The Price of War

Posted by angela under Heritage Sites and Trails, Museums/Heritage Galleries
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You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.
-Jeannette Rankin (American Politician)

On the Museum Hoppin’ Trail “WWII Trek”, I revisited 3 war museums and the heavy price of war - to one and all involved - reinforced itself in my mind.

1st Stop: Reflections at Bukit Chandu

The WWII interpretative centre is located in the Pasir Panjang district, where the last stand in the Battle of Singapore was fought valiantly by the Malay Regiment Soldiers.

A 3D map detailing the Battle for Singapore

For those of you who didn’t study it in school, Bukit Chandu provides a quick crash course in the Singapore Campaign, retelling the Battle for Singapore and the Battle of Pasir Panjang. It also provides a history of the Malay Regiment (Askar Melayu). Their motto was “Ta’at Setia!” (loosely translated to mean Loyalty), which shone through at Pasir Panjang - this is something which most history textbooks will tell us. However, few of us will know that the Malay Regiment was in the process of expansion when WWII struck, and not very prepared to fight.

Perhaps the most moving exhibit at Bukit Chandu is the Wall of Memories, which pays tribute to Malay Regiment heroes such as 2nd Lieutenant Adnan bin Saidi. His story is, to me, particularly moving. The “whitewashed” version in my textbook didn’t mention his horrific end - hung on a tree in a sack, bayoneted, burned and left to die at a young 27 years of age - nor his absolute willingness to die for his country (as mentioned in Noel’s post). As I stood there, I could almost envision Bukit Chandu on that fateful day in 1942, and the courage it must have took for the Malay Regiment soldiers to fight to the death.

Indeed. Ta’at Setia.

2nd Stop: The Battle Box

Photos not allowed inside the Box, sadly.

My second visit to the Battle Box was just as enjoyable as my first, made several years ago as part of a National Education excursion. The Battle Box, a British bunker turned museum on Fort Canning, essentially recreates the atmosphere inside it on 15 February 1942, the day Singapore fell, through hi-tech wax figurines and holographic displays.
Most notable is the Surrender Conference (pictures can be found in Noel’s post), restaged in the actual room in which it took, with the wax figurines recreated to a T, their appearance having been verified by their own relatives. The conversation was also based on the actual minutes of the meeting - it seemed to suggest that General Arthur Percival (General Officer Commanding (Malaya)) wanted to launch a counter attack rather than surrender, but lacked support from his suboordinates. Thus, he ultimately decided to surrender.

Here, it is interesting to note that most of the blame for the fall of Singapore (viewed by then-PM Winston Churchill as “the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history”) fell on Percival, and his military career never really recovered from that blow (he never received a knighthood, and was given a major-general’s pension even though he was theoretically a lieutenant general). However, while watching this reenactment, it is difficult not to sympathize with him - he seems to be a man with his hands tied.

Whatever the case, Singapore fell, and it was there, in the Battle Box, that our Syonan years were sealed over 60 years ago.

3rd Stop: Changi Museum

Changi Museum, my third and final stop, is a moving display of the strength of the human will to survive.

Perhaps the most touching (and famous) proof are the murals painted by POW Stanley Warren, with human hair, billiard chalk, and bits of paint salvaged from the docksite where the POWs worked, while he was terribly sick. This is one of five.

A tribute to the defenders of Singapore

Notes from the relatives of the POWs who survived… or those who didn’t. (More at Noel’s post).

Cranes made by Japanese students; a token of peace

Perhaps one of the less admired and more interesting artefacts in the Museum are these 2 swords, surrendered by a Japanese major to a British major at the end of WWII. While the British major’s son, Ron Davies, managed to locate the family of the Japanese major and asked if they wanted the swords back, they said they wanted nothing more to do with the Japanese major. Because he had surrendered, been tried as a war criminal and executed, he was, they felt, a disgrace to the family and to the Japanese emperor. Thus, the swords were donated to the Changi Museum. Manufactured in the early 1400s, these samurai swords were, I’m guessing, something of an heirloom.

But the one thing that haunted me was an interview with a former comfort woman (an euphemism for women who were forced to become Japanese military sex slaves) played on my audio guide as I examined an exhibit paying tribute to some war heroines/female Changi internees. She talked about the shame and horror of being a comfort woman, and one particular sentence haunted me. She said something to the effect of: ‘The men who survive, tell their stories and get decorated with medals, but the women, along with their pain and suffering, are forgotten.’ Yet, the survival of such trauma is something that requires tremendous strength and courage.

My visit to the Changi Museum just reinforced the price of war - the brutality, trauma and damage - and made me glad that peace reigns in our country. Yet, the strength of the human spirit shone through in Changi, like a single bright light in a dark room.

For details on visiting go to:
Bukit Chandu: http://www.museums.com.sg/MRM_bukitchandu.asp
Battle Box: http://www.museums.com.sg/MRM_battlebox.asp
Changi Museum: http://www.museums.com.sg/MRM_changi.asp

Tags: singapore history, singapore heritage, singapore, WWII, world war II, world war 2, museum roundtable, reflections at bukit chandu, the battle box, changi museum, international museum day 2006