A Prisoner-of-War camp at Hillview Estate?

About two years ago, a World War Two researcher, Mr. Ken Hewitt, emailed me with some questions he was trying to resolve in his research. Mr Hewitt specialises in the history of a British Army Regiment that fought here at Singapore during WW2, the Leicestershire Regiment, (since 1946, the Royal Leicestershire Regiment).

He had dwelt into and kept precise records of all 934 men from the 1st Battalion of the Leicestershire Regiment. He has continually updated the records of almost all these men, where they fought or died whilst in Singapore, Malaya, or the Thai POW work camps after the surrender to the Japanese forces.

He is particularly attached to the history of this regiment because his father, John Hewitt, was a soldier in this unit. His father's unit fought the invading Japanese soldiers from their landing in northern Malaya in December 1941, all the way down to Singapore. In Singapore, the unit was part of the 15th Indian Brigade that fought and lost the battle at Bukit Batok, before being captured as POWs when the British Army surrendered Singapore on 15 Feb 1942.

The retreat and ambush at Bukit Batok of the 15th Indian Brigade, 11 Feb 1942. Click on pic for detailed view.

From Regimental records, it was known that 68 Leicestershire men were listed as "missing" after they were ambushed at Sleepy Valley in Bukit Batok. The bodies of these 68 men were never recovered and they are commemorated on the Singapore Memorial at Kranji War Cemetery. Mr Hewitt was trying to find more information on these lost 68.

Of the 68 records, 5 entries had a notation that they were buried by a Major Saggers in a common grave at a map location marked as 753147.

When Ken Hewitt googled "Singapore map reference 753147", he was surprised to find a map with that exact spot already marked off!

This was a map I had 'created' while doing a blog about the Australian soldiers who died at Sleepy Valley. I had done this map back in Jan. 2013 to help an Australian family find the location of their grandfather who died fighting at Bukit Batok and was buried in an unmarked grave somewhere in the battlefield. I had managed to find the grave location at Toh Tuck Road. ("Searching for an unmarked grave") link here

The location of the unmarked war grave that was to lead to the search for the POW camp.

The search for a lost POW Camp

This coincidence led Ken Hewitt to contact me and we had several discussions by email on the battle and the events that took place here. In one of our chats, Ken had almost casually mentioned, more of an afterthought, about a POW camp where some Leicestershire soldiers were incarcerated for a while before being sent to Thailand. He said that since I did a  lot of research about the Bukit Timah area, have I heard of a POW camp called McArthur Camp?
He was hoping that as a local 'man on the ground', I would be able to confirm the location of the POW camp. Apparently, the existence of this POW camp was known and vaguely appears in some records but its location was unknown, except that it was in Bukit Timah.

A Prisoner Of War camp in the Bukit Timah Hillview area? I was really intrigued by this!
I had not heard of this till then and pressed Ken for more information.

In brief, Ken gave me the following clues to whatever he knew of McArthur Camp:-
1. It was in the Bukit Timah area, south of the Ford Factory.
2. It was about 20-30 minutes march from the Ford Factory.
3. The Leicestershire POWs passed a cafe called Mendoza's, going to and from the camp.
4. It was in a hilly area.
5. Hillview Estate was mentioned as a possible site.
6. There was a WW2 International Red Cross reference to a "Bukit Timah POW Camp".
7. Lord Louis Mountbatten visited the camp after the war before the POWs had been repatriated and there was a newsreel in the Kew Gardens archive of this visit.

The first four clues came from Ken's informant, an ex-POW, Tom Sansome then 98 years of age, and still living today.  Tom could vividly recollect his days as a POW here and remembered being forced marched each day from McArthur Camp to the Ford Factory or the adjacent Hume Pipes factory to do menial labour. More importantly, he recalled that the march took between 20-30 mins along Bukit Timah Road.

The other clues came from Ken's contact with a fellow WW2 researcher, Ms. J.B. Nielsen, who lives in Denmark. Ms. Nielsen had previously done a map of all 58 POW camps in Singapore for the Changi Museum. She had based her information of McArthur Camp on the grid reference coordinates of a 1945 Red Cross map. Apparently, she had also found my blog and referred to it with the possibilities that McArthur Camp might also be at Hillview Estate, or somewhere at Hindhede area below Bukit Timah hill.

So thus began for me, a project that took more than a year to accomplish.


The finding of McArthur POW Camp.

Ms Nielsen had already used the clues from ex-POW Tom Sansome, calculating the marching time against distance travelled and basing on the fact that the Red Cross had marked a location on their map. She figured that it would most likely be correct that the "Bukit Timah Camp" marked, would in all likelihood, be McArthur Camp. Ken sent me some photos, illustrations and maps that Ms Nielsen had collated in her own search.

