| Lim Bo Seng was an active leader in anti-Japanese activities during World War II and helped to collect funds to fight against Japanese aggression in China. Being head of the Labour Services Corps, Lim provided the British with labourers for the war effort before the Japanese invasion. Lim escaped to India after the Singapore fell to the Japanese on Feb 15, 1942. There, he was trained to fight in the jungle and later recruited resistance fighters for Force 136 – also known as the Dalforce or Singapore Chinese Anti-Japanese Volunteer Battalion. Force 136 was a special operations force formed by the British in June 1942 to infiltrate and attack enemy lines. Some local Malays were also recruited into the force. In 1943, elements of Force 136 were sneaked into Malaya by submarine seperately. During one infiltration trip in March 1944, Lim was betrayed by Chua Koon Eng, a middle-aged fisherman who owned three small fishing boats on Pangkor Island and was captured while he was trying to warn other operatives to escape. The Japanese tortured Lim but he refused to reveal those who worked with him. Lim became ill after repeated tortures and died in Batu Gajah jail in Perak on 29 June 1944 at the age of 35. After the war, Lim was posthumously awarded the rank of Major-General by the Chinese Nationalist government while a special funeral was held at City Hall on 13 January 1946. His remains were also brought back to Singapore on the same day and buried with full military honours in the grounds of the peaceful MacRitchie Reservoir. In 1952, a memorial was erected over his grave and a bigger memorial in the shape of a pagoda was erected at Anderson Bridge end of the Esplanade. It was unveiled in 29 June 1954 by Sir Charles Leowen, Commander in Chief, Far East Land Forces. The memorial has a bronze roof with four bronze lions ranged around it.Many post war accounts claims that Lai Teck, a triple agent working for the British, Japanese and the Malayan Communist Party, was the one who revealed Lim’s identity and the existence of the Ipoh network. However, Chin Peng, Lai Teck’s successor, had monitored Lai Teck’s movements and denies the allegation. He said in a recent interview: ‘The reality is Lim Bo Seng was betrayed by one of his own men.’ Declassified files also showed that Chua is the greater suspect as he was released quickly by the Japanese and that his business in Pangkor thrived under Japanese rule. Captain Richard Broome, an SOE’s Orient Mission officer observed that ‘Chua is now back in his business in Pangkor under strict Jap control. All the junks in Pangkor are now owned by a firm under Bill’s (Chua’s) direction.’ |
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| A truth a day: | Imperial Japan attempted to eradicate the Korean culture during its occupation of Korea. The Koreans were not allowed to use their traditional names, nor speak and write in their language in their homeland. |
| 每日一真相: | 日本帝国在占领朝鲜时期企图消灭朝鲜文化。朝鲜人在他们的土地上不被允许使用本身的姓氏，也不可使用本身的语言和文字。 |