Continue my exploration into another ulu part of S'pore. Still on the trail of Tan Shzr Ee Lost Roads, I visited the "monster guns" of Johore Battery. It's located somwhere near the old Changi Prison, opp the Changi Baptist Church, along an isolated road leading to some rehabiliation centre/Police K-9 unit/Selarang Camp(?) and some workshop (?, saw some Chinese foreign workers walking in). The guns (in reality only left with ONE gun and it's only a replica), to my disappointment, is not open for the public. It's fenced off with the gate locked (no idea for what reason and no one to turn to for enquiring either). There's a tunnel near the gun as well, also denied access to visitors (The book says there's a periscope which visitor can have a peep what's inside the tunnel. Now I can't even enter to peep!).
A litte history: The Johore Battery used to house 3 guns, defending the east coast of S'pore. They are really powerful guns (so claimed the Bri) that are capable of firing 15 inch shell at battleships 21 mile away. With their 16.5 m barrel, they are indeed monsters of their day, and only 7 in total existed within the British empire -- 2 in Dover @ England, the rest in S'pore, out of each 2 are in Bouna Vista. 2 of the Johore Battery guns not only could defend the sea from here, but also turned to fire at Johore Bahru. They do play some role in defending against Jap invasion, but unable to turn the tide of history. With the Jap winning the war, the Bri, as with all other defences under their care, destroyed the guns. As for the tunnel, it served as an ammunition store until ganna sealed up by the Bri in 1970s. It was re-discovered in 1991 and in 1992 the place was restored with the building of a replica of one of the guns and reopened to the public.
A small hut(?)/guard post (?) nearby contain plaques that chronicle the history of the battery. There's a TV in the hut, probably meant to show footages about the guns, but is not working. Wonder who is manning this place?
Since it's still early, I decided to pay a visit to the Changi Museum which chronicles the history of POWs during the Jap Occupation. It's just some simple displays, not as fanciful as those high tech exhibits in National Museum, but it brings out vividly the horrors and sorrows behind those walls. It's those bits and pieces of artefacts belonging to the POWs (including a book published for children during Christmas, a birthday card drawn by a child, a rope left with blood stain that could have seen numerous tortures of the POWs) that really left an impression on me. It's that sense of reality of life that comes out from artefacts and not mere CGI effect that truly brings out the essence of history. Perhaps that is also the attractiveness of a site museum. It may not have all the glamour and publicity a national museum possesses, but it certainly have a more humble nature - just tell the story of the site in the most simple and direct way.
As I walk out of the museum and into the blazing sun, I realise I'm back in Singapore again. That's really a strange feeling, as the museum reminds me more of a military museum I've visited in Darwin, Australia. It seems that Changi Museum remains a museum lying in a sleepy corner in Singapore visited mostly by foreign tourists, forgotten by most local Singaporeans. Meow! Is the cat at the entrance moaning the nameless souls that had been lost in the war and forgotten by history?
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