Workmen @ Padang Terbakar, 1952

Here are 4 photos just received from Joe Elliott. They show work being done at Bedok/Padang Terbakar. Joe cannot recall what the workmen were doing at the time. Maybe they are building a bridge using coconut tree trunks. Hope readers can throw some light.

 Here’s a Guide to Singapore book in Singapore 1952. Inside, it had maps of postal districts etc. and a street guide of the city centre itself. Notice there are 3 icons on the cover. The top is unmistakeably the Cathay Building, Singapore's tallest building at that time. Are you able to decipher the other two?

Koh Sek Lim Road, 1952

Here is the latest batch of photos received from Joe Elliott. They show the Koh Sek Lim Road which ran from Upper Changi Road to the beach at Bedok. To help you to orientate yourself, I made a scan from my 1963 street directory.

Explanatory notes by Joe Elliott

Photo (1) shows Upper Changi Road from left to right. In front is the Koh Sek Lim Road leading to Bedok Beach and Padang Terbakar. The sign at the start of the road is a Wimpey Sign for the Bedok Sand pit. (The Chinese sign says “公立中莱公学” read from right to left – not very sure about the 4^th word)

Koh Sek Lim Road today

Photo (2) – Walking up the road towards the beach.

 

Photo (3) - Coconut trees on both sides of Koh Sek Lim Road leading to Bedok Beach. 

Photo (4) – When you get to the beach, you see this Pill box from the war on Bedok Beach.

 Photo (5) - Bedok Beach at Padang Terbakar showing the Pill box in the distance.

Photo (6) - The beach at Padang Terbakar with the Pill box behind us. To the right of this photo a few yards over the bank, are the Attap Houses of Padang Terbakar. These are shown on photos 7 to 10.

If you look at the map you sent me of the Koh Sek Lim Road - the top of the road shows a right turn - the Houses were on the dotted section of the map and behind these houses was the river marked 'Sungei Bedok' 

Photos 7 and 8 are photos of the Attap House Church which was the original Bedok Methodist Church from 1946 to 1952. In 1952 they had the new church being built down Bedok Road. This was finished by the end of the year.  You can see this on the 1963 map. 

I looked on Google for the Bedok Methodist Church, found their website and contacted them.  I then sent these photos to the Pastor Rev. Sng Chong Hui. He was delighted to see them and said they were going to use them for the 66th Anniversary Celebration which was on 21 October 2012 which they did.

I noticed on one of your Blogs there was a Ron Ho who knew this area and talked about Koh Sek Lim Road. I think he might like to see these photographs as a memory of the past. 

Eating places near Bedok Rest House in 1952 (Updated)

Here are more photos, courtesy of Joe Elliott, of eating places, eating stalls and an itinerant food vendor. Joe recalls in a recent email:

“At the side of Bedok Rest House were stalls on the pavement and behind them on the beach were tables and chairs which you can just see on the photos. The stallholders were cooking various foods which I had at one of tables in 1952.  It was several pieces of meat (not sure what kind) on a thin wooden skewer and a small dish of sauce.  The meat when dipped into the sauce was out of this world - it just melted in your mouth and I've never tasted anything like it since. I knew at the time what they were called but in 60 years I've forgotten. "The memory forgets what they were called but will never forget the taste".

PS – I think Joe must be referring to satay.

Related posts:

This is the way we eat, part 1

Thisi s the way we eat, part 2

Itinerantfood vendors of yesteryears

Eatingplaces at Tian Lye Street 1

Bedok Rest House and Bedok Corner in 1952

Recently I received this email from Joe Elliott of Manchester, England.

“I’ve just found your website – it’s great. I was in Singapore in 1952 with Royal Signals at the Transmitter Station at 9.5 miles stone Changi Road. I went to the Bedok MYF (Methodist Youth Fellowship) at Padang Terbaker* and made many friends there and have many photographs. I could send you some if you're interested.”

