://www.nas.gov.sg/archivesonline/).

The set of houses are quite unique in character and unlike the commonly seen PWD type designs seen in the residences erected in the naval based in the 1930s and also across many housing estates built for both the government and the military from the late 1920s into the 1930s, have a design that is quite strongly influenced by the Arts-and-Crafts architectural movement. Among their distinct features are steeply pitched hip roofs and fair-faced brick finishes.

Another view of the naval base chargemen’s residences.

It is not presently known what the future holds for these houses, which are now in their 92nd year of existence. Based on the URA Master Plan, the houses lie in an area earmarked for future residential use that is subject to detailed planning.

Residences for subordinate officers, set in the lush green surroundings that are also a feature of the naval base and many other housing estates built for European government and military officers in Singapore.

 

Subordinate officers’ residences at their completion in April 1929 (online at https://www.nas.gov.sg/archivesonline/).

 

Superior officers’ residences at their completion in April 1929 (online at https://www.nas.gov.sg/archivesonline/).

 

A Superior Officers’ residence seen today.

 

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Some other views 

Timber is used extensively in frames and floorboards …

… and also banisters.

Servants’ quarters and kitchens are arranged external to the houses.

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The war memorial at Bukit Batok

The Syonan Chureito (昭南忠霊塔) was a memorial to the fallen erected by the Japanese occupiers of Singapore built by Prisoners-of-War (POW) on Bukit Batok. While primarily intended to honour Japanese troops who fell during the Asia-Pacific war — it contained the remains of some 10,000 war dead (since moved to the Japanese Cemetery at Chuan Hoe Avenue) — the memorial also included a smaller section behind where a 10-foot high cross was put up to serve as a memorial for the allied soldiers.

The Syonan Chureito in 1942 (source: James Tann – http://ijamestann.blogspot.com/2012/06/bukit-batok-hill.html)

Japanese troops seen descending the steps of the Syonan Chureito’s in October 1942 – during the observation of the autumn Yasukuni Shrine festival.

The foundation stone for the chureito was laid in May 1942 by General Tomoyuki Yamashita and on 10 September 1942, the memorial was consecrated during a midday ceremony that was also attended by local representatives¹. Crowned by a 40-foot high cylindrical wooden pole-like structure mounted on a two-tier base at the top of a long flight of steps, was surrounded by a wooden fence.  Another ceremony was held a day later to unveil the Allied memorial during which a wreath was laid by Lt-Col Cranston Albury McEachern, commander of the 2/4th Anti-Tank Regiment in the Australian Imperial Force.  The Syonan Chureito, along with the Shinto shrine Syonan Jinja were ritually destroyed by the Japanese prior to their surrender to prevent their desecration. All that remains of the memorial is the flight of steps – which now leads to a fenced-off transmission tower.

A sketch of the chureito and the memorial cross for Allied soldiers.

The consecration ceremony and the unveiling the next day of the Allied memorial is seen in the following clips (the first one from 2:43 into the clip):

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Notes:

¹ The local representatives included Ibrahim Haji Yaacob, representing the Malay community. Ibrahim, who was the founder of the leftist Kesatuan Melayu Muda (KMM) at a time of rising Malay nationalism in the period just before the second world war, was among 150 nationalists who were detained in Changi prison by the British colonial authorities in late 1941 – with the intention of transferring him to India. He was released when the Japanese took control of Singapore and would later be appointed commander of the Tentera Sukarela – the Malay volunteer force raised to help in Japan’s defence of Singapore.  The KMM is thought to have been Malaya’s first genuine nationalist party and among its aims was establishing Melayu Raya – a union of Malaya, Singapore and the Dutch East Indies. Ibrahim fled to Indonesia following the Japanese defeat and died there in 1979.  The other community leaders present were Dr Lim Boon Keng, Dr Charles Joseph Pemberton Paglar and Srish Chandra Goho – all of whom would, in varying degrees, have suspicions of collaboration cast on them after the war.

