Much has been made about the “mysterious” solitary Japanese tomb sitting on the southern slopes of Mount Faber. The tomb, which could be thought of as a memorial to a painful time in Singapore’s history, contains the remains of a member of staff of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ (MHI) Kobe shipyard, a naval architect by the name of Komoto Ekasa (or Omoto Egasa). Komoto was among an group of 94 MHI staff who had been sent from Kobe to Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) in January 1942 in anticipation of the Fall of Singapore. Arriving in Singapore on 2 March 1942, the MHI employees’ immediate task had been to revive the damaged Singapore Harbour Board (SHB) repair facilities at Keppel Harbour to the point that it could be put in operation to support the war effort.
The solitary tomb on the slopes of Mount Faber.
Enlisting the help of former executives and workers of SHB, MHI’s team was able to rapidly restore three of SHB’s graving docks at Keppel Harbour in a matter of weeks. By the third week of March, emergency repairs could be carried on the Imperial Japanese Navy oiler Tsurumi, which had been hit by a Dutch torpedo in the waters of the East Indies early that same month. By June, much of the repair facilities had been fully restored and was subsequently run as the No. 1 yard of MHI’s Syonan Shipyard (Syonan Shipyard’s No. 2 Yard was at Tanjong Rhu). Unfortunately for the hardworking Komoto, who had been appointed as the shipyard’s manager, he fell ill and passed on the 18th day of July 1942.
Singapore Harbour Board Repair Facilities included graving docks at Keppel Harbour and Tanjong Pagar.
Komoto’s efforts would however not be in vain. While MHI’s Syonan Shipyard may have been unable to support the Japanese shipbuilding efforts due to material and machinery shortages as was intended, it proved to be a great asset to the Japanese fleet as a repair yard. Some 2364 ships were repaired by the shipyard from March 1942 to August 1945 even if only a handful of ships were built. The yard was also able to provide employment to local workers, with the number of local employees exceeding 3000 at the peak of its activities. The facilities would however suffer from shortages of spares, a lack of maintenance, and also damage from Allied bombing in 1944 and 1945. By the time of the Japanese surrender in August 1945, much was left in a state of disrepair. Extensive rehabilitation work and expense was required after the war to restore the facilities.
The cellar of the much storied Keppel House. There has even been speculation that Yamashita’s gold is buried beyond the walls at the far end.
About Komoto Ekasa (小本江笠)and his link to Keppel House
Born in March 1895, Komoto was a graduate of Department of Marine Engineering of Tokyo Imperial University and joined MHI’s Kobe Shipyard and Machinery Works soon after his graduation in 1920. His death and place of burial was apparently not forgotten and several members of the naval architect’s family have paid visits to the grave over the years. A participant during a recent tour I conducted to Keppel House mentioned that a granddaughter of the naval architect had been in contact with her and had revealed that Omoto along with several other Syonan Shipyard staff members were residents of house (which the site of the grave had once been on the grounds of) during their time here. More on Keppel House can be found at: A house on which Singapore’s modern port was built.
A Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets tour to Keppel House on 29 Oct 2023. The tour was conducted with the kind support of the Singapore Land Authority.
There is little doubt that Singapore’s port has been a key driver of its success. The roots of the port as we know of it today were really laid by commercial dock companies established in the mid-1800s, chief amongst which were the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company and the Patent Slip and Dock Company (later the New Harbour Dock Company). Their possession of wharfage originally put up to support repair and resupply activities in the decade that preceded the opening of the Suez Canal, placed Singapore in an excellent position to meet the growth in shipping that followed and the advances in ship technology that had already been taking place.
Singapore Harbour Board Map, c. 1920s, showing location of Keppel House
Through consolidation, a duopoly was formed between the two dock companies before collaboration, first through a somewhat monopolistic joint-purse arrangement and eventually, through a merger saw to the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company emerging as a single big player in the provision of port and ship repair services in the final years of the nineteenth century. A direct result of this was the Straits Settlements government expropriation of the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company and the formation of Tanjong Pagar Dock Board . As a state-controlled body run with the interests of Singapore in mind, the board which morphed into the Singapore Harbour Board (SHB) and from 1964, the Port of Singapore Authority (PSA), was able to develop the port in a structured manner that was necessary to meet the challenges that were to follow.
Stairway to place of much mystery, 11 Keppel Hill was built to house a manager of the New Harbour Dock Company and is thought to have been completed around 1899. The house, which has invited much interest, has more than a tale or two to tell.
Today, all that seems left to tell the story of the port’s origins are a handful of historical assets and former graving docks that now enhance residential developments around Keppel Bay as water features. Among the artefacts are those that came into the possession of Mapletree during the corporatisation of PSA. These include a steam crane that can now be found outside the revamped and somewhat unfriendly former St James’ Power Station, now the Singapore headquarters of Dyson. What could be thought of as another piece in the jigsaw would the former residence of the Chairman of SHB. This sits somewhat forlornly in isolation, in a quiet corner on the southern slope of Mount Faber. What I find especially interesting about the mansion is that it stands to recall the original players in the port’s operations having been completed just as the ball on the eventual formation of the Tanjong Pagar Dock Board was set in motion and is thus a marker of a significant point in the port’s history.
Perched on the southern slope of Mount Faber, the house would have offered an wonderful view of Keppel Harbour when it was first built.