To say I am interested would be the understatement of the year don’t you think? And so, here are some photos of the Bedok Rest House and the nearby famous Bedok Corner with more to come. Enjoy!

But first, this is a scan from the 1963 street directory to give you a better idea of the places in these photos.

1) Bedok Corner in 1952 and Oct 2012 (photo courtesy of Peter Chan)

2) Bedok Rest House in 1952 – viewed from entrance and from the beach.

3) Bedok Road near Bedok Police Station in 1952 and Oct 2012 (photo courtesy of Peter Chan)

Finally, here’s Joe and his buddies at the Bedok Rest House.

* According to Peter Chan, Padang Terbakar was a Malay kampong near Hole #1 of Laguna National Golf Club or entrance from Xilin Avenue into Laguna Green beside the Sungei Ketapang bend.

Related post by Peter Chan: Balek Kampong to Bedok Corner

Over Bedok Corner 40 Years Ago – Scene 1 (by Peter Chan)

With so much urbanization, the fascination with comparing the old and new Singapore streetscape and landmarks dies off. That is true unless you take to the sky for a different kind of experience - which is exactly what I did over a period of time.



I got this “kick” from my experience coming in to land at the former Hong Hong’s Kai Tak International Airport. How do I describe it when you target your camera at the roads, people and buildings from Mongkok to Kowloon Wall City - just 1,000 feet below you? Well someday I will like to share those aerial photographs which I took in the 1980s and 1990s. Meanwhile back to Singapore.


On an aircraft, you can explore more of what is below you. Back in the 1960s, one could take to the skies on a Cessna from the Singapore Flying Club at Paya Lebar Airport. Today that is impossible because we have to deal with security restrictions. The alternative is to turn to civilian flights that leave/arrive at Changi International Airport. Still you need to find a good window seat as well as a pair of steady hands to “fire off” the camera.


Despite careful planning, luck plays a part. Sometimes luck is not on one’s side when the aircraft takes-off on a different runway and heads in another direction away from the intended route. Climbing to a high altitude too quickly also present a challenge.


Take the case when you are about to land at Changi International Airport and finding you are seated at the wrong side of the aircraft. How about the weather which can also create havoc? Too cloudy or a heavy rain storm can ruin aerial photography. Facing morning sun? Afternoon sun? When airlines do not care much about maintenance you have dusty and scratched windows.


The eastern part of Singapore makes an interesting case study because it is near to Changi Airport. You discover the urban, transport and industrial layout of Singapore which you cannot see at street level. Some places look familiar but not altogether the same. High up there, you see different parts of island Singapore. Let me illustrate with this oblique photo to recap our memories of Bedok Corner and Upper East Coast Road; as it was and as it is now.

 

Photo 1: Upper East Coast Road from 2,000 feet– 1960s and 2010


The history of Bedok South Road is interesting. Somebody at the URA must have found that the easiest way to “make” Bedok South Road was to follow the original alignment of the bucket-conveyor system which transported fill-material from the hills of Bedok and Upper Changi Road to the sea.


The former hills have become Bedok South Estate. Temasek Junior College looks to have occupied the grounds of what was once a kampong Chinese school. In the photo, I see blogger Yeo Hong Eng’s kampong-farm but I can’t find it anymore in 2010. Why call it Guards Avenue? There was a time when an off-site university campus existed on the reclaimed land. If you think Lorong Buangkok has the only well in Singapore, you will be surprised that somewhere in Bedok Corner there is still a fresh water well which dates back to the 1920s.


What other scenes can you recognize?

Finale to Upper East Coast Road: A Forgotten History (Peter Chan)

This is a follow-up to “WW2 at Upper East Coast Road” which was posted on Chun See’s blog on December 09, 2009. Three questions were asked.

1) Where was the location of the Bedok Hill Massacre site?
2) What has become of Tanah Merah Powder Magazine, and the
3) Bedok W/T Station?

Here are the answers.

