We shall meet at 8 am with our friendly local tour guide at Kranji MRT for the start of this tour on Battlefield Singapore. Events that took place here were during World War II. The battle of Singapore, also known as the Fall of Singapore, when the empire of Japan invaded the British stronghold of Singapore. Singapore at that time was the major British military base in South-East Asia and was the key to the British imperial interwar defense planning for South-East Asia and the South-West Pacific. The fight lasted from 8 to 15 February 1942.

Our first stop would be the Kranji War Memorial. The memorial honors the men and women from Britain, Australia, Canada, Sri Lanka, India, Malaya, the Netherlands, and New Zealand who died in the line of duty during World War II. You will see more than 4,400 white gravestones lined up in rows on the cemetery’s gentle slope. At plot 44, The Chinese Memorial marks a mass grave for 69 Chinese servicemen who were killed by the Japanese when Singapore fell in February 1942. As you walk the short flight of steps to the hilltop terrace, you will see four memorials. The largest is the Singapore Memorial, with its huge star-topped central pylon that rises to a height of 24 meters. This memorial bears the names of more than 24,346 allied soldiers and airmen killed in Southeast Asia who have no known grave. Every year, on Sunday, closes to Remembrance Day on 11 November, a memorial service is to pay tribute to those who gave their lives. Next to the Kranji War Memorial is the Kranji Military Cemetery, a non-world war site of more than 1,400 burials, as well as the Singapore State Cemetery, where the country’s first and second presidents, Encik Yusof Ishak and Dr. Benjamin Henry Sheares, are buried.

The next stop would be the former Ford Factory. This is the place where the British forces surrendered to the Imperial Japanese Army on 15 February 1942. This exhibition presents the events and memories surrounding the British Surrender, the Japanese Occupation, and the Legacies of the War. The start of the exhibit tells the history of the former ford factory and offers a look into the lives of pre-war Singaporeans. Here, you will learn how the building evolved from its start as the Ford Motor Company’s first car assembly plant in Southeast Asia in 1929, to its relocation to the current site in 1941, and it’s status as a gazetted national monument in 2006. The exhibition also showcases fresh perspectives on the fall of Singapore. These are presented through three intertwining narratives on Japanese aggression, British defenses, and how civilians in Singapore were caught up in the larger forces of imperial struggle and war.

Our last and final stop would be to the Labrador Battery at the southern tip of Singapore. One of the 11 Coastal artillery forts built by the British in the 19th Century to defend the western passageway into Keppel Harbour against piracy and foreign naval powers. During the 1942 Battle of Pasir Panjang, the fort played a supporting role but a limited one in defending the Malay Regiments against the Japanese invasion at Bukit Chandu. In 1995, this site was gazetted by the National Heritage Board as one of the 11 World War sites in Singapore.