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The public bathing pagar at Katong Park

Katong Park is where a last bastion of a 1870s coastal defence fort, built quite foolishly on sand, can be found. Once fronting the sea, the former defensive position turned recreational space, was also where a bathing pagar – the first to be established by the Municipal Commission for public bathing – was to be found.

Children at the bathing pagar at Katong Park, 1969 (Kim Hocker Collection).

The construction of the pagar – an enclosure extending from the sea shore originally made of wooden stakes – came on the back of the commission’s thrust to provide public facilities for sporting pursuits (see: A short history of public Swimming Pools in Singapore and Parting Glances: the boxing gym at Farrer Park) in the 1920s and 1930s. The original public pagar at Katong was opened by Mr William Bartley in December 1931 – in the same year that Singapore’s first public swimming pool, built using the disused service reservoir at Mount Emily, also opened.

Another view of the pagar in 1969 (Kim Hocker Collection).

Private bathing pagars were especially common then. They were constructed primarily to keep bathers safe and keep the sharks outs and were found at seaside homes and hotels, and at private swimming clubs. A shark attack in 1925, which resulted in the death of an unfortunate bather, Ms Doris Bowyer-Smyth, prompted the Singapore Swimming Club to erect its pagar soon after.

A bathing pagar seen in the sea in front of Beaulieu House, which had been a private seaside residence before it was acquired for the construction of the Naval Base in the 1920s (photo: National Archives of Singapore).

The Chinese Swimming Club’s Bathing Pagar.

The Katong Park pagar,  which was concretised in the 1950s, stood until work on reclamation started in 1971. All that now remains to remind us of the seaside – the reason for Katong Park’s coming into being in 1928, is the last bastion of Fort Tanjong Katong.

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Fort Tanjong Katong

Among the first set of instructions given by Raffles to Farquhar upon the establishment of Singapore as an East India Company trading post was to have a defensive position in the Tanjong Katong area – at Sandy Point or Tanjong Rhu. The thought of a fort was in fact broached from time to time in reviews conducted of Singapore defences, but it wasn’t until 1878 that a coastal battery at Tanjong Katong would be established with a strengthening of coastal defences in the face of a possible Russian threat.

The sandy base meant that the fort’s high range finding tower moved with each firing, not only requiring a recalibration of the range finders with each firing but also made them impossible to use when the tower shook. The fort, built at sea level, also acquired a reputation for being a “wash-out fort” and was decommission in the early 1900. The fort’s southeast bastion, which were uncovered several times following the conversion of the grounds of the fort into Katong Park were once again uncovered in 2004 and can now be found at a corner of Katong Park.

Fort Tanjong Katong Source: Wellcome Collection (CC BY 4.0)

 

Fort Tanjong Katong’s southeast bastion.

 

Another view of Fort Tanjong Katong’s southeast bastion.

 

The area where the sea – and the pagar was.

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The Jacksons of Sembawang

Sembawang is one of just a few places in Singapore in which still holds the charm of a bygone era. The modern world, dominated by the sea of concrete is however, knocking increasing at its door; its latest convert being the the wonderful settings that lent context to (old) Admiralty House. The National Monument, built as the home of Commander of the huge British naval base in 1940, has seen the isolation it was provided with taken away in the effort to provide residents in the area with a sports and community hub. Similarly threatened with modernisation is the area by the coast just east of Sembawang Park and once an area of idyllic seaside villages where the villages of the new world have started to take root. One project that quite thankfully bucks the trend is the recently announced dementia-care village at Gibraltar Crescent. Currently the subject of a URA tender exercise, the village will make use of existing structures inherited from the days of the naval base and (hopefully) preserve some of the environment that the structures now find themselves in – at least for a 30-year period following the award of the tender.

A window into the past.