( I have not requested for permission to use her material as yet,
so this is just a screenshot of what Ken Hewitt sent me with her permission.)
Please note that copyright of this image belongs entirely to Ms. JB Nielson

As Ken said, being the local man-on-the-ground, I immediately saw that it was Beauty World Town that was marked as the location of the POW camp. In fact, the map coordinates pointed exactly to a spot, just beside Jalan Seh Chuan, that was the old Tiong Hua Cinema. This revelation immediately raised doubts for me that this was not the location of McArthur Camp.

This was because I knew the history of Beauty World to an extent.
Beauty World Town was built during the Japanese Occupation. At what was Bukit Timah Village, Beauty World Town was constructed initially as an amusement park by Chinese businessmen in co-operation with the Japanese authorities! It was called the Great East World, in reference to the Japanese wartime strategy for the creation of the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere for the S.E.Asia region.

The Great East World, in similarity with the other amusement 'worlds' in Singapore - i.e. Great World, New World, Gay World and Happy World - had amusement game stalls, food hawkers, bars and cabarets, drinks and coffee shops, photo studios, clothing stores, etc. Tiong Hua Cinema played mainly Japanese movies and propaganda films. Gambling dens were not only permitted but encouraged as well.

Significantly, Beauty World Town had electric lights and electric power from generators. The whole place was lit up like a beacon in dark rural Bukit Timah, so much so that people started calling it Beauty World because of the lights and glitter, and this nickname has stuck till today.

So to me, the spot where Red Cross indicated as the POW camp could NOT be correct.
It just didn't make sense to build a POW camp in the same commercial vicinity.

To confirm my doubts, I asked a good friend, Mr L.Y. Mok, who is a professional cartographer and war expert. I sent him the grid reference, a picture of Mountbatten at the camp and told him a little of McArthur camp. I asked if he could verify the picture with the Red Cross reference. Mok had not come across a POW camp called McArthur in all his years of experience with mapping military locations. The nearest POW camps that both of us knew in the Bukit Timah region was either the ones at the old Turf Club or at Chua Chu Kang Road.

After some time perusing all the available data, Mr. Mok told me he was doubtful that the photo of Mountbatten was taken from the Beauty World area as the terrain and background didn't match what was found at the marked site.

Mr. Mok then sent me a map that was available at the National Archives which I had never seen before. It showed locations of military installations immediately after the war. On this map, there was a "Japanese Officers POW Camp" indicated beside the Gimson School at Clementi Road. Gimson School was the old Reformatory, a detention facility for wayward boys, at Reformatory Road. This map would come to play a crucial part in later research.

The post-war map that would lead to the finding of the POW camp,

To confirm what Mok had deduced, I also reached out to another war history friend, Peter Stubbs. Peter is the owner writer of the blog fortsiloso.com. Peter had not heard of McArthur Camp but he had a reference to a 'Bukit Timah Camp'. It was from a wartime intelligence docket which listed the locations of all known POW camps in Singapore at that time.

The docket had the same grid reference as the Red Cross map - 760152+. But what was very significant in this intelligence docket, that was not available in the Red Cross map, was the '+' behind the number 760152.
This '+' indicated that the location was 'unknown' and the GRID numbers referred to the nearest town in that locality. So the numbers pointed to Bukit Timah Village, the nearest town, and not the camp itself.

The British Army intelligence docket list of POW Camps in Singapore.

I had to break the bad news to Ken Hewitt, as well as to debunk another theory that they had.
This was that McArthur Camp could possibly be at Hillview Estate.

Hillview Estate was a rubber plantation as well as the name of a colonial house that was commandeered by Maj-Gen Gordon Bennett, the Commander for all Australian Forces in Singapore (the 8th Division, 2nd AIF). He used this house as his headquarters during the outbreak of war in Malaya up to the time the Japanese invaded Singapore. They had presumed it might be an army camp and could possibly be used as the POW camp after the capitulation.

Hillview Estate was located at De Souza Avenue and accessible only via Jurong Road (Jalan Jurong Kechil today). It was also only a 5 minutes march from the Ford Factory and was on top of a precipice facing Bukit Timah Road and so the POWs would have to climb up a cliff if the camp was indeed there. So the facts didn't match Tom's description.

So, I was back at Square One. McArthur Camp was not Hillview Estate and was not at Beauty World. So where could it possibly be located? Perhaps around Rifle Range or Hindhede kampongs?

Fortuitously, Ken had another meeting with Tom Sansome and brought some questions I had asked.
Did he pass a cemetery on the march? (can't recall). Was the road uphill? (I was thinking Clementi Road) - No, it was level most of the way, an easy march. Did he notice the railway line? (No)
Then, an important fact was revealed. At the end of the return march, they made a right turn at a road junction and the camp was just there after the right turn!

