THE FALL OF SINGAPORE

Fortress Singapore and I have used it in this article. This article is concentrated on the availability of sights to see today, both on the Island and Malaysia, as well as attempting to put the record straight regarding the guns of Singapore. They may have faced the wrong way but the gunners traversed those that could be traversed towards the right direction and used every round of ammunition they had against the Japanese invaders. My visit to Singapore in February 1997 coincided with the reopening of General Percival’s bunker which has been realistically restored and equipped with dummies, earphones for visitors, a ‘talking’ General, and air conditioning that was sadly lacking in Percival’s day. The only fort on the Island that can be visited is Fort Siloso on Sentosa Island (know as Pulau Blakang in 1942) which alas has been restored into a part-Victorian, part World War 2 theme park fortress with a mixture of guns, tableaux and other displays. The 1942 scenario is thus rather difficult to unravel. The other gun positions are hard to find, although Labrador Battery still has one of its 6-inch gun positions (the other was being converted into a tourist seat during my visit). The gun crew accommodation block below was still intact but not open to the public. Johore Battery was destroyed by its gunners prior to the Japanese victory but photographs of it can be seen in the Changi Prison museum next to the chapel. The site was cleared and opened to the public in 2002, complete with a full size replica of one of the turrets and some of the original underground passages. All the other batteries have long since been built over with the possible exception of the two on Pulau Besar (Sphinx and Tekong Besar), an island which belongs to the FORT • VOLUME 37 • 2009