A quiet area of seemingly typical colonial residences,  a closer examination of the buildings of Gibraltar Crescent will reveal that they are actually quite unique even if they bear quite a fair bit of resemblance to and have many of the features of the residences that have come to be described as “black and white houses”. With the exception of a building that served as the former Dockyard Theatre or the “Japanese Theatre”, the longer than typical structures are raised on concrete columns of a height sufficient to permit a person to walk comfortably underneath the floorboards. Wood is also the main material on the buildings and masonry seems to have been used quite sparingly and used, besides in the supporting columns, in wet areas and in the ground level service structures. Quite interesting because of the wood featured in the buildings’ exterior walls, the structures tended to look more black than white in the days of the naval base as black bituminous paints that weatherproofed the wood.

A view towards the former Dockyard Theatre – a uniquely built structure along Gibraltar Crescent. It is the only large building along the street that is not raised on columns.

There are quite good reasons for the features adopted in the buildings, which were among the first to be erected by the contractor for the naval base, Sir John Jackson & Co, for the purposes of housing its European staff. Known as The “Jacksons” for this reason, they were completed in mid-1929. Features found in other “black and whites”, such as the raised supports, generous verandahs and openings, pitched roofs and wooden floorboards, kept the interiors cool, airy and bright. Although now among the oldest “permanent” residences in the former naval base, as well as being the first to have been purpose built, the buildings were intended as quasi-permanent residences and hence the extensive use of wood.

The Jacksons are raised on concrete supports and feature wooden walls except in the service areas and wet spaces.

Two “Jacksons” under construction in April 1929 (online at National Archives of Singapore).

It is also interesting to note how the various residences, while similar in appearance, have been laid out in what seems to be two distinct arrangements. One type seems to have had more of a layout with more common spaces and was perhaps used to house the lower ranking staff. This design has a centrally arranged service area and besides the access staircases at the back has two arranged at each end in the buildings’ front. The other design seems to have been subdivided into individual units, each with a service area and with what appears to have been an access staircase at both the front and the back.

A unit with a layout that lends itself to a more dorm-like use.

A Jackson which would have been subdivided into three individual units – each with its own service area.

Reports relating to the construction of the base, point to it being one of the largest engineering projects in the world at the time. The contractor employed a daily average of 3,000 coolies and had at least 30 European staff at any one point supervising through the 8 year period (from 1928 to 1936) over which the main contract was executed. The reports point to some 23 residences were built for European staff, along with numerous coolie lines. The residences were eventually handed over the the Admiralty and several among the 23 survived including the structures that are now the subject of the tender survived the war.

The front of one of the Jacksons with projections that would have served as staircase landings.

An exception may have been the Dockyard Theatre, the site of which, based on older maps seems to have been occupied by another of the “Jacksons”. Thought to have been constructed during the occupation – hence the references to it as the “Japanese Theatre” – the multi-use hall is built on a ground-level platform of concrete and is also built primarily of wood. The theatre was used as a to hold live performances including pantomimes and performances by the Naval Base Singers, as well as serving as a hall in which badminton was played in the period after the war until the British pull-out in 1971.

One of two access staircases at the rear in the first type of residence.

The verandah of the second type with privacy screens at what would have been the boundaries of the individual units.

Inside one of the residences.

Inside one of the residences.

Inside one of the residences. 

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News related to the tender for the dementia care village:

• Tender launch of site at Gibraltar Crescent for dementia care village (URA, 16 Jul 2019)
• Singapore’s first dementia care village to be built on site near Sembawang Park (CNA 16 Jul 2019)
• Singapore to develop first dementia care village in Sembawang; agencies call for public tender (ST 16 Jul 2019)
• Site at Gibraltar Crescent up for sale, to build Singapore’s first dementia care village (Today 16 Jul 2019)

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Discovering the former View Road Hospital (2019)

Registration for the event has closed as of 7.40 pm on 15 July 2019.

More on the series, which is being organised in collaboration with the Singapore Land Authority (SLA): Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets.

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No. 10 View Road is perhaps best known as the former View Road Hospital, a branch of Woodbridge Hospital (now the Institute of Mental Health) until the early 2000s. The hospital housed and treated patients undergoing rehabilitation with many finding employment in the area.

