Memories of the Japanese Occupation: Singapore’s First Official Second World War Memorial and the Politics of Commemoration

Abstract

On February 15, 1967, the 25th anniversary of the Fall of Singapore, the city state’s official memorial remembering the local victims of the Asia-Pacific War was unveiled. This memorial is officially named the Memorial to the Civilian Victims of the Japanese Occupation and is, ostensibly, a national one. Yet this was not the first attempt to build an official memorial commemorating the experiences of Singapore’s civilian population during the Japanese Occupation (February 15, 1942–September 12, 1945). The first attempt to memorialize local victims of the war and occupation was in 1948, when the Singapore Cenotaph that honored the war dead of World War I was rededicated as a World War II memorial. This was Singapore’s national war memorial until the last official wreath was laid there by a Singaporean minister on Remembrance Day in 1968. After that year, official commemorations shifted to the Memorial to the Civilian Victims of the Japanese Occupation.