Lim Bo Seng Memorial

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Our group next headed towards the Lim Bo Seng Memorial, located within Esplanade Park itself. The memorial can be found a few hundred metres from the entrance of the Esplanade Park.

The memorial was unveiled in 1954, ten years to the day that Lim Bo Seng died, after rain had delayed the completion of the pagoda by Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Loewen. The 12-foot high memorial, designed after Nanking's victory monument, was built to perpetuate and commemorate the memory of a person who contributed greatly to the war efforts in Singapore during World War II. Four bronze plaques with texts in English, Chinese, Tamil and Jawi, describing Lim Bo Seng's life, are embedded on the memorial. The English plaque looks as such:

*

Illustrating Lim Bo Seng's life

The Lim Bo Seng Memorial, as the name suggests, is a memorial erected in tribute to one of the most well-known people from the Japanese Occupation. Lim Bo Seng is remembered as a local anti-Japanese hero who led a resistance force of volunteers against the Japanese in 1942. Lim Bo Seng became prominent in anti-Japanese activities since 1937 and after the fall of Singapore, joined Force 136 in 1943. However, he was outed after a spy identified him and was tortured to death by the Japanese on 29th June 1944.

As we solemnly remembered the sacrifices of our forefathers, we made our way to the next stop: the Indian National Army Marker.