The complex, which sits on a hill close to Woodlands Waterfront, does have a much longer history. Completed in late 1941 in the western side of the Admiralty’s huge naval base, its grounds also contains a unique above-ground bomb-proof office. The building also provided accommodation for the Naval Base Police Force’s Asian policemen and their families from the late 1950s to 1972, during which time the Gurdwara Sabha Naval Police – a Sikh temple that has since merged with the Gurdwara Sahib Yishun – was found on its grounds. The building has also been re-purposed in recent times as as a foreign workers dormitory.

The visit, which is supported by the Singapore Land Authority (SLA), provides participants with the opportunity to learn more about the site through a guided walk through parts of the property.

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When and where:
27 July 2019, 10 am to 11.30 am
10 View Rd Singapore 757918

How to register:

Do note that spaces are limited and as this is a repeat visit, kindly register only if you have not previously participated.

Participants must be of ages 18 and above.

A unique registration is required for each participant. Duplicate registrations in the same name will count as one.

Registration shall be made using the form at this link (closed as of 7.40 pm 15 Jul 2019).

A confirmation will be sent to the email address used in registration to all successful registrants one week prior to the visit. This email will confirm your place and also include instructions pertaining to the visit. Please ensure that the address entered on the form is correct.

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The STD hospital at Tanglin and a world renowned allergist

The relative isolation of Loewen by Dempsey Hill within the former Tanglin Barracks is a clue to how its buildings might originally have been used, as a military hospital that was known as Tanglin Military Hospital. Established at the end of the 1800s in what were attap roofed barrack-like buildings, it served as the military’s main medical facility for its European contingent of troops on Singapore’s main island until Alexandra Military Hospital was opened in mid-1940.

No. 32 Company, RAMC at Tanglin Military Hospital c. 1930 (source: Wellcome Library via Wikipedia).

With British units involved in the Great War in Europe, Tanglin Military Hospital was manned by members of the Singapore Volunteer Field Ambulance Company during that period.

The hospital, which has certainly had a colourful past, was among the locations where the Singapore Mutiny of 1915 was played out. That incident saw a party of Sepoy soldiers raiding Tanglin Barracks. Among the locations the mutineers entered was the hospital. Patients were driven out and personnel shot at. The mutineers succeeded in scattering guards and liberating Germans prisoners. The hospital staff were reported to have “displayed great resource and bravery in attending to the wounded and in remaining within the vicinity of their post” during the incident.

Block 72 during days when the Ministry of Defence occupied Tanglin Barracks. Buildings within the cluster at Loewen was put to use by the SAF Medical Corps, HQ 9 Division and also the Music and Drama Company.

The opening of the new military hospital at Alexandra, saw the hospital’s role reduced to one used primarily for the care of soldiers afflicted with skin conditions and diseases of a sexual nature. A significant part of the hospital was in fact already dedicated to this even before the move. Infections of the nature were apparently quite common among the troops and as a main hospital, one of Tanglin’s two large ward buildings was already given to this use.

The former military hospital’s general ward.

It was in its days as a hospital for skin diseases and STDs that a young doctor, Dr William Frankland, was posted to it. Now 106 (and still working!), Dr Frankland has since acquired the reputation of being the “Grandfather of allergy” – for his pioneering work in the field. His remarkable life and accomplishments has been celebrated in many ways, including through the publication of his biography “From Hell Island To Hay Fever: The Life of Dr Bill Frankland” in October 2018. This biography would probably not have read very differently, or not have been written at all, if a toss of a coin not long after he had arrived in Singapore late in 1941 had not been in Dr Frankland’s favour.

The building where the hospital’s dermatology and venereal diseases wards were located.

The toss decided who would take on the seemingly more appealing role of treating patients with dermatological conditions and venereal disease and involved Dr Frankland and another newly arrived colleague with the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC), Captain R. L. Parkinson. A choice had been offered to both and it was either to have been this, or an Anaesthetist at Alexandra, which neither doctor fancied. Quite sadly for Parkinson that toss would seal his fate. He was killed on the 14th day of February 1942 during the Alexandra Hospital massacre, while administering anaesthesia to a patient on the operating table.

