Remembering the ghost stories

Posted by hecate under National History, war
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Any horror story buff worth their salt would surely be well-acquainted with stories related to World War II in Singapore. As a child in primary school, we were constantly scaring each other with stories of sightings of World War II soldiers patrolling the neighbourhood late at night, or of ghosts who appear to have lived during that period.

As I grew older, Science, History lessons (and religion) led me to believe that 1) ghosts did not exist, 2) there were no mass graves/massacre of any sort outside of the known “Sook Ching” sites. I began to believe that the ghost stories which were passed on to us originated from our parents who just wanted to scare us into sleeping early at night.

However, a recent programme aired on the History Channel suggested that there might be some truth to those stories. Of course, there was no direct reference to the ghost stories told to us as children, but it reminded me of them. Just when we all were starting to dismiss the stories as nothing more than fiction, the programme shed some light on its origins.

During the Second World War, many Chinese who were suspected of being anti-Japanese were often being called up and sent to unknown locations. While the known Sook Ching sites were located at Changi Beach, Punggol Beach, Tanah Merah and Sentosa (known as “Pulau Belakang Mati” back then), there were, in fact, many more mass graves which were not uncovered until the 1960s.

These sites were located all around the island and included Bedok, Bukit Timah and Lim Chu Kang and were discovered when construction work was underway during the 1960s. The remains were eventually found to have belonged to those who could have died during the Japanese Occupation in World War II.

When construction work was allowed to resume on these mass graves, guess what was built on them?

Industries owned (ironically) by Japanese companies, and (surprise surprise!) many schools, including “one of the top schools” in Singapore.

Guess the ghost stories did have some truth to them after all.

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