Gallery : Bukit Brown: World Monuments Watch 2014

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Remembering the Fallen

Dateline Sunday 10 November, Kranji War Memorial.

Remembrance Day was commemorated at the Kranji War Memorial in a ceremony dedicated to those who died fighting for Singapore during World War II. Brownies Khoo Ee Hoon and Mok Ly Yng who attended the memorial service had another mission when they were there, to seek out the names of 5 soldiers who had been listed as missing in the Battle at Cemetery Hill (Seh Ong and Bukit Brown Cemeteries).

Based on war records, Ly Yng had already mapped out the dead and missing soldiers from the 4th Battalion, Suffolk Regiment, whose last known positions are right in the middle of the proposed 8-lane highway cutting across Seh Ong and Bukit Brown Cemeteries.

Last known positions of the Suffolk soldiers ( map Mok Ly Yng)

The 5 soldiers, named are not the only ones fallen in the battle.

“4x in yellow to the left of the green box represents 4 individuals known to be buried at that position. At the top of the bo along Lornie Road are know to be 5 soldiers (5x), as with the 1x (in green) at the Lornie Road houses. As these soldiers were located outside of the immediate threatened area, I did not include their names, so as to reduce map clutter.But I decided to keep them in the map to provide some context and indicate that there are in fact more soldiers around the area within the Greater BB area.” Mok Ly Yng.

At the Kranji War Memorial, the soldiers’ names on the memorial wall :

Corporal Davis Angus Adcock
Singapore Memorial Column 53, Kranji War Memorial
Missing: 12 Feb 1942

Adcock (photo Mok Ly Yng)

Lance Corporal Cecil George Meadows
Singapore Memorial Column 53, Kranji War Memorial
Killed: 14 Feb 1942
———-
Private Harry Thomas Cattermole
Singapore Memorial Column 54, Kranji War Memorial
Missing: 14 Feb 1942
Missing. Last seen on Hill 95, badly wounded on 14 Feb 1942.

Meadows and Cattermole (photo Mok Ly Yng)

Mok Ly Yng clarification of Cattermole’s position: “Due to the large map coordinate error, Cattermole could be buried within 50 m of the map coordinate’s position. in other words, he could be very, very to Oon Chim Neo’s grave too. In fact the uncertainty area overlaps her grave. “

Cattermole’s position in relation to Oon Chim Neo (Mok Ly Yng)

Private Ivan Jonathan Warne
Singapore Memorial Column 56, Kranji War Memorial
Killed: 14 Feb 1942
Buried top of Highest hill Chinese Cemetery East of Adam Road in Adam Road – Lornie Road Area by padre Polain 2/26 Bn AIF 14.2.42 (crossed out May 1942) Effects 2 Identity Discs, 1 cross.

Private Ivan Jonathan Warne’s position is not affected by the road construction. He is listed as the only known unrecovered casualty to be buried in Bukit Brown Municipal Cemetery proper (Hill 1).

Warne (photo Mok Ly Yng)

Mok Ly Yng on the case of Private P Sawyer in the map:

“The 5 named individuals on the map were known to have been killed or last seen at those map coordinates just before or after the surrender. But after the war, those who were recorded as’ buried’ could *not* be found again and their remains are still missing. Private P Sawyer is the most difficult to find. His records showed that he had ‘Died in Singapore’ on 14 Feb 1942 and that he was buried on 17 Feb 1942 but this burial record was crossed out at a later unknown date. This leaves him with no records and hence he does not appear on the Singapore Memorial at Kranji nor the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s (CWGC) database or nominal roll, unlike the other 4 named soldiers presented here.”

In battle, the Cambridgeshire Regiment and the Suffolk Regiment fought in adjacent sectors. The Cambridgeshire Regiment held the Adam Park area while the Suffolk Regiment the Bukit Brown Cemetery area. In death, casualties of the two regiments are buried in adjacent sections at Kranji. This photo shows the boundary between the Cambridgeshire Regiment and the Suffolk Regiment in Kranji.

Cambridgeshire and Sullfork regiments are buried side by side (photo Mok Ly Yng)

Kranji War Memorial Sunday 10 November, 2013. Cambridgeshire and Suffolk regiments (photo Mok My Yng)

From Jon Cooper. historian and war archeologist on the Adam Park Project, who also conducts the Battlefield Tour at Cemetery Hill once at month at Bukit Brown:

‘The fate of the missing Suffolks on Bukit Brown is just part of the rich WW2 heritage that can be found on the hills. There were many other units fighting in the area, constantly passing over the cemetery during the ebb and flow of warfare. It is most likely that there are more missing men to be found amongst the headstones.

There will also undoubtedly be spent ammunition and equipment to be found across the site, the remnants of fieldworks and bomb craters and the general detritus of war. Each item will be the part of a big jigsaw of artifacts and by plotting the locations in the landscape it will be possible to gather invaluable information about fighting that took place there.

The impending work on the hills will peel back the top layers and will undoubtedly expose these traces of the past.Hopefully the construction teams, with proper instruction will identify these clues and call in the experts to catalog and retrieve the material before the concrete is poured over it. There is a chance; just one chance to collect this invaluable evidence.

But most of all there is the possibility that we may come across the remains of our missing men. A chance to identify them and lay them to peaceful rest amongst their own. The fact that we go to great lengths to retrieve these men says as much perhaps about the attitude of Singaporeans today as it does about their generation of sacrifice.’

Jon Cooper and Mok Ly Yng (photo Khoo Ee Hoon)

Jon Cooper and Mok Ly Yng who are working together to identify locations of the fallen Suffolk soldiers (photo Khoo Ee Hoon)

Mok Ly Yng at the memorial wall looking for the names of the fallen in the Battle on Cemetery Hill ( photo Khoo Ee Hoon)

Matching names of the fallen at Seh Ong Cemetery ( photo Khoo Ee Hoon)

The Suffolk Regiment casualties list on the Singapore Memorial at the Kranji War Memorial, columns 53 & 54. (photo Mok Ly Yng)

Mok Ly Yng is part of the documentation team tasked by the government to record and document graves affected by the impending highway

The Kranji War Memorial is dedicated to the men and women from United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Sri Lanka, India, Malaya, the Netherlands and New Zealand who died defending Singapore and Malaya against the invading Japanese forces during World War II, it comprises the War Graves, the Memorial Walls, the State Cemetery, and the Military Graves.