Another view of the buildings used by the military hospital at Loewen by Dempsey Hill.

The long career of Dr Frankland, who is now considered to be Britain’s oldest doctor, has been especially eventful. He is best known for the introduction of pollen counts in weather reports. He also has had the privilege of working under Sir Alexander Fleming and counted among his patients, a certain Saddam Hussein. More information on Dr Frankland can be found at the following links:

• The 106-year-old doctor – British Medical Association
• Grandfather of allergy: Dr William Frankland, the 106-year-old doctor – Imperial (College) Medicine Blog
• Japanese Soldier about to bayonet me – BBC HardTalk

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This story was shared during the Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets State Property visit to Dempsey Hill “Healing in the Garrison” in November 2018. The visit was supported by the Singapore Land Authority, Dempsey Hill and Saint George’s Church.

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Serendipity in the garrison church

Places take on a greater meaning when we are made aware of the associations they have had; with people who have passed through them, or with their connection with significant events of our past.  Knowing these, and the stories that can be told of them, adds a new dimension to spaces and buildings to aid in our appreciation of them.

Saint George’s Church – the former Tanglin garrison church, one of the sites visited during November’s edition of #SLASecretSpaces.

Through the conduct of the series of guided State Property visits, “Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets“,  many of these associations have come of light. The series, which is supported by the Singapore Land Authority, provides an opportunity for members of the public to visit usually closed-off State-held properties and often sees the participants with connections that may not otherwise have come to light. Examples include the much misrepresented Old Changi Hospital, the also much misrepresented former View Road Hospital, Kinloss House, and 5 Kadayanallur Street – just to name a few.

Inside Saint George’s Church.

The first Saturday in November, when a visit to the former Tanglin Barracks took place, threw up a connection, albeit of a different kind, that was established quite by chance. That would never have been possible if not for a series of coincidences that culminated in a guest, Garth O’Connell, making a discovery that he might not otherwise have known about. This serendipitous find was made inside Saint George’s Church right at the end of the visit and is perhaps best summed up in Garth’s own words:

“Just had a superb heritage walk around the former Australian and British Army base of Tanglin Barracks … at the end I had a huge serendipitous event relating to Bob Page DSO¹ which freaked me and our tour group out! 😮

Those on the tour were given a free hard copy of the church centenary book at the end of tour. I put it my half full plastic bag which had bottles of water, tissues, map and umbrella. As I’m walking around the church taking pics the bag broke after a few minutes so sat down right away as the contents are all about to spill out and cause a scene. I sit down on the pews at the closest seat and it’s the only one dedicated to Bob Page DSO. I’ve given talks on him at work, I met his widow before she died about 2 years ago and every time I come to Singapore I visit his grave at Kranji War Cemetery. Bloody huge coincidence me just sitting down next to him in that big church.”

¹Capt. Robert Charles Page, DSO, an Australian war hero who was executed by the Japanese in July 1945 for his involvement in Operation Rimau.

Garth with the kneeling cushion on which a dedication to Capt. Robert Page DSO is found. The book and the broken plastic bag is seen next to him (photo courtesy of Simone Lee).

This all seems rather uncanny, especially when one considers some other coincidences. Garth, who is with the Australian War Memorial (AWM) and based in Canberra, would not have been able to participate if not for a stopover he was making en-route to Kanchanaburi (where he will be attending a Remembrance Sunday event). It also turns out that the event, on 3 November, came just two days after what would have been the Pages 75th wedding anniversary –  Capt. Page and his wife Roma married on 1 November 1943. The first day of November also happens to be the day in 1945 that Mrs. Page received the telegram with news confirming her husband’s death.

A close up of the dedication on the kneeling cushion of the seat.

