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Lim Bo Seng Memorial

Lim Bo Seng Memorial is dedicated to WW2 hero Lim Bo Seng, a former student of Raffles Institution and Hong Kong University. Major General Lim Boh Seng had taken such an active part in anti-Japanese activities that the authorities had considered banishing him. At the Governors request he formed a Chinese liaison committee for civil defence and this committee proved to be the only body capable of recruiting labour during the Japanese bombardment of Singapore. Lim Bo Seng (Lim Boh Seng) escaped to India just before the fall of Singapore and worked recruiting members for the underground movement in Malaya. In 1943 he returned to Perak to join the guerillas but was caught by the Japanese was put in the Ipoh Prison at Batu Gajah and here he was unmercilessly tortured. The Japanese wanted the names of the Malaysian Communist Party (M.C.P.) members and the whereabouts of their hideouts. Finally, on 29th June 1944, he succumbed under the immense suffering and passed away and was buried in a shallow grave in the jungle near the prison. At the end of the war his body was exumed and he was given a proper burial in Singapore after a state funeral. The Nationalist Government in China accorded to him a posthumous rank of Major-General and a grand funeral procession was held on 13th January 1946. His grave is situated at MacRitchie Reservoir. On the 10th Anniversary of his death, in 1954, a memorial was unveiled at the Esplanade to commemorate him.