The house in question, lies close to the reservoir that was (allegedly) rediscovered in 2014, at 11 Keppel Hill. Completed in the final years of the 1800s and on land that was owned by the New Harbour Dock Company, it would have been erected to house the company’s most senior manager, being the largest of a cluster of new residences designed by Lermit and Westerhout that company had been in the process of erecting around and after 1897. While I have not come across plans for the house at 11 Keppel Hill, there seems to be several similarities in the plans developed by the architects for the other bungalows. This includes a central air and light well (if I can call it that) that is topped by a jack roof. A mention of what appears to be the house in question can also be found in a 1899 newspaper article. That describes a climb made by a party from the dock company from a reservoir it was constructing on the slopes of Mount Faber to the site of its “new house”. A description of its location of the house was also provided, with the house being “overlooked by the Mount Faber flagstaff”, and that it commanded a “splendid view of New Harbour and its surroundings.” The house, is the only one of the cluster of residences, one of which was Keppel Bungalow, that has been left standing.
An interesting feature of the house is a set of cast iron columns mounted on a concrete base. The rather incongruous overhang that the columns support would probably have been an upper floor verandah that someone saw fit to enclose.
With the amalgamation of the two dock companies, the house was named “Keppel House” and housed the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company’s Resident Civil Engineer, a position that was created in 1901 with the extensive construction works that the company had embarked on in mind. The first to hold the position was a Mr J Llewelyn Holmes, who left the position in June 1903. Holmes’ replacement, Mr Alan Railton, was known to have taken up residence at Keppel House.
Close up of the base of an iron column.
Having been left vacant following the expropriation, Keppel House was then put up for rent before becoming the official residence of the Chairman of the SHB some time around 1918. It was then already occupied by Mr Stanley Arthur Lane. Lane’s move into the house occured sometime around 1916. A civil engineer, once of Sir John Jackson and Company, Lane came to Singapore late in 1907 to take up the role of Assistant Manager with the Tanjong Pagar Dock Board. Often acting as the Chairman of the Singapore Harbour Board in the absence of his predecessor John Rumney Nicholson, Lane’s appointment as Chairman came in 1918.
Stanley Lane, a resident of 11 Keppel Hill from around 1916 to 1923.
Keppel House most eventful years would come with the appointment of Mr George Trimmer — Sir George Trimmer from 1937, as Chairman upon Lane’s retirement in 1923. Trimmer retired in 1938, having overseen a massive port expansion programme that added almost a kilometre of new wharfage to accommodate large ocean-going vessels and added a number of new transit godowns. Trimmer was known to be an excellent host. It was also during Trimmer’s tenure at Keppel House that the nearby reservoir doubled up as a private swimming pool for the house’s residents and its guests.
Sir George Trimmer, a long time resident of Keppel House.
An especially interesting event that took place during Trimmer’s stay in Keppel House was the successful transmission of both live and recorded music from it to a shortwave transmitter several miles away and then over the air. The experiment was conducted by an amateur radio broadcaster, who was also an employee of SHB, Robert Earle. Earle ran a radio station, V1SAB, with his wife for several years in the 1930s, broadcasting late in the evening twice a week.
The garage and the servants’ quarters. The house would have had stables originally.
Trimmer’s successor was Mr H K Rodgers, whose confirmation as Chairman and General Manager of the SHB was confirmed in August 1939 just as the dark clouds of war gathered over Europe. Rodgers would soon find himself caught up in the SHB’s own preparations for war. Keppel House would itself become a venue for events connect with the war in Europe and later, with the war’s arrival to Singapore’s shores. The performance of Dutch choir at a 1941 Christmas party thrown by Rodgers, saw guests, which reported numbered a hundred, join in the singing of Silent Night, Holy Night and Noel. Rodgers, would soon find himself organising an evacuation of SHB’s European staff, many of whom left Singapore on board the Bagan — a Penang ferry — on 11 February 1942 with Singapore’s fall seemingly imminent. Rodgers, who saw to the organisation of the evacuation from his residence, would himself leave Singapore early on 14 February 1942 — a day before Singapore’s inglorious fall — on the Tenggaroh, a launch that belonged to the Sultan of Johor. Rodgers eventually found his way to Australia, having made his way to Sumatra on the Tenggaroh. He returned to Singapore in 1946 to take up the role of the Managing Director of United Engineers Limited, a firm which operated a shipyard at Tanjong Rhu.
Iron balustrades on the rear verandah.
The Japanese Occupation, saw the operation of SHB’s repair facilities as the Syonan Shipyard by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) with staff from MHI’s Kobe yard. The first batch of MHI employees arrived in Singapore in March 1942 and immediately set about the task of restoring the damaged facilities. The working conditions at the yard took their toll on the MHI staff. At the end of 1944, some 15% of MHI employees sent to Singapore had either perished or return home due to illness. Among those who died was an engineer whose tomb can be found near Keppel House. It is quite probably that the engineer, as well as other members of MHI’s Syonan Shipyard’s senior staff, were in residence at Keppel House during this time.
A view of the rear of the house.
After the war, the house reverted to being a residence for the SHB Chairman with Mr H B Basten being its first post-occupation resident. The arrangement would end in 1964 with the formation of PSA. The house found several uses over the years, becoming the PSA Central Training School in the 1970s, following which it was leased out as offices. Its tenants included a management consulting firm and an architectural firm who maintained flats on the upper floor for its staff. The house, which is currently vacant, was part of a group of houses on the southern ridges that were given conservation status in 2005.
This visit to Keppel House was carried out with the kind permission of the Singapore Land Authority.
Together with 9 other bloggers and thanks to Tigerair Philippines and the Philippine Department of Tourism, I found myself on a dream trip to Boracay in July 2013. Read about the fantastic experience I had at Boracay Island Escapade or on my blog.
Courtesy of the Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB), I had the opportunity to have a 4 day adventure in Hong Kong with 9 other bloggers. To read our collective Hong Kong Travel Blog entries, please click on the icon below:
The Long and Winding Road 