The wartime exploits of Capt. Page as a member of ‘Z’ Special Unit, are well recorded. The outfit, set up to carry out operations behind enemy lines, made a daring raid into the waters of Singapore in September 1943. Six very brave men including the then Lt. Page, paddled in teams of two through Japanese held waters in and around the harbour in canoes to sabotage Japanese shipping. This operation, Operation Jaywick, the 75th anniversary of which was commemorated recently, met with great success and resulted in the sinking or the disabling of 7 ships.

Capt. Robert Charles Page’s headstone in Kranji War Cemetery.

While the operation was went smoothly for the members of ‘Z’ Special Force, it was not without any fallout. One consequence of it was the so-called “Double Tenth Incident” that saw 57 civilians, who were wrongly suspected of having aided the operation, arrested and tortured. Among those arrested was Elizabeth Choy. While Mrs. Choy lived to tell the horrendous tale, 15 of her comrades did not, perishing at the hands of the Kempeitai.

Group portrait after the completion of Operation Jaywick, “Z” Special Unit, Australian Services Reconnaissance Department, showing the personnel who carried out the operation. (Source: AWM, Copyright Expired).

Following on the success of Jaywick, a second operation, Operation Rimau, was planned and in September to October 1944, executed. This operation turned out quite differently and had to be aborted during its execution and 23 men lost their lives as a result. Twelve were killed in the attempt to escape through the islands of what had previously been the Dutch East Indies. The 11 who survived initially were hunted down and eventually captured in the islands of the Riau and moved to Singapore. One succumbed to malaria after being brought across, while the remaining 10, Capt. Page included, were tried, convicted of spying, and sentenced to death.

Then Lt. Robert Page, Major Ivan Lyon, MBE, and Lt Donald Montague Noel Davidson, seen after the successful completion of Operation Jaywick. (Source: AWM, Copyright expired – public domain).

The 10 were beheaded on 7 July 1945, just over a month before the war would end. The very courageous manner in which they met their deaths is captured in a headline of a 1960 Straits Times article, which read:  “The men who went to their death laughing“.

The historic marker at the Rimau Commandos execution site.

A historical marker now stands at the execution site and provides a grim reminder of the sacrifice that the men made. This marker can be found close to U-Town,  at the Clementi Road end of Dover Road. The remains of the men, which were located after the war, were transferred to a collective grave in Kranji War Cemetery. The grave is marked by a row of 10 headstones, each with a name of one of the executed men.

The 10 headstones at the grave of the ten executed commandos.

Another view of the headstone of Capt. Robert Charles Page DSO.

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More on Capt. Robert Charles Page DSO, Jaywick and Rimau, and Mrs. Roma Page:

• The men who went to their death laughing (Straits Times 28 Feb 1960)
• Bio of Robert Charles Page (Australian Dictionary of Biography)
• Execution of Captured Rimau Commandos Historic Marker (Roots.sg)
• Operation RIMAU: The tragic sequel to Jaywick (Royal Australian Navy)
• Operation Rimau 1944 – Search For Grave Sites 1984 (Naval Historical Society of Australia)
• Ceremony commemorates Australian WWII commando raid (Australian High Commission, 2013)
• Krait and Operation Jaywick (Royal Australian Navy)
• Operation Jaywick (AWM)
• The Jaywick Operation (BBC WW2 People’s War)
• Three days, one date, in the life of Roma Page
  

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LEST WE FORGET

Remembrance Sunday 11 November 2018

Remembrance Sunday, which falls on the Sunday closest to 11 November – the anniversary of the end of the Great War, provides an opportunity to pay our respects  to and remember the Rimau heroes and the many, many more who made the ultimate sacrifice in the name of peace and freedom. The commemoration this year coincides with the 100th anniversary of the end of the Great War.

Services will be held at various locations in Singapore on the day, including at Kranji War Cemetery. More information, provided by the British High Commission (which is co-hosting the Kranji commemoration with the Singapore Armed Forces Veterans’ League) can be found below.

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The British High Commission in partnership with the Singapore Armed Forces Veterans’ League will be hosting the annual Remembrance Sunday service at Kranji War Cemetery on Sunday, 11 November 2018. The service starts at 7.30am, guest should arrive and be seated or in position by 7.15am.

