Local History:

1) The place I visited is “The Battle Box”. The Battle Box is the popular name of
the Fort Canning Bunker, formerly known as Headquarters Malaya
Command Operations Bunker, constructed under Fort Canning Hill,
Singapore, as an emergency, bomb-proof command centre during the
Malayan Campaign and the Battle of Singapore. Fort Canning Hill was
used by the British Army as their headquarters in Singapore, with a number
of buildings built for this purpose in the 1920s. However, the lack of a
headquarters combining all three services present in Singapore – the Army,
Royal Navy and Royal Air Force – was appreciated in 1936 by the then
Colonel Arthur Percival, the Chief of Staff to General Dobbie, 'General
Officer Commanding, Malaya'. To remedy this, a Combined Operations
Headquarters was proposed for Fort Canning.

2) The bunker was constructed with one metre thick (3 feet) reinforced
concrete walls to withstand direct hits from bombs and shells. The complex
included a telephone exchange connected to all military and most civilian
switchboards in Malaya, various signals and operations rooms, sleeping
quarters and latrines. The bunker also included a cipher room for coding
and decoding messages, but by the time of the fall of Malaya, this work had
been shifted elsewhere and the cipher room was used as sleeping quarters.
The Commander of Fixed Defences, Brigadier Curtis, co-ordinated the
coastal artillery strikes on naval targets from the bunker.

The decision to surrender Singapore was made by Lieutenant-General

Percival in a meeting on the morning of 15 February 1942. Held in the
'Commander, Anti-Aircraft Defence Room' of the bunker, a number of
senior officers were in attendance, including Generals Bennett, Heath and
 Simmons. With diminishing water supplies, and no viable options for
launching a counterattack, the decision was made to seek terms with the
Japanese. The Fort Canning Bunker was later occupied by Japanese forces
during the Japanese Occupation of Singapore and used for
communications right up to the time of the Japanese surrender. At the
conclusion of the Second World War, the bunker complex itself appears to
have been looted in the aftermath of the Japanese surrender. Upon re-entry
to the complex in 1988, evidence of a number of excavations were observed,
presumably attempts to find loot that may have been concealed by the
Japanese.

3) The local legend I chose is about the Merlion. One night, the villagers living
by the southern coast of Temasek were awakened by the howling winds and
the crashing waves. The dark clouds blocked out the lights of the moon and
the stars, turning the world in complete darkness. It was as though the
island of Temasek would be engulfed by the raging sea. The terrified
villagers sank on their knees in prayers. During this moment, a bright light
was observed emerging from the southern waters. A massive creature, half
lion and half fish, roared in anger. The battle between the fierce mystical
animal and nature was intense, as the sky was filled with flashing
lightnings. The villagers had never witnessed such terrifying phenomenons
before. After some time, the winds began to die down, the waves subsided
and the sky started to clear. The gigantic sea beast had won the battle
against the nature. As it claimed its victory, it stood proudly on Mount
Imbiah of Pulau Belakang Mati (Sentosa). By morning, the merlion had
retreated into its waters, leaving behind a bright colourful trail.

4)
a) ELIZABETH CHOY (1910 - 2006): War Heroine
Elizabeth Choy was a war heroine, known for her courage, determination
and compassion. Together with her husband, she supplied medicine, money
and messages to prisoners-of-war in Changi Prison when the Japanese
occupied Singapore during World War II. In the 1950s, she returned to
teaching, became a female politician, and campaigned for the development
of social services and family planning. She was the first principal of the
Singapore School for the Blind.

b) SOPHIA BLACKMORE (1857-1945) : First female missionary who

founded two girls' schools
Sophia Blackmore was an Australian missionary who worked for the welfare
and education of women and girls in Singapore. Within two years of her
arrival, Blackmore founded the Tamil Girls' School, presently known as
Methodist Girls' School. Girls' education was not a priority amongst the
Chinese back then. Blackmore had to go door to door to persuade Peranakan
Chinese families that their daughters needed education too. Eventually, her
perseverance paid off and and Telok Ayer Chinese Girls' School (now known
as Fairfield Methodist Secondary School) opened in 1888, with its first batch
of eight girls. Apart from her work in education, Blackmore also opened a
boarding home for girls.

c) CHE ZAHARA (1907-1962): Women's rights activist

Che Zahara binte Noor Mohamed was a Malay activist who worked towards
women's and children's rights in Singapore. After World War II, she and her
husband housed orphans and women in need in their own home, which was
located on Desker Road in the middle of the red-light district. She is the
founder of the first Muslim women's welfare organisation in Singapore, the
Malay Women's Welfare Association (MWWA). The main focus of the group
was on issues surrounding marriage reforms, like raising the legal age of
marriage to 16, and for husbands to pay alimony to divorced wives, until
they remarried. Over the course of thirteen years, she looked after over 300
women and orphans, regardless of race or religion. She also empowered
them with skills, so they could earn a living. In 1961, Che Zahara helped
establish the Women's Charter of Singapore.