So, based on about 20-30 minutes march and a right turn to base, that would place the camp within the Rifle Range area at the furthest. The right turn meant only 3 roads can be considered - Jalan Jurong Kechil (Jurong Road), Reformatory Road and the road leading to Bukit Timah Railway Station. Marching south, these were only three roads where they could make a right turn, not considering country tracks as Tom mentioned roads not tracks.

The road to the Bukit Timah Railway Station was eliminated as Tom said they didn't see any railway lines. So that left Jurong Road and Reformatory Road (Clementi Road).
My initial gut feeling was that it was on Reformatory Road and that the POW camp would be the Reformatory building itself, though I had zero evidence for this!
Why build a new POW camp when the Reformatory was a ready-built detention centre, was my thought.

But the distance to the Reformatory would eliminate this option.
It would take at least an additional 20 mins march from the right turn junction to the Reformatory itself. And it was hilly with an undulating road where Tom had said it was levelled.

So it now looked like maybe back to Jurong Road? Could the camp be further up behind Beauty World, where Cheong Chin Nam had his pineapple and banana plantations?
But a right turn at Jurong Road would lead directly back into Beauty World, which I had already dismissed as a possibility. I couldn't find any confirmation so this point was left open till I could get more information.


Aerial Photomap Surveys.

In the 1950s, the RAF did aerial surveys of Singapore for mapping purposes. These old aerial maps can now be seen at the National Archives, as well as in other archives like the Imperial War Museum in London and the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, where they are in public domain. There are thousands and thousands of pictures and finding the correct one is like finding your pin in the haystack!
Over the next few months, I poured over any aerial maps of the area I could find, trying to seek anything that look remotely like a POW camp.

The earliest set of pictures I could find dated from 1953. Scrutinising these resulted in frustration and tired eyes, urghh. The aerials of Jurong, Bukit Timah Village and Reformatory Road yielded absolutely nothing that can be construed as military use.
(on the flipside, I managed to happily discover the battlefields of Sleepy Valley, small vindication)

Bukit Timah Village 1953

Reformatory Road (Clementi Road) 1953.
Gimson School (The Reformatory) at top centre, King Albert Park at bottom left.

Eureka!

Then three months ago, I came across a batch of aerial photos that dated from 1947. One was a picture of the area around Reformatory Road and it had features that were not on the 1953 photo above!

Bukit Timah Village, January 1947.

This was my Eureka moment! There it was, clear as daylight. That's an army camp! That's a POW camp! I was delirious with the find. 
(I will now show you what I saw but warning here, you can't unsee it thereafter, so look at this picture before moving on to the spoiler, ha ha).

This 1947 photo was taken in a South-North orientation, so North is actually at the bottom.
Compare this close-up with the 1953 Reformatory Road photo above (look at the bottom left section)

So there it was! It must be the Japanese Officers POW Camp as indicated in the Military Installation map sent to me by Mr Mok. The map had placed the Japanese Officers POW Camp north of Gimson School and this was the only installation on the photo north of Gimson School. After the war, all Japanese Army officers remaining in Singapore were interned at this camp before repatriation to Japan. But was it also McArthur Camp? ...

(To help you understand the above picture, the KTM Railway line is on the left edge, top to bottom, Bukit Timah Road runs across at bottom left with the overhead railway truss bridge. The two rectangular area at the bottom left would be where the Green Bus Depot would be built and the area above it is King Albert Park under construction. Reformatory Road (Clementi Road) runs top to bottom in the middle of the photo.
The Japanese Officers POW Camp is at the middle right. The Ngee Ann Teochew Cemetery is the open space at the bottom right below the POW camp.)

On close observation, you can see features that indicated what could have been once up to 17 structures or buildings on the site. But the photo taken in Jan 1947 show only about 7 to 8 buildings still intact. A possible reason is that the camp was being dismantled when the photo was taken.

Further digging produced another picture of the area. This was taken in March 1948, more than a year after the above Jan 1947 picture above.

The same area in March 1948, a year after the 1947 photo showed fewer buildings
and grass had grown around the existing buildings.

When the 1953 aerial photos were publicly released, the camp area had already been entirely demolished and turfed over. That was why I had a hard time trying to find a camp in the aerial pictures of both Reformatory Road and Jurong area. It was no longer on the 1953 photos!

But the question still remained, was this Japanese Officers POW Camp the McArthur Camp we were searching for?
The evidence seem to point that way. It was within a 30 minutes march from the Ford factory. It was in a hilly area. It was just after a right turn off Bukit Timah Road.
I tried comparing a photo of Lord Mountbatten's visit in 1945 against one of Ngee Ann Polytechnic from the same angle. The background 'seems' to fit.