Bedok Hill Massacre site

Photo 4a was taken from the direction of a hill (blue arrow in modern-day photo) where there used to be a Chinese school. The Chinese school was later flattened to become Bedok South Road and Kew Residencia. In that same photo, a road could be visible between the sea and the low bluff. That is Upper East Coast Road; the stretch between Parbury Avenue and Bedok South Ave 3 today.

For my “modern-day shot”, Block 163 was used because there was no suitable elevation to replicate the same 1941 photo.

Somewhere behind the fence was the location of the 1942 “Killing Field” (blue arrow). At that time a small Chinese settlement stood at the edge of the fenced-up forest and Temasek Primary School. It was reported that sympathizers from this settlement gave shelter and provided emergency medical aid to the survivors.

In 1981, the government announced plans to build the Changi General Hospital on the open space bounded by Blocks 155 and 163 on one side, Bedok South Road and Upper East Coast Road. It included the fenced-up forest. We learnt that the decision was reversed in favour of the Simei site. Today the open space is now shared by week-end footballers and the HDB residents except for the fenced-up forest.

But why is the forest the only area still fenced-up? Was it because there was an ugly “past”?

Tanah Merah Powder Magazine

Whilst the nearby hills of what is now Bedok South precinct were leveled down, the Tanah Merah Powder Magazine was left intact until the mid-1970s when the SAF Bomb Disposal Unit was detailed to clear the area. In the early 1960s, I saw the building which had a brick wall facing Upper East Coast Road. For some reasons I was told by my cousin not to walk on that side of Upper East Coast Road. In the early 1970s on bus trips to Bedok Camp, I saw shrubs and trees growing wildly, and it was unusually dim. I can only think that the Baily bridge was blocking off the sunlight.

The once powder magazine lies inside the fenced-up forest. The building foundation of the military barrack is the only piece left from the past, although there are traces of either a broken asphalt road or dirt track leading into the powder magazine area. The “State Land” signboard marks the exact spot of the entrance into the powder magazine.
From the grapevine, there are “talks” that one of the stations on the Eastern Regional Line - the future MRT line from Marina Bay to Changi Airport - will be here. In late 2009, the Land Transport Authority appointed Soil & Foundation to carry out soil investigation along Upper East Coast Road.

Bedok W/T site

Bedok W/T Station (Photo 3a) is now the clock tower of Kew Green, a condominium off Kew Drive. The gradient of the hill (of 20 feet contour interval) is now replaced by four banks of vertical retaining walls to prevent soil erosion.

Today this place is full of tranquility and close to man-made nature. At one corner of Bedok South Estate, are the private landed estates and condominiums. Accessibility is so much better than in the past; to major expressways, the airport, outdoor amenities on the East Coast Park, food centers, schools and wet markets. Did you know you can consult a General Practitioner for less than S$15 and there are four to choose from within 2 minutes walking distance?

World War Two at Upper East Coast Road – Peter Chan

It all started when I received some exciting bits of military intelligence reports about the role of the Americans in Singapore during WW2. All this time, I was under the impression that only the British fought for the liberation of Singapore from the Japanese. Between October 1944 and July 1945, American B29 bombers conducted intelligence and bombing sorties on selected targets in Singapore. The targets included POW Centers, oil storage installations, airfields, enemy bases and key installations.

Photos 1a & 1b: American intelligence report (circa 1945). The handwritten ‘answers” illustrates my guesswork; a major part of the blame was because we dealt with the British Imperial metrics. Having to deal with “feet & yards” metrics in the age of S.I. was quite a challenge.

From aerial intelligence reports, two items caught my attention. They were a “Tanah Merah Powder Magazine 1,100 yards WSW of Bedok Village” and an “unidentified installation 335 yards west of Bedok Village”. Since Char Lee (aka “Icemoon”) and Chin Siew Min had vested interest in this geographical part of Singapore, they pitched in time and resources to investigate further, without which this article would not have been possible.

