Like many baby-boomer Singaporeans, I once believed in an oft-repeated myth about the Battle of Singapore (31 Jan to 15 Feb, 1942): that the big guns the British forces set up in what was then Pulau Blakang Mati -- now Sentosa -- were pointed the other way, ie out to sea, and thus were useless when the Japanese forces invaded Singapore from the Malayan mainland.
Some years ago, I got to know of the true picture. But I will let TODAY reader Kwok Jung Yun (19 May, "Alarm bells when film-maker positions his work as history", page 22) explain it in his words. He wrote to the newspaper to disabuse famed American film director Oliver Stone about this myth, as Mr Stone had referred to it in an earlier interview with TODAY. Here's what Mr Kwok said in his letter:
"Historians have, over a decade ago, established with the use of archival evidence that the coastal guns defending Singapore were not pointed in the wrong direction -- they could, and were, turned around to fire inland against the Japanese. The problem was that these were anti-ship guns that fired armour-piercing shells and were ineffective when used in the role of field artillery.
"If Stone were to present and repeat this myth in a documentary series, it would not only undermine the work of historians but, more importantly, it would sound to the less informed as historical truth."
Hear, hear. But I guess we could say the Brits were only half-goondu in this matter. Why have only naval guns, what? There is another myth: that the British sold off Christmas Island -- then administered from Singapore -- to Australia when Singapore was granted self-government in 1959, so as to keep the small but strategically placed island in the Indian Ocean out of our hands as and when we eventually gained our independence . I'll blog about it another time.
I thought it was already established that it was the Lim Yew Hock government that did the real estate deal?
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