The 30-minute ceremony will be attended by members of the diplomatic corps; Singapore and foreign military representatives and religious leaders and is held to pay tribute to all who died in wars so that the generations after them could live in peace.

In the UK, Remembrance Sunday is held on the Sunday nearest to Remembrance Day on 11 November; the date marks the official end of the First World War on 11 November 1918. This year, the dates also marks the 100th Anniversary of the end of World War 1.

Event details

Date : Sunday, 11 November 2018

Time : 7.30 am – Please arrive by 7.15am.

Venue: Kranji War Cemetery, 9, Woodlands Road, Singapore 738656

Dress code: Smart casual.

To note:

– Please carry an umbrella as shelter is limited in the event of rain.

– There are no restrooms on the cemetery grounds

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Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets : Healing in the Garrison

November’s #SLASecretSpaces guided visit takes participants to the former Tanglin Barracks. There an introduction would be made to two of the barracks’ institutions of healing: physical healing in the form of the former military hospital, and spiritual, in the form of a beautiful garrison church.

The barracks traces its history to the early 1860s, when it was among the earliest that were purpose-built in Singapore. The design of the original barracks is attributed to Captain George Collyer (after whom Collyer Quay is named). Many of the structures that we see today are the interventions of the early 20th century when the current church building as well as what we see today of former military hospital were put up.

Singapore’s main military hospital before the completion of the modern hospital at Alexandra in 1940, the complex featured three main buildings. The larger two were where large and airy wards were laid out. The visit will end in St. George’s Church, which although is no longer a garrison church, is still very much in use. Completed in 1913, the history of the church actually dates back to the early days of the barracks. The church was gazetted as a National Monument on 10 November 1978.

More on the history of both institutions will be shared during the visit.

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Visit Details & Registration

When : 3 November 2018, 9 to 11 am

Where : Loewen Cluster, Dempsey Hill (the visit will end inside St. George’s Church)

Participants should be of ages 18 and above.

A unique registration will be required for each participant and each registration admits only one (1) person.
(Duplicate registrations in the same name shall count as one registration).

Please register only if you are sure that you will be able to make the visit.

To register, please visit this link: https://goo.gl/forms/B8g3tDo5eGWfpTVl1 [Please note that all spaces for the visit have been taken up]

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Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets #SLASecretSpaces is organised with the support and collaboration of the Singapore Land Authority.

Both St. George’s Church and Country City Investment (CCI), which manages Dempsey Hill, have also lent their support to this visit.

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More photos of St. George’s Church

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News on the series:

• The Straits Times 23 Jul 2017
• LAND Sep 2017
• TheSmartLocal 28 Nov 2017
• TimeOut SG 11 Apr 2018
• The Sunday Times 27 May 2018
• SG Magazine 5 July 2018
• Challenge 23 Aug 2018
• Business Times 21 Sep 2018

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Dark clouds on the northern horizon

I have long thought of the Sembawang area as a final frontier, and a last part of modern Singapore in which much of yesterday remains to be discovered. Progress is however eating away at these remnants of a soon to be forgotten time; the latest bit of Sembawang being absorbed into the brave new world is the area’s last forested hill on which the grand Admiralty House is perched. Now with almost the entire western slope of the hill denuded, the settings that provided the house with its charm and also its much needed isolation for its eight decades of existence, will never again be the same.

Dark clouds on a northern horizon … the denuded western slope of the last forested hill in Sembawang.

Completed in 1940, the house with its distinctive Arts and Crafts inspired flavour, was built as the residence of the Rear Admiral, Malaya. Its scale and appearance would have been most fitting to house the  commander of the then newly opened Naval Base – the largest and most important of Britain’s bases east of the Suez. It would only acquire the name best known to most, Admiralty House, when it became the residence of the Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Navy’s Far East Station in 1958.

Another view showing the extent of the clearance on the western slope.

