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.