War Memorial Park - Singapore    Share

Lest we forget

Beautiful park located at the heart of singapore. I didn’t manage to get time walking into it but the outside of the park was pretty nice. The monument was also magnificent. If you have time while you are in town, you can drop by here.

Civilian War Memorial is a monument dedicated to civilians who perished during the Japanese Occupation of Singapore (1942–1945). The memorial’s structure comprises four tapering columns of approximately 68 m high. These columns symbolise the merging of four streams of culture into one and the principle of unity of all races. On 13 March 1963, the Singapore government announced that it would set aside 4.5 acres (1.8 ha) of land along Beach Road for the building of a memorial and park to commemorate the civilian victims massacred during the Japanese Occupation. The remains from the discovered mass graves would be cremated and the ashes placed in the park. Costing $750,000, the government would pay half of the construction cost by matching public donation on a dollar-to-dollar basis. The mass graves of civilian war victims were found in several locations around Singapore in 1962. More than 40 of these mass graves came from Siglap’s so-called Valley of Death. Till this date ex-servicemen, families and others gather at the memorial every year on 15 February to commemorate that fateful day. It was known that a ground-breaking ceremony was held on 1 November 1966 before the completion of the memorial. Some 606 urns containing the remains of thousands of unknown civilians from the mass graves interred on either side of the memorial podium, it further added to the material significance of the structure whose history it represents. Since the Civilian War Memorial monument also resembles two pairs of chopsticks, it is also affectionately called the “chopsticks” memorial. The memorial was officially unveiled by then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew on 15 February 1967, which was the 25th anniversary of the fall of Singapore.

It's a large quiet park with the Swissotel and other buildings surrounding it. Looks like it's undergoing some repair work. It's a great place to just sit and read a book. Hear the sounds of water rushing from the fountain. The sheet size of the monument serves as a reminder of the atrocities of war.

Excellent must visit once in your life time