Handed over to the Singapore Government in 1975 after a spell as the residence of the Commander of the ANZUK Force, the house – and the hill has since resisted the advance of concrete that has seen a new HDB town sprout up around it. Time was finally called on the hill when plans for a sports and community hub surfaced in the 2014 Master Plan. At the project’s launch in 2016, an announcement was made that some 200 of the hill’s mature trees, just over a quarter of the existing trees, would be retained – with a greater number of new trees planted. While this may be the case – even with most of the hill’s western slope now stripped bare – the terracing necessary for the project and the construction of new structures and footpaths, will permanently alter the hill’s character and add much unwelcome concrete to an already heavily concretised area.</p?

The still forested hill, seen in July 2016.

The hub, which will feature a food centre, a swimming complex, other sports and recreational facilities, is due to be opened in phases from the first half of 2020. It will eventually incorporate the former Admiralty House, a National Monument since 2002. Work on this phase will commence when Furen International School, vacates the house in 2020.

Another view of the hill in 2016.

More on the hub and the former Admiralty House can be found at:

• The Sembawang Sports and Community Hub
• An ‘English country manor’ in Singapore’s north once visited by the Queen
• The last forested hill in Sembawang

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The front of the former Admiralty House.

The house has been likened to an English country manor.

The view the house commanded until fairly recently.

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Parting glances: the “mini cantonment” with a view

The time has come to bid farewell to Normanton Park, a housing estate with a military past in more ways than one. Built on part of the site of the Admiralty’s former Normanton Oil Depot, the estate initially housed regular military officers and their families in an attempt to build camaraderie.

HDB built private estate with a view – Normanton Park.

Completed in late 1977, Normanton Park offered a total of 488 “low-cost” housing units; 440 of which were in its five 23-storey high point-blocks. Another 48 were found in eight 3-storey walk-up apartment blocks. Prices ranged from $36,500 to $39,500 for the 122 square metre point-block units, which were laid out in the same fashion as HDB 5-room point-block flats of the mid-1970s). The larger 153 square metre walk-up apartments were sold at $65,000. These were offered to regular officers of the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) with the thought that a cantonment like environment could be created to foster bonding among military officers in the same way officers’ messes did for the British military and also bring wives and families of military officers together.

Residents are in the midst of moving out (one of the eight 3-storey walk up apartment blocks is seen in the background).

Designed and built by the HDB, the estate was also provided with a community hall, space for a supermarket and kindergarten, a multi-storey car-park and recreational facilities such as a swimming pool and tennis courts. It was privatised in 1993 and that was the point when curbs on the sales of its units to non-military personnel were lifted. What made it an attractive prospect was its location and the wonderful views that the estate’s point-blocks offered of the lush green spaces around Alexandra Park and Kent Ridge.  It was sold under a collective-sale arrangement a year ago. Its residents have begun the exodus out of the estate with some saying goodbye to four decades of memories.

The swimming pool.

Plaque unveiled by Dr Goh Keng Swee at the official opening of Normanton Park in April 1978 – being removed for safekeeping (photo: courtesy of a resident).

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Parting glances …

Playground with the initials of the Normanton Park Residents Association (N.P.R.A.).

The entrance to Normanton Park.

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Goodbye….Normanton Park (1978 – 2018) – a video made by an ex-resident

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The Admiralty’s Normanton (Oil Fuel) Depot

The Normanton Oil Depot was set up on the grounds of Normanton Barracks and a rifle range in the 1920s to serve as fleet fuel reserves, just as the Naval Base was being established in the north of the island. The depot was set on fire on 12 February 1942 in the final days before the Fall of Singapore. This was to prevent the oil reserve falling into the hands of the enemy.

The Admiralty’s burning Normanton Fuel Oil Depot. The depot was set on fire on 12 February 1942 in the final days before the Fall of Singapore to prevent the oil reserve falling into the hands of the enemy (photo: Queenstown – My Community).

What could be remnants of the Oil Depot …

What may have been a valve pit belonging to the oil depot. Two can be found on the grounds of Normanton Park and one just beyond the perimeter fence.

A peek into the pit.

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