Exploring Singapore's history through photos

[Cecil Lee]

1950’s era bungalows.

One has become a clan association building. While another a temple.

Lau Clan General Association 

Nearby

+++

Tong Teck Thng Vegetarian Temple

[Cecil Lee]

Former Golden mile complex enbloc sale in 2024

+++

The en bloc sale has been successfully completed, ensuring the preservation of the iconic Goldmile Complex building.

[Cecil Lee]

Raffles Town Club lease expires in October 2026.

Will be redeveloped for housing purposes.

[Cecil Lee]

The Britannia Club & also Former NCO Club

Completed in 1952, this Spanish-tiled club-house (originally the Britannia Club) provided recreational facilities for British servicemen and their Allied counterparts in Singapore. It had a large swimming pool and offered members a view of the sea. In 1974, it became the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) Non-Commissioned Officers (NCO) Corps Club, after the British military withdrew from Singapore.

The club was known for its SAF Enterprise Superstore which offered daily necessities for the NCOs and their families at affordable rates. Following the NCO Corps' restructuring. the club was renamed "SAF Warrant Officers and Specialists Club" in 1994. It remained here until 2001.

Former People’s Defense Force II PDF HQ building

[Cecil Lee]

A Pictorial History of Nee Soon Community @ Photos mounted / arranged at Fernvale Community Centre

[Cecil Lee]

Singapore's World War II Hero Major-General Lim Bo Seng (1909 to 1944)

Major-General Lim Bo Seng (1909 - 1944)

Lim Bo Seng was bom in China, the 11th child and first son of wealthy businessman Lim Loh. He arrived in Singapore in 1917, He studied at Raffles Insttution and later at the Liniversity of Hong Kong, In 1930, he married Gan Choo Neo and they had 8 children, one of whom died in Infancy:

During the Second Sino-Japanese War, Lim was active in the Nanyang Federation's resistance activities. On 1 February 1942
Lim and other Chinese community leaders left Singapore for India where they recruited and trained hundreds of secret agents, mainly Malayan Chinese, for the Sino-British guerrilla group, Force 136.

During the Second Sino-Japanese War, Lim was active in the Nanyang Federation's resistance activities. On 1 February 1942.
Lim and other Chinese community leaders left Singapore for India where they recruited and trained hundreds of secret agents,
mainly Malayan Chinese, for the Sino-British guerrilla group, Force 136.

The first Force 136 agents were deployed in May 1943 in Operation Gustavus to establish an espionage network in Malaya and Singapore. Lim retumed to Malaya in November 1943. Unfortunately Operation Gustavus failed, Lim was captured on
25 March 1944 and taken to the Kempeitai headquarters for interrogation. He was subsequently imprisoned at the Batu Gajah Gaol in Perak.

Despite severe torture, Lim refused to divulge any information. Incarcerated in appalling conditions, he fell ill with dysentery towards the end of May 1944 and died in the early hours on 29 June 1944. He was buried behind the Batu Gajan Gaol compound in an unmarked spot.

In December 1945, alter the war ended, Lim's widow travelled with her eldest son Lim Leong Geok to bring her husband's remains back to Singapore. A funeral service was held on 13 January 1946 at City Hall and Lim's remains were brought to MacRitchie Reservoir where he was buried with full military honours. He was posthumously conferred the rank of Major-General by the Chinese Nationalist Govemment. 

Lim's original grave marker was a simple wooden cross, This was to have been replaced by something grander and permanent from as early as 1948 but funds were not available. In June 1952, the Lim Bo Seng Memorial Committee raised sufficient funds to
replace the simple cross with the current concrete structure.

On the 10th Anniversary of his death in 1954, a memorial was unveiled at the Esplanade Park to commemorate Lim Bo Seng.

Force 136 was a secret British special operations unit in World War II, operating mainly in Japanese-occupied Southeast Asia. It was the Far East branch of the **Special Operations Executive (SOE)**, whose mission was to “set Europe ablaze” through sabotage, espionage, and support for resistance movements.

### What Force 136 Was
- **Officially**: A covert arm of the British SOE in the Far East.
- **Composition**: Included British officers and many Asian agents (Chinese, Malays, Indians, Burmese, etc.) recruited from Malaya, Singapore, India, China, and beyond.
- **Training**: Agents were trained in India, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), and elsewhere in:
  - Sabotage (railways, bridges, communications)
  - Guerrilla warfare and survival
  - Radio operation and codes
  - Intelligence gathering and clandestine organisation

### Main Tasks and Areas of Operation
Force 136 operated primarily in:
- **Malaya and Singapore**
- **Burma**
- Parts of **Thailand**, **Indochina**, and others

Its core roles:
1. **Organising and supporting local resistance**  
   - Built and armed guerrilla groups behind Japanese lines.  
   - In Malaya, Force 136 worked with the **Malayan People’s Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA)** and other local networks.

2. **Sabotage and disruption**  
   - Blew up railways, bridges, communication lines.
   - Disrupted Japanese supply routes and troop movements, especially as the Allies prepared to return.

3. **Intelligence and reconnaissance**  
   - Gathered military information on Japanese troop strength, positions, and movements.
   - Prepared for Allied reoccupation of territories (e.g., Operation Zipper in Malaya).

4. **Preparation for Allied landings**  
   - Positioned agents and weapons caches in advance.
   - Established radio networks so that when Allied forces returned, they could coordinate with resistance groups quickly.