Photos 2a & 3b: View of photos from Parbury Avenue. TOP; 11 Kew Drive was the yellow dotted line box; a concrete bunker. 1 Kew Drive was the yellow bold line box, a heavy machine gun nest inside a pill-box. At the top of this photo is Bedok Corner (circa 1960). BOTTOM; Tanah Merah Powder Magazine (circa 1962). Tanah Merah Kechil the dirt track starts at the middle-bottom of this photo and would eventually connect with present-day Tanah Merah Kechil South.

The Tanah Merah Powder Magazine operated as an ammunition depot and was first reported in General Gillman’s 1927 report on the defenses of Singapore. General Gillman (whose name was given to Gillman Barracks) drew up defense plans in view of the perceived Japanese threat. It was not just a normal British ammunition depot but a depot that was co-owned by one Tan Seng Poh (whose name gave rise to Seng Poh Road in the Tiong Bahru Estate area). Tan Seng Poh was an enterprising local Chinese merchant of considerable status and did business with the colonial government.

Insofar as the “unidentified installation” is concern, there was no precedence because it was not built by the British. The local spy networks confirmed that it was built by the Japanese and manned by several infantry soldiers. Originally it was thought to be an Observation Post (OP) monitoring possible enemy naval movements off the east coast of Singapore but an air-recon on 12 July 1945 found it to be a wireless station. The Bedok W/T Station had 3 tall tubular masts set out in the form of a triangle of sides 235’ X 250’ X 130’ and the masts were built in the open space between two houses. It was managed by the Imperial Japanese Navy.

Photos 3a & 3b: TOP: Bedok W/T Site lies abandon. The two houses are circled in yellow. Below is Upper East Coast Road with a car heading towards Bedok Corner (circa 1960). During the Indonesian Confrontation era of 1963 - 1966, the site was occupied by British anti-aircraft guns. BOTTOM: a jetty was built to unload ammunition for the Tanah Merah Powder Magazine (circa 1937).

There were six feet deep trenches dug north of Upper East Coast Road. The beach was fortified with barbed-wire from Tanjung Rhu to Teluk Ayer Mata Ikan (3 meters in thickness, 50 - 150 meters from the shoreline) and only visible during low-tide. If the Japanese had not surrendered on 16 August 1945, could this part of Singapore be another “D-Day”, in similar fashion to the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France?

During our pursuit of the subject, we discovered a more somber past. Many are familiar with the massacre sites at Siglap, Amber Road, Upper Changi Road and Changi Creek but Bedok Hill Massacre is seldom mentioned. Why is this so? Unlike the Sook Ching victims, Bedok Hill Massacre involved captured Malay and Chinese military personnel who stood in defense of Singapore. Just after 6.30pm on February 28, 1942, 100 captured men from 1st Bn. Malay Regiment, 4th Bn. Straits Settlement Volunteer Force from Malacca, and the Negeri Sembilan F.M.S. Volunteer Force were machine-gunned down and their bodies dumped into the trenches.

Photos 4a & 4b: TOP: British mobile light anti-aircraft gun on top of a hill. A partial view of Upper East Coast Road bend can be seen to the left of the group of soldiers (circa 1941). The sea is on the left. BOTTOM: the sea is off Upper East Coast Road. In the distance are the hills of Pulau Karimun, Indonesia (circa 1941).

Where was this Bedok Hill? From one survivor account: “We stopped on the seafront near Bedok close to a low hill. Here an anti-aircraft gun had been sited by the British. The whole detachment marched up a lane round the side of a low hill. A level patch on the hill slope was the site of the trenches. Dwellers in a nearby kampong still remember the stench of rotting corpses which hung over their houses when the wind blew in from the sea a week later”.

From my personal recollections, I knew there was a British-built WW2 pill-box at Kew Drive. There were similar constructs along Bedok Road next to the Bedok Methodist Church, one on the grounds of Temasek Secondary School and the other at Bedok Corner facing Bedok Junction.

