Loh Keng Fatt would like a certain table back, please.
WE SHOULD get that table back. It's no ordinary table this.
This is the table that has been immortalised in photographs. Seated opposite the table are a stern General Tomoyuki Yamashita glaring at a meek Lieutenant-General Arthur Ernest Percival.
The date: Feb 15, 1942 during World War II.
The occasion: The embattled British soldier had turned up in Bukit Timah to discuss surrender with the Japanese.
The face-off was in a boardroom at the now-defunct Ford car assembly plant.
That room still exists, part of a structure that has been revamped and rebranded as Memories at Old Ford Factory.
But the table you see inside the room now is actually a replica of the original.
Still, it's worth paying the $3 entrance fee to gain deeper insights into life during the Japanese Occupation, complete with gory tales of how looters were beheaded and how the likes of wartime heroine Elizabeth Choy were tortured.
You might have heard some of these tales but probably thought nothing much about their significance.
But viewing the exhibits at Memories, you cannot help but reflect on how history is not always kind to a country.
Sure, Singapore has come a long way since, we just celebrated National Day in a grand parade, but you also realise that there is no guarantee that things cannot go awry again.
At Memories, you learn that Yamashita's army was actually short on numbers and low on ammunition compared to the Allied forces in Singapore.
But they had the greater fighting spirit and the British caved in. The result? The scene at that table, where Yamashita humiliated Percival.
It seems that the people at the Ford factory donated the table to a museum in Australia after the war, in recognition of the contributions of Aussie soldiers in the defence of Singapore.
I wonder if our National Heritage Board should negotiate with the Australians for the return of the table.
I am not sure how significantly historic or symbolic that table is for Australia.
But for Singapore, it is a stark link to the bad old days, and a reminder of how things went wrong when folks got complacent, and scared.
That table really belongs here.
Tags:
history,
memories at ford,
singapore,
war
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Nice article.
Our national history places emphasis on local war heroes and war atrocities and as a result it written out or ignored the contributions and sacrifices of the Australians in the defence of Singapore (how many knows the name of the division?). Australian battle losses in the Battle of Singapore was highest in Malaya Command.
In Canberra, there is a replica of the Changi Chapel to remember those who did not return from the war Singapore. The surrender table is on display at the Australian War Memorial, not in some cold storage, because the Fall of Singapore is part of Australia's history.
15th Feb every year, Australia commemorates the Fall of Singapore in a special memorial service in the heart of downtown Sydney. It is indicative of how much the war in Singapore means to Australia. We need to remind ourselves that Fall of Singapore is a shared event and memory.
How many of the locals know the existence and have visited Old Ford Factory?
It used to be free admission.
I personally feel that the ‘surrender table’ is iconic of the Ford Factory surrender story. Following the International Council of Museums' (ICOM) Code of Ethics for Museums, Singapore may have a strong case for its repatriation.
Clause 6.3 Restitution of Cultural Property states :
"When a country or people of origin seeks the restitution of an object or specimen that can be demonstrated to have been exported or otherwise transferred in violation of the principles of international and national conventions, and shown to be part of that country’s or people’s cultural or natural heritage, the museum concerned should, if legally free to do so, take prompt and responsible steps to co-operate in its return."
If the ‘surrender table’ was removed when Singapore was still an occupied crown colony; and with the surrender event now being so indelibly etched in Singaporeans’ collective memory, Singapore could possibly pursue the return of the ‘table’ as a cultural property belonging to the country and its people.
It's just a table. More important that we remember the events and circumstances of the war. Memories at Old Ford Factory is certainly an excellent place to have. It was an abandoned factory building not too long ago.
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