The hills in the far background appears to be Bt Batok on the left and Bt Timah on the right.
The trees in the middle would be those within the camp compound.
(Screen capture of War Office Directorate of Public Relations Newsreel No JFU318.
Copyright of Imperial War Museum)

Arrow show the probable angle from which the Mountbatten photo above was taken.

Did I fail to mention that the site now is the location of Ngee Ann Polytechnic at Clementi Road?


The Clincher
Up to this point, I was 95% convinced that the Japanese officers POW camp was McArthur POW Camp.
All circumstantial evidence pointed to it but there was still the contention that there was no documented verification. That is, until...

This report in the Straits Times of 30 January 1947.
A Japanese Army officer, Major Tadakatsu Ishijima, had escaped from McArthur Camp on 15 December 1946! So, if all Japanese officers were confined to McArthur Camp, and the Japanese POW Camp was at Reformatory Road.???
So there! Confirmation that the Japanese Officers POW Camp was McArthur Camp.

In conclusion

McArthur Camp was used to initially house the Singapore Volunteers unit and subsequently used for incarcerating British Prisoners of War,
and soldiers from the Indian Regiments.
After the surrender of the Japanese, it was used to intern Japanese Army officers.
It was demolished sometime between 1948 and 1953(?) when it no longer appeared on aerial photos.
It was located beside the Ngee Ann Teochew Cemetery at Reformatory (Clementi) Road, after the junction with Bukit Timah Road.
Today the Ngee Ann Polytechnic sits over the former POW camp site.

Close up of McArthur Camp, March 1948

This is not the end of the story...
Do return to my blog for updates as there are more unanswered questions.

Of the 58 known POW camps in Singapore, this was the only one that was named after a person. Why? The other 57 were all named after the location they were at.
Who was McArthur and why was the Camp named after him?
Which units were incarcerated at that camp, besides the Leicestershire men?

As for Major Tadakatsu, thank you for your daring escape and getting your crime being reported. You did me a big favour seven decades on.

Thanks for reading this long stuff if you have reached this point. I admire your endurance and threshold for pain!

Related links to this story:-
Searching for an unmarked war grave
The tragedy at Sleepy Valley
Of Udaya and the Mendoza Cafe
The colonial Hillview Estate
Roll of honour - Tom Sansome


UPDATE: 16 APRIL 2020
Today, I was informed by Ken Hewitt of the passing of Tom Sansome during the previous night.
Tom Sansome was instrumental in our search for the location of MacArthur Camp (or McArthur Camp). It was through his vivid recollection of the short time he spent there that enable us to finally determine the exact location of the POW camp. Tom had just celebrated his 100th birthday in September 2019 and maintained his mental faculties right to his end, succumbing only to his physical frailty. We thank Tom Sansome for all his past services. May he rest in peace.

Link to the Roll of Honour for Tom Sansome

Factories around Hillview (#11) - The Hong Kong Rope Mfg Co. Ltd.

The HK Rope Manufacturing Co at Hillview.
In the background is the Chartered Bank building along Upper Bukit Timah Road
and the Salvation Army Children's Home across the road.

The Hong Kong Rope Manufacturing Co Ltd was one of the early set-ups in the newly established Colonial Industrial Estate at Hillview. They started operations in 1953 and was one of the four pioneer factories to be located along Hillview Avenue.

This Hong Kong establishment was enticed to invest in a manufacturing facility in Singapore through generous grants and incentives given by the then Colonial Development Corporation. They would be the main supplier of manila ropes for the shipping industry as Singapore gained momentum as a modern entrepot port. It was located on an eight acre plot at the junction of Hillview Road with Hillview Avenue.

Even while it was the only local manila rope manufacturer, the company had to struggle with declining sales for manila ropes over the years of operation. This was due to their inability to re-configure their factory to produce what the market was then turning to. That product was the new, cheaper, stronger and more durable nylon ropes!

The Straits Times report of 17 March 1954 announcing the opening of the factory.

The HK Rope Manufacturing Co shuttered its factory in 1963 and sold the property to the British Castrol Lubricant Company.

The Castrol Lubricant factory that replaced the HK Rope Mfg Co.

Today the same site is occupied by the Glendale Park Condominium complex.

Related links:-
Factories that were located at Hillview #1.
#2 Cycle & Carriage
#3 Ford Motor
#4 Amoy Canning
#5 Malayan Guttas
#6 Castrol
#7 Union Carbide
#8 Kiwi Polish
#9 Magnolia Dairies
#10 Hume Industries
The Hillview Industrial Estate

The Twin Towers on Bukit Batok

Each morning as I awake and draw the curtains in my room, I get to see this sight.

The twin towers on Bukit Batok.

Having lived most of my life in this area, it has become like a symbol. A symbol that tells me that I am home. If you have passed through Bukit Batok East, Hillview or driven along Upper Bukit Timah Road, you surely can't miss this iconic landmark as it's been there for as long as most people can remember. Only a few of us, the oldies now, may be able to remember a time when the towers were not yet erected.