So where was the location of the Bedok Hill Massacre site? What has become of Tanah Merah Powder Magazine and the Bedok W/T Station? Watch this space again!

Related posts:

1) Balek kampong to Bedok Corner 1

2) Balek kampong to Bedok Corner 2

There are places I remember – Wyman Haven (by Peter Chan)

There are places I remember all my life

Though some have changed.
Some forever not for better.

Some have gone and some remain.
All these places have their moments………..

(Immortal lines from the Beatles classic, In My Life)


Today, there are not too many seafront bungalows remaining on Upper East Coast Road after land-filling of the sea took place. Many turned into condominiums, a medical center and a church. The few that remain are # 492 which was once owned by Alexandra Brickwork, the Hwa Yue Wee Restaurant, former Shaw Bros Holiday Villa and the Columbus Childcare Center site. Gone was Palm Beach Seafood, former President Benjamin Sheares’ home, the former Pepper King of Singapore’s villa, and the Dragon Inn Motel, all well-known icons of the pre and post-WW2 era. Wyman Haven, my maternal grandmother’s seafront restaurant fell victim to land-filling too.

I lost touch of Wyman Haven whereabouts until recently; although I had been told by my father that the property was acquired by the government. I tried various sources including various government agencies but none could advise me. My maternal relatives also could not tell me much except “it was very far away, somewhere in Bedok”. After my grandmother passed away, I went through all the family photo albums but found difficulties finding appropriate photographs or reminders of that place. Since 2005 I “walked the walk; suspecting that a pair of semi-detached houses at #580-582B Upper East Coast Road was the more likely site. I realized my bad judgment was based on recalling seeing tall palm trees just before coming to Wyman Haven from the city direction. By the way, these same palm trees are still standing there in front of “The Daffodile” but the previous big lawn in front of the estate has been acquired for road widening.

Photo 1: Left: Wyman Haven viewed from the side. It was built in the late 1930s with newer extensions made in the 1950s. Upper East Coast Road is to its right and the sea was to its left. Right: Typical 1960s Chinese “Choy Tan” (Cantonese for menu).

Not too long ago on a trip to a military archive in Scotland, I came across some very exciting aerial photos of Singapore, and found images of land reclamation of the Bedok area. Based on my NS knowledge of map-reading and aerial photo interpretation, I found one particular aerial photo indicated the presence of six (6) large seafront bungalows between Parbury Avenue and the Chinese cemetery at Kew Drive, and the Yuan Ming Si Chinese Temple at Hwa San Road. The military archivist was very helpful, patient and understanding. I obtained a copy and turned that over to ICEMOON (http://2ndshot.blogspot.com/) our local expertise for “second shot” Artificial Intelligence photography. He was able to accurately reproduce the present-day location of Wyman Haven.

So where do you think Wyman Haven was? Here are the results:

Photo 2: Wyman Haven is the dark-shaded box. The “Pilot Site” for the land reclamation project started on the left-side of the property facing the sea. Nothing is prominent except the narrow main road and the forest in the distance. I would sit on the seawall throwing stones into the sea whilst waiting for my favorite roasted pigeon to be ready.

Photo 3: The property boundary is all that space bounded by the blue car to the roundabout (old seawall) and to the edge of the basketball court. Recall that narrow main road and the forest in the background?
Wyman Haven is now Temasek Secondary School main driveway. The row of 6 seafront bungalows now fronts one of the main school buildings. The “Pilot Site” for the first Singapore’s land reclamation is the artificial football turf. The fenced-up small forest behind the bus-stop was once the Chinese primary school; a pair of concrete railings across the drain is evidence of the old road into the school compound. The forest is strongly rumored to be the site of the East Coast Line Kew MRT station by 2020.

