Lieutenant-General Percival and his party carry the Union flag on their way to surrender Singapore to the Japanese. Pic: Imperial War Museums
75 years ago, on 15 Feb 1942, Lieutenant-General Arthur Ernest Percival met with General Tomoyuki Yamashita at the Ford Factory in Bukit Timah, where the British formally surrendered Singapore to the Japanese.
Singapore had fallen to the Japanese in just over 7 days after the Japanese Army’s initial landing on 8 Feb.
Japanese Troops Marching through Fullerton Square. Pic: Wikipedia
Generals At War - Battle of Singapore
Singapore was renamed by the Japanese as ‘Syonan-To’ (meaning ‘Light of the South’), thus marked the beginning the Japanese Occupation.
The Japanese Occupation, lasting almost 4 years, would be one of the darkest chapters in Singapore’s history. The populace as well as the captured Allied Forces were brutalized and suffered many atrocities during the Japanese Occupation. The Japanese was estimated to have executed 50,000 civilians as part of their efforts to eliminate any resistance to the Japanese Occupation.
The Singapore Story (Japanese Occupation of Singapore 1942 - 1945)
Quote: Mr Lee Kuan Yew, speaking on the importance of NS, 21 Feb 1967.
Base image credit: Gov.SG (Photo by Terence Tan, MCI)
#NeverAgain #DefendingtheLionCity #SAF #NationalService #NS50 #WhyMustWeServe #LestWeForget
Read more here:
National Museum of Singapore - Surviving Syonan
National Archives of Singapore - The Old Ford Factory (Renamed as 'Syonan Gallery: War and Its Legacies' in Feb 2017.)
Singapore Infopedia - Information related to the Japanese Occupation of Singapore
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