Most people will know it as the television transmission towers belonging to Mediacorp and some will know that it was the location of the Japanese War Memorial a long time ago. Some will simply know that it's where Bukit Batok Nature Park is.

My earliest recollection of Bukit Batok hill would be of the early 1960s. My dad would drive the family to the top of the hill whenever there was a fireworks display in town. This happened occasionally but on what special event days I can't now recall. From the summit, you could see all the way to the city, and people would gather at this hill top, sitting on the steps, watching the fireworks display far off in the distance.

The view from the summit of Bukit Batok hill before the Nature Park obscured the scene.
You could see the cityline in the distance.
The steps leading up were in a decrepit stage at that time but was still usable to get to the summit.

We young kids would be running around the summit which was a flat top. To us it was simply a playground. We had no inkling whatsoever of the significance of that flat top. All I can still remember was that we could see all around in every direction.

This was the Bukit Batok hilltop in 1958. You can see the flatten summit from which we would watch the fireworks in later years (top centre circular feature). There were hardly any trees tall enough to block the panoramic view.

Of course, we now know that the hilltop was the location where, in 1942, the Imperial Japanese Army built their war memorial shrine called the Syonan Chureito. The shrine contained the ashes of their fallen war comrades. All the Japanese soldiers were required to attend the annual Yasukuni memorial service there. (link here to the Syonan Chureito memorial). There was also a British Memorial Cross erected behind this shrine to honour the fallen Allied soldiers who died during the war. Both memorials were dismantled in 1945 when the Japanese Army surrendered to the Allied Forces.

The Dedication of the Syonan Chureito shrine at Bukit Batok on 7 December 1942.

In 1962, in preparation for the introduction of television service in Singapore, a new signal transmission tower was required as the equipment at Caldecott Hill was unable to completely cover the island. Bukit Batok hill was chosen as the site for the new transmission tower. It was to be built over the same spot where the Japanese shrine once stood.

The RTS TV Tower on the summit of Bukit Batok.
(The factory in the distance below was Cycle & Carriage Ltd at Hillview Ave)

The site became known as the Bukit Batok TV Transmission Station.  It made its first ever transmission on 15th February 1963 broadcasting in black & white a feature programme called 'TV looks at Singapore' produced by TV Singapura. There was only one channel then, Channel 5. By November 1963, a new channel called Channel 8 was added to broadcast mainly programmes in Chinese.

In 1965, when Singapore gained independence, the TV station was renamed Radio & Television Singapore (RTS) and thus the broadcasting tower at Bukit Batok came to be called the RTS TV Tower. The tower was used for an additional FM Radio service broadcast in 1967.

(Photo source: National Archives Singapore)

In the above 1967 photo, the road leading up to Bukit Batok was truncated and diverted due to the construction of Jurong Road (bottom left) to meet Upper Bukit Timah Road (bottom right). The road to the summit was then named Lorong Sesuai. It was previously unnamed or simply called Hume Heights, which was actually the street at the top leading out from Hume Industries.  The kampong at the base of Bukit Batok beside Lorong Sesuai was Kampong Mendoza.


In 1981, Singapore Broadcasting Corporation (SBC), successor to RTS, planned a new TV channel called TV12. It was found that the TV transmission tower was at its limit and could not handle any additional broadcasting. So a second transmission tower was built beside this first tower to handle the new increasing broadcasting requirements.

The Twin Towers as seen from Bukit Batok Nature Park.

However, here is something that may surprise most of you!
There was a time when there were THREE towers on Bukit Batok hill.
I remembered that I had once really seen three towers but then noticed only two towers later.
It was so long ago that I myself became unsure whether I had really seen three towers. Was I mistaken? So I searched and searched the records but found nothing, until.....bingo!

Irrefutable proof that there was once three towers!

So it seemed that by 2003, the original 1963 tower was in a bad state of corrosion after more than 40 years of service. It was determined that it would become unsafe in the coming years and needed to be replaced.
In order to ensure that broadcasting was uninterrupted, a temporary tower was built to provide transmission while the main tower was taken down and the new replacement tower built. Thus, for a short period of time, Bukit Batok had triple towers.
Construction of the replacement tower took place in 2005 and was completed by July 2006.  The new upgraded tower began transmission at midnight, 14 July 2006. The original 1963 tower was scrapped after being dismantled.

The upgraded TV transmission tower that was built in 2006.

The railway bridge at Hillview Road.

Before the year 1948, what would become Hillview Road was nothing more than a country track that was the land boundary between two gambier plantations belonging to Messrs. J Jacobs and Messrs. Tang Kok. This boundary track led from Upper Bukit Timah Road at 9-1/2 milestone into the Bukit Gombak farms and rubber plantations.