PS - Wyman Haven in Chinese, by the way, is 惠文港酒家。

Singapore Scenes from the Hollywood Movies (by Peter Chan)

Victor Koo and Malcolm Young of Adelaide, Australia, were happily swapping DVDs and among Malcolm’s collection was a movie, “G.I. Executioner”. This movie was filmed in Singapore in 1971. I got involved when some questions were raised about the Singapore scenes in the movie and Victor asked me to watch the movie.

Malcolm was interested in one of the scenes which showed an overhead bridge and a Chinese temple somewhere in Singapore. Malcolm’s initial thoughts on seeing the bridge was that (in terms of size) it resembled the Singapore-Malaysian railway bridge that passes over Upper Bukit Timah Road - the one near the Railway Mall. He didn’t think that the bridge in the background would have been a POB (Pedestrian Overhead Bridge).

Now you probably asked what is so amazing about this bridge. Honestly, watching an old “B” movie with a routine Singapore storyline can be quite boring. The movie has a long line of terrible dialogue and the only selling point is nudity. I guess a girl shooting a gun while in the nude and being killed landing in a big net and hanging in the net nude is supposed to be the entertainment highlight of this film.

It was not until the end of the movie when I caught sight of the overhead bridge and the Chinese temple. Good heavens, it was the same bridge along Upper East Coast Road which I last saw in 1983 when I often would take my son for a double-decker bus-ride on SBS #12 to the terminus (future Max Pavilion). When information or photos are difficult to come by, it can be quite difficult to “pictorially” explain the bridge to others, although I knew exactly its location. I know for sure many younger people would never be interested.

Photo 1: A scene from the movie and the same place today. The Bailey bridge was after the future Temasek Secondary School. The man hailing the Yellow-top taxi stood in front of the Yuan Ming Si Temple. The bicycle’s position would be the future Kew Residential condominium


There were two reasons for my interest. First, my cousin Seow Boon, who was 7 years older than I, led me to scale the bridge when it was built in 1963. We were scolded by the contractors for this dangerous adventure. The other reason was because it was my “alarm clock” in the 1970s when I did my NS at Bedok Camp. As the bus drove under the bridge, it created a low droning sound which was of the right decibel to wake me up for the next bus stop outside Jalan Haji Salam

Photo 2: Upper East Coast Road in front of the Yuan Ming Si Temple. View towards Bedok Corner. The sexy dame was walking passed the future Kew Green condominium.

History

This was a Bailey bridge and was built across Upper East Coast Road to support the Phase 1 land reclamation in the Bedok area. It was a temporary steel framed bridge used as a method of supporting the conveyor-belt system which transferred fill material from the hills (between Upper East Coast Road and the Anglican High School in Upper Changi Road) to the sea off Upper East Coast Road. This project was undertaken by the Japanese contractor Ishikawa Jima Harima in 1966, as part of the S$50 million Japanese War Reparation to Singapore.

Photo 3: The Cut-Site (present Yokogawa factory) was opposite Aida Street, Opera Estate. The bucket-wheel excavator scrapped the hill and the fill material was transferred to the conveyor-belt to be transported to the fill area (circa 1969). Photo courtesy of Malcolm Young

There were a number of work-site accidents, one which took place at the foot of Parbury Hill. It was said that at Blk 68, there is a shrine under a tree to appease the spirits because there were many Malay cemeteries in that area. Bedok South Road itself took its shape from the original alignment of the conveyor-belt system as more fill material was taken from the hills off Siglap Hill and Aida Street.

I saw two Bailey bridges constructed in other parts of Singapore. One was from Bedok South Avenue 1 across Upper East Coast Road towards the Laguna Flyover, and the other was on Serangoon Road, near the present Boon Keng MRT Station. All the Bailey bridges had a connection with the land reclamation programs. The bridge at Bedok South Avenue 1 was in support of Phase 2, 5 & 6 of the land reclamation project from the Singapore Swimming Club to Marina Central. The Serangoon Road bridge was used to enable lorries to transfer fill material from the future Toa Payoh Estate to Kallang Basin.