### Force 136 and Lim Bo Seng
Lim Bo Seng served as one of Force 136’s key agents in the Malayan theatre:
- He helped plan and build the **“Operation Gustavus”** network, a spy and resistance organisation around the Malacca–Ipoh area.
- His work focused on:
  - Recruiting and organising local agents
  - Setting up covert communications
  - Gathering intelligence about Japanese forces in Malaya ahead of Allied plans to return
- He was captured and died under torture, but did not reveal critical information, which preserved parts of the Force 136 network.

### Significance in the War
- Force 136 did **not** fight as large conventional armies; its impact was indirect but important:
  - Tied down Japanese resources on internal security.
  - Provided valuable intelligence to Allied commanders.
  - Helped prepare the ground for post-war British reoccupation and the transition back from Japanese rule.
- It also had a lasting political impact:
  - Helped arm and legitimise local resistance movements that later became influential in post-war politics (especially in Malaya and Burma).

In short, Force 136 was the clandestine arm of the British war effort in Southeast Asia, working behind Japanese lines through sabotage, intelligence, and resistance-building—Lim Bo Seng was one of its most notable agents in Malaya.

[Cecil Lee]

Related:

 

[Cecil Lee]

Singapore Electric Tramways 

1905 to 1927

From Keppel Harbour to Paya Lebar and Geylang.

[Cecil Lee]

Iconic Hume Industries next to the Ford factory

Drainage & sewer pipes of various sizes

 

[Cecil Lee]

Murals showcasing the history of Singapore: a Diamond brand electric clock, a Redifussion subscription entertainment speaker housed in a classic wooden box…

[Cecil Lee]

Around Blk 80 Redhill

Mid Autumn Festival or Celebrating the Lantern Festival 

[Cecil Lee]

Samsui Women

[Cecil Lee]

Jurong East
By SOTA Visual Arts Students,
Olivia Chua Ning, Rachel Peh Yu Xuan and Yip Xin Yi Jurong East is a planning area and residential town located in the West Region of Singapore.

Jurong Town Hall, representative of Jurong Town's rapid growth during Singapore's industrialisation, is depicted in the top right corner. It is a testimony to Jurong Town Corporation's role in Singapore's industrial development and its economic progress.
Construction first began in 1971, the same year Cathay Organisation opened the Jurong Drive-In Cinema that was illustrated below. It was Singapore's only open-air drive-in theatre accommodating around 900 cars and 300 people. A poor sound system, unruly audiences, and pirated videotapes contributed to its closure in 1985.
Jurong Bird Park, Singapore's first wildlife park, opened in 1971 as well. Having called Jurong home for the past 51 years, the largest avian park in the Asia Pacific region with over 400 species of birds would be moving to Mandai to form an integrated nature and wildlife precinct in 2023. Located at the Jurong Bird Park was also one of the world's tallest man-made, indoor waterfalls, that was depicted spilling into the Jurong River in the illustration.
The Jurong River appeared in early maps dating back to 1828 and was a landmark for many early settlers and villagers. Once again, in 1971, another landmark;
The Jurong Lake, was formed when the upper section of Jurong River was dammed. Today, the lake is home to three man-made islands that housed the scenic Chinese Garden and Japanese Garden.

[Cecil Lee]

The occupation of newspaper vendors operating on sidewalks or roadways is becoming increasingly obsolete.

[Cecil Lee]

Haw Par Villa

[Cecil Lee]

Charm of Bishan

[Cecil Lee]

The renowned Chatterbox restaurant at the Mandarin Hotel offers a distinguished chicken rice set.

[Cecil Lee]

No Two Ba Zi Reports are created equal

Learn Why?

+++

Geomancy.net Since 1996

+++

[Cecil Lee]

Related:

 

[Cecil Lee]

The Heart of Katong

[Cecil Lee]

 HDB Commonwealth View

[Cecil Lee]

[Cecil Lee]

Extremely intriguing

Source & Credit:

[Cecil Lee]

Pasir Ris

[Cecil Lee]

Singapore Botanic Gardens

The Singapore Herbarium (SING) was established in 1875 by James Henry Murton, marking the beginning of scientific research at the Singapore Botanic Gardens. What began as a limited collection of specimens in Murton's office has grown into a collection of approximately 800,000 specimens. Today, the Singapore Herbarium is recognised as the one of the largest and most important herbaria in our biodiverse Southeast Asian region.

Our collection played an important role in securing the UNESCO World Heritage status for the Singapore Botanic Gardens in
2015. To ensure the Herbarium is preserved for future generations, we are continuously enhancing and expanding our facilities
In celebration of the Herbarium's 150th anniversary, we are embarking on an ambitious digitisation project to make our specimens freely accessible online

This initiative will accelerate plant research and conservation efforts, contributing to a healthier planet.

Botanists and Herbaria!

Botanists are scientists who study and name plants, while herbaria are specialised research facilities that store preserved plent specimens which have been identified and named by botanists. These collections play a crucial role in documenting world's plant diversity, enabling new, unnamed samples to be matched with known species. Globally, there are nearly 4,000 herbaria, housing over 400 million plant specimens. Together, they safeguard all existing botanical knowledge as well as knowledge yet to be unlocked through constantly evolving research methods.

Plants are the foundation of human life-providing food, medicines, textiles, construction materials, and even the air that we breathe. We cannot survive without thern. However, to truly benefit from and protect plants, we need to know whether they are and where they grow. That's why botanists and herbaria are essential to our survival.