What had puzzled me for a very long time was the railway girder bridge that was built over the later Hillview Road.  I was confused because I knew that Hillview Road was only constructed in 1948 but the KTM (Keretaapi Tanah Melayu) railway line was built in 1932, a good sixteen years before the road was built. So my question was 'Did they build the girder bridge over a country track?'. If so, why would they do that? Was there a need to build a bridge there? It didn't make sense to me.
Moreover, about 500m further down, there was also another country track called Lorong Taluki. This track crossed the KTM line too but there was no bridge, just a slope up to the embankment and then down the leeward side. Why did they need a bridge here?

I even referred to my good friend, Dr Lai Chee Kien, who has extensive expertise with the rail system in Singapore. Dr Lai and I both lived at Fuyong Estate before where we would see the KTM trains passing everyday on the high embankment along the Hillview ridge. Dr Lai wasn't too sure of the reason as well. So, was the bridge there even before Hillview Road was built?

For a long time, I left the question open till about a month ago when I found a photomap dated 15 April 1948. The aerial map showed the on-going construction of Hillview Road and Hillview Avenue on that date. It totally resolved the question of the girder bridge!

(Click on photo for a detailed view)

The girder bridge was built at the same time as the construction of Hillview Road in 1948!
There was no girder bridge when the railway line was built in 1932. In order to construct Hillview Road, KTM had to create a temporary diversionary rail siding to allow for the construction of the girder bridge.*
(Correction: From further research into the area, the previous original sentence is incorrect!.
While building the road, they DID NOT build a diversionary rail to bypass the road and bridge construction.
It seems that the curve of the railway line at this section towards Bukit Timah Road was the original path of the railway line. The girder bridge over the road was a new section of the railway line that was built and replace that curved section.)

Hillview Road was created by cutting through the ridge from Bukit Timah Road. Passing the road today, you can still see the cut made then. Hillview Road is like a huge hump with the summit exactly where the gate of the former Union Carbide Co (then National Carbon) was. Hillview Road and Hillview Avenue were specifically created for access to the two new factories of National Carbon and Malayan Guttas.

As I had mentioned in a previous article, the creation of Hillview Road and Hillview Avenue was the first time that the area was officially called 'Hillview'. The name was used because at the other end of this Hillview ridge near Bukit Batok Hill, there was a grand private country estate called 'Hillview Estate'. This country house Hillview Estate was the wartime headquarters of the Australian Division that fought the invading Japanese army in 1942.

Though, adequate at its time, the girder bridge at Hillview Road was to become a bottleneck for vehicles with increasing economic activities in the 1970s. Hillview Road was then the only access to the industrial factories being built at Hillview. The solution, in 1969, was to extend the other end of Hillview Avenue to join Jurong Road at Bukit Batok.

The girder bridge was dismantled and removed on 26 November 2011 as a result of the return of the KTM land by the Malaysian government to Singapore. The bridge support buttresses were only removed in 2017 and we can expect that Hillview Road will be further widened in future to accommodate the increasing traffic through the area.

The KTM railway girder bridge at Hillview Road.

The bridge was dismantled in November 2011.

Other links to the girder bridge:-
The Girder Bridge at Hillview
The development of Hillview Avenue
The colonial Hillview Estate

World War Two battles at Bukit Batok

Recently, I was invited to lead a heritage tour for a group of Australians. They had one thing in common. All of them had a relative who either fought or died in Singapore during World War Two. They wanted to follow in detail the footsteps that their grandfathers or grand-uncles had taken during the war here. And remarkably, each of their relative had fought at Bukit Batok, then known as West Bukit Timah.
Without going into too much details, here in brief is what had happened at the battle for Bukit Batok.

(Photo source: Australian War Memorial)

On 8th February 1942, the Imperial Japanese Army invaded Singapore by landing at the beaches at Lim Chu Kang.

The following day, 9th Feb 1942, the British forces tried to set up a blockade at the Bulim area. This was called the Kranji-Jurong Line. The strategy was to prevent the invaders from going past the area between the Kranji and Jurong Rivers.

The planned blockade failed even before the opposing Japanese forces had reached this frontline.
Of the four groups sent to form the blockade, two withdrew far from the battle line, while another two units retreated back to the base of Bukit Batok hill to face the oncoming Japanese army there.

These latter two units were the 15th Indian Brigade and the Special Reserve Battalion.
The 15th Indian Brigade comprised the Jat Regiment, the British Regiment, the Punjab Regiment and the Leicestershire Regiment. Each regiment was deployed to defend the front-line which was basically along Jurong Road.

A further two expeditionary forces called X Battalion and Merret's Force were also sent to assist the 15th Brigade in defending Jurong Road. X Battalion was dug in to defend Hill 138, which was the Jurong I Trigonometry Station, just south of the 9th milestone Jurong Road. Merret's Force was unable to locate their planned defence position at Jurong Road but took up a new position south of X Battalion.

