14th February


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hwchoy

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Jul 16, 2003
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Tampines, Singapore.
www.hexazona.com
63 years ago today, one of the last defending battles for the City of Singapore was lost. Tomorrow (63 years ago), the British will surrender the Crown Colony of Singapore to the invading Japanese.

For those celebrating Valentine's Day, remember the other significance of 14th February. After you bring your roses to your love, you could also bring some to the Kranji War Memorial.

For those shooting butterflies in Alexandra Hospital, remember that Today (63 years ago) all the staff and patients at the hospital will be massacred and executed by the invading Japanese Army. A direct consequence of the resistance at Pasir Panjang Ridge.

comments on the Events are welcomed. (please ignore my poor photgraphic skills)











Deep rumbling guns, sharp whistle in the air;
Their shells rip in to churn our earth.
Then attacks propelled by fury. Yet no despair,
No crack in our resolve. Freedom’s worth

Is the blood we shed. Our cause is just:
Sacrifice will never be in vain.
Ta’at Setia: we hold our hill, we must.
Come comrades, our spirits soar again.

The enemy are many; we are few
At one strategic point they boldly came,
Across a stream, up ravines sweet with dew.
We bayonet-drove, we slew; left many lame.
From that clash their hatred grew.

Days and nights are sad with mourning:
Houses broken; children we can’t find;
The dead, the dying, the groaning.
War has no glory, only what’s bitterly unkind.

We may yield the moment, never the inner self:
A soldier’s oath, solemn made, is deep
With duty, honour, the fellowship of life itself.
These we cherish, keep
As companions of our memory,
As guardians of our sleep.



Edwin Thumboo​
 

quite interesting the short briefing of Singapore history, may be keen to find it more details for me to have better understanding.
 

you may wish to checkout the thesis by Dr. Ong Chit Chung (Military Historian and Member of Parliament)

Operation Matador: Britain's War Plans against the Japanese 1918-1941
ISBN: 9812100954

It is commonly believed that at the outbreak of the Pacific War, Singapore was caught unaware by the Japanese attack through Malaya, with its guns facing the sea. While it is true that Singapore's seaward defences were well developed for the protection of the naval base, landward defence had not been neglected. The question of landward defence was first raised as early as 1918 and this idea of forward defence eventually took the form of "Operation Matador".

This book traces the British defence policy between 1918 and 1941, primarily from a military point of view, but taking into account the political, diplomatic and human factors involved. Based on painstaking research in British archives and his own insights as a Singaporean academic, Ong Chit Chung's illuminating study debunks the myth that the Singapore guns were pointing in the wrong direction and offers an alternative insight into why Malaya and Singapore were captured by the Japanese.​
 

You may be able to buy this book from The Battle Box museum on Fort Canning Hill. This is a serious reading book, not a story-telling book :sweat:
 

Nice work hwchoy. :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
It is important for all Singaporean especially the younger geneartion to remember this day, to know what our ancestor have been through the period of 3yrs 8 mths of darkness and tyranny rule.

hwchoy said:
you may wish to checkout the thesis by Dr. Ong Chit Chung (Military Historian and Member of Parliament)
Operation Matador: Britain's War Plans against the Japanese 1918-1941
ISBN: 9812100954

I have read the article before.
A lost victory for the Allies.
If the British would have proceed with Operation Matador 48 hrs earlier..........
 

here's another good book, highly recommended *by ME* :p I even know the author's ex-gerfren's son ;p

The Jungle is Neutral: A Soldier's Two-Year Escape from the Japanese Army
ISBN: 1592281079

THE JUNGLE IS NEUTRAL makes The Bridge Over the River Kwai look like a tussle in a schoolyard.

F. SPENCER CHAPMAN, the book's unflappable author, narrates with typical British aplomb an amazing tale of four years spent as a guerrilla in the jungle, haranguing the Japanese in occupied Malaysia.

Traveling sometimes by bicycle and motorcycle, rarely by truck, and mainly in dugouts, on foot, and often on his belly through the jungle muck, Chapman recruits sympathetic Chinese, Malays, Tamils, and Sakai tribesman into an irregular corps of jungle fighters. Their mission: to harass the Japanese in any way possible. In riveting scenes, they blow up bridges, cut communication lines, and affix plasticine to troop-filled trucks idling by the road. They build mines by stuffing bamboo with gelignite. They throw grenades and disappear into the jungle, their faces darkened with carbon, their tommy guns wrapped in tape so as not to reflect the moonlight.

And when he is not battling the Japanese, or escaping from their prisons, he is fighting the jungle's incessant rain, wild tigers, unfriendly tribesmen, leeches, and undergrowth so thick it can take four hours to walk a mile.

It is a war story without rival.​
 

Kim Dong Moon said:
Is it the same date when my country Indonesia also occupied by Japanese army for 3.5 years ?

I think Batavia fell a few months later. Do read the Operation Matador book. Not many people (especially from the west) realise that the first Japanese attack of the Pacific War was not against Pearl Harbour, but actually the landing in southern Thailand and Malaya. Due to the dateline, Pearl Harbour occurred on Dec 7th but we are already Dec 8th. The landing took place some hours before Pearl Harbour.

I thought you are Korean. Or perhaps you are Korean Indonesian? :think:
 

Indonesian Cantonese here ...hehe, Kim Dong Moon is just one of the live legend in badminton.

Southern Thailand ? But from what i know, Thailand is one of the countries in the world which is never occupied by other nations. Am i right ?
 

Kim Dong Moon said:
Southern Thailand ? But from what i know, Thailand is one of the countries in the world which is never occupied by other nations. Am i right ?

that was why Operation Matador failed. The British knew that the Japs would probably land around Pattani as well as Kuantan, but obviously BEFORE they land the Brits could not go in there and set up the defences. By the time they actually land (and thus a state of war exists) it is TOO LATE!

Read the book :D
 

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