Just before midnight of 10th February 1942, the Japanese army confronted the defending British Forces along Jurong Road, and thus, the battle of Bukit Batok began.
First along the line was X Battalion that was caught off guard. They lost 280 men out of their force of 400, killed in battle that night. This was followed by the almost total decimation of Merret's Force at Toh Guan, losing a further 120 soldiers.
Skirmishes continued along Jurong Road with the Special Reserve Battalion who managed to hold off a few forward thrusts by the Japanese till morning.

By daybreak, the Brigade Commander, knowing that he was almost surrounded, decided that their forces would retreat south to Reformatory Road where their allies were. They began their retreat by going through the farmland and rubber estate south of Jurong Road. At a rubber estate called Sleepy Valley, the retreating British forces were ambushed by the Japanese soldiers.
You can follow the story of this ambush here at this link.

You may not be able to understand a battlefield map but here is an account of the battle at Bukit Batok from a Japanese perspective and how the Imperial Japanese Army moved through the region. Further to the Japanese map, I have included some illustrations below to explain the battle that took place at Bukit Batok on the night of 10th Feb 1942.

Extract from a Japanese map showing the battle at Bukit Batok.

This is the same area of Bukit Batok as mentioned in the Japanese map above.
The snaking 'white line' running across the picture is Jurong Road.
(click on the pictures for a detailed view)

Here I have superimposed the roads that are found today running through Bukit Batok New Town.
Please take the MRT Station for your reference to the 'blank' photo above.
(Click the picture for detailed view)

These were the areas that were defended by the British forces on 10th Feb 1942.
The area on the left from Jurong Road to Jurong River was the southern part of the "Kranji-Jurong Line"
This was defended by the 44th Indian Brigade which withdrew to Pasir Panjang before the battle.

The area on the right is at the base of Bukit Batok Hill (today called Hillview and Bukit Batok East)
This was where the 15th Indian Brigade, the Special Reserve Battalion and X Battalion
were entrenched to defend Jurong Road

The red arrows shows the movement of the invading Japanese forces through Bukit Batok.
(click on the picture for a detailed view)

This is the entire battlefield today as seen from the high-rise block at Skyline II.
The road in the foreground, Bukit Batok East Ave 6,  would approximate the former Jurong Road.

Living below the radar.

Perhaps, because of its ulu remote location, most people would not have heard of or knew where Princess Elizabeth Estate was. Even when taking a taxi in those days, you had to say 'Tien Tor Long' i.e. 'the Eveready battery factory', before there's some semblance of familiarity. Saying Hillview or Princess Elizabeth would simply draw a blank look. It was as though we residents of the estate were living below everyone's radar.

But then, we really WERE living below the radar!  The RAF Radar Station at Bukit Gombak.




Sometime around 1963, the Royal Air Force (RAF) built an early-warning radar installation at the summit of Bukit Gombak. It comprised the Type 80 EW Ground-Controlled Interception radar and two Height Finding Radars.

An RAF Westland Wessex helicopter.
(Photo©steve ryle Air-Britain Photo image collection)

From our flats at the base of Bukit Gombak, most residents could see the radar installation. The Early-Warning radar would be constantly rotating, while the two Height Finders would be tilting up and down, earning it the nickname the nodding radars.

Very frequently, we would also hear a loud whirring sound and the sight of a yellow RAF helicopter coming in to land at the summit.




During World War 2, there were no particular records of any battles on Bukit Gombak itself but it is known that during the Japanese Occupation, a Japanese Army camp and an Observation Post (OP) were built on the summit. It would command the entire view of Bukit Timah Road from Bukit Timah Village all the way to Mandai.

Bukit Gombak in 1960 before the installation of the RAF radars.

Picture of RAF Radar Station taken around 1965.

Height Finder Radar on Bt Gombak
Photo source: NAS

By 1963, the RAF had completed building the radar station comprising the rotating early-warning radar and one nodding height finder radar. A second height finder radar was added to the installation a few years later.  The two nodding radars faced opposite directions.


The radar station was called RAF Gombak. The base was protected by double chain-link fences. It occupied only the top around the summit and was surrounded by small farms!

Most young boys residing at Princess Elizabeth Estate would have climbed Bukit Gombak to the summit as part of their adventures or simply to view the radar installation.

I can remember my own trips to the summit, walking outside the chain-link fence and along the way would stop to pluck the starfruits, buah kelondong, rambutans and sugar cane that grew on the slope. They probably belonged to the farmers!

The radar installation was handed over to the Singapore Air Defence Command, precursor of the RSAF, when the British forces pulled out of Singapore in 1971.
Today, practically the entire Bukit Gombak hill has been taken over by the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) with several military camps built within the fenced protected zone that stretches all the way from Hillview to Bukit Panjang.

Nowadays, if you look carefully at Bukit Gombak, you might still see something there in place of the old British radar. What are those, you ask? Well, I am not going to risk a knock on my door at 2 am for revealing state secrets, ha ha. Take a trip on the MRT train towards Chua Chu Kang Station and keep your eyes peeled if you want to know.

What are those things on the summit today? I don't know and don't ask me! I prefer to remain under the radar.

Hillview Haunted House - Why it was abruptly abandoned.

The ghostly Hillview Mansion.

Ever since I wrote about the haunting of the Hillview Mansion in this blog eight years ago, it has become the  most searched for, the most visited, and most read article of my blog. I guess many people are simply obsessed by hauntings, by ghost stories or just simply curious. Most are skeptical but still piqued by the possibility and like to know that little bit more. I still get requests from readers, almost on a weekly basis, wanting to know the story behind the haunted house.

Over the years, I have seen so many speculations and conspiracy theories about this place. None of which have come close to the real reason why the Hillview Mansion became as it was.
I have put off revealing the real reasons for the past eight years simply because some of the people involved were, or are still, around and it just wasn't helpful to add to the speculation.
So now, after eight long years of keeping the mystery a secret, and to dispel any further speculations, I will reveal the story....well, at least a major part of it.
There are two parts to this story:
Firstly, why the house was abruptly abandoned, and secondly, why it became haunted.


March 1986.
EVERYONE, STOP WORK AND LEAVE, NOW!

It was absolutely true that the construction of the mansion at Jalan Dermawan was stopped abruptly.
No notice of a slowdown or postponement. It was simply everything halt, down tools and get out of the property immediately. So what had really happened to reach this dramatic point in March 1986?

As in all dramas, true or fictional, the story reaches further out than you'd expect.
Here, it all has to do with shenanigans at a totally and seemingly unrelated place.

You would have known by now, if you had read the story of the mansion, that the place was owned by Mr Chua Boon Peng. He was then the chairman of Cycle and Carriage Ltd, a major vehicle distributor and land developer. C&C owned many properties in Hillview. These would be developed into houses and condominiums in future. However, this plot at the top of Jalan Dermawan, was personally owned by Chua. It was said that he paid $7m at that time for the land. He wanted to build a villa for his wife and family, and so construction of his villa began sometime in 1985.


Dirty dealings at Raffles Place
If you are old enough to recall events in the mid-1980s, while Singapore was well on its way to become an Asian Tiger, there were also some major financial scandals that rocked, or rather caused earthquakes, in the local business world. Two separate meltdowns involved companies called Lamipak Industries Pte Ltd and Pan Electric Industries Ltd. Hundreds of millions of dollars were lost and it even led to the closure of the local bourse for a time. The spectacular collapse of these darling blue chip companies caused the entire business world to go into a dizzy spin.

It was the debacle at the former company Lamipak Industries Pte Ltd that caused collateral damage to the Hillview Mansion. (Note: Lamipak Industries Pte Ltd of 1985 is unrelated to the similarly named Lamipak companies of today) 
Lamipak Industries in 1985 was Singapore's largest manufacturer of plastic products. Famously, they had invented a method to use high-density polymer to manufacture the ubiquitous thin plastic bags. They also made the machinery to roll these out which was sold internationally. With some push from the government, Lamipak had become a world leader and a  household name for plastic manufacturing. It was one of Singapore's industrial blue-eyed boys.
But success got into the heads of those that mattered. Books were fiddled, credit fraudulently obtained and when the game was up, they were in a $140m hole from which they couldn't get out of. Directors were jailed and the company was declared bankrupt.


How is this tied in to the Hillview House?
Lamipak Industries had a subsidiary company called Panther Pte Ltd. Lamipak owned 25% of Panther, while Panther's chairman owned 38%. Panther's chairman was none other than Mr Chua Boon Peng.
When Lamipak Industries became insolvent, the banks pulled their credit from Panther as well. Chua was personally liable for loans totalling almost $19m to the banks. He was a guarantor to the banks for the loans to Panther.

To raise funds to repay the debt, Chua had to sell many of his possessions that included a house at Oei Thong Ham Park, as well as the plot at Hillview where the villa was being built!
And so, the construction ceased immediately with the decision to sell the land.

Part One of the mystery solved!

So then, how did it evolved into a haunted house?
Was it because a lady died (true) when she was struck by lightning there at the abandoned house? Was it because of all the seances being held at the abandoned building? Was it because of bad feng shui? Were the dead cats buried there part of some nefarious ritual? Why was it left abandoned for three decades and access prevented by barbed wires?
Part two will reveal all in due time.

What's left of the Hillview Mansion being completely demolished and removed in 2007.