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Every war would produce a hero and every country, a patriot, whose deeds would stand the test of time. It was sixty one years ago this month, in the dark years of the Japanese Occupation in Malaya, that such a person emerged. That hero was Lim Bo Seng.
Lim Bo Seng, despite his privileged background and success as a businessman, was staunchly anti-Japanese even before the war came to Malaya. An active contributor of the China Relief Fund, he was later the Director of the Labour Service Department in the newly formed Singapore Chinese Mobilisation Council. Certain to be a target of reprisals for the Japanese, he was compelled to flee Singapore just before it capitulated. He managed to reach Sumatra where he then made his way to Colombo and finally to Calcutta in India. There, he met a British officer, Basil Goodfellow, who persuaded him to join the British efforts in setting up a joint China-Britain espionage network in Malaya. He then proceeded on to Nationalist China to recruit overseas Malayan Chinese for this task. This resistance network came to be known as Force 136.
He was held in high regard by the British and other members of Force 136 for his patriotism, leadership and organisational abilities. After receiving training from the British in India, the men of Force 136 were inserted into Malaya via submarine in batches. Appointed leader of the Malayan Chinese section, he personally arrived in Malaya in November 1943 to co-ordinate the efforts. He was one of the five signatories in the Bukit Bidor Agreement signed on 1st Jan 1944 where the British and the Malayan Communist Party agreed to work together and support each other against the Japanese.
Tragedy was to strike when he was stopped at a checkpoint at Gopeng and arrested. He had earlier ignored warnings and pleas from his comrades about the danger of his mission, which was to revamp the entire intelligence network and solicit funds from his wealthy friends. Brought to Batu Gajah Prison, he was subjected to continuous interrogations and torture by the infamous Kempeitai. Lim Bo Seng was already weak in health, having just gone for a haemorrhoids operation in India before arriving in Malaya. To make matters worse, he suffered from dysentery. Finally, on 29th June 1944, he succumbed under the immense suffering and passed away.
Following the surrender of the Japanese in Malaya in September 1945, the accolades for Lim Bo Seng began to flow in. The Nationalist Government in China accorded to him a posthumous rank of Major-General and a grand funeral procession was held on 13th January 1946. His grave is situated at MacRitchie Reservoir. On the 10th Anniversary of his death, in 1954, a memorial was unveiled at the Esplanade to commemorate him.
Lim Bo Seng attained everlasting fame not only because he gave up everything, including his life, to fight against an enemy he deemed to be tyrannical and cruel but also because of his steadfast refusal under pain and torture to reveal the information which would endanger the lives of his comrades and the cause he was fighting for.
Lim Bo Seng's Force 136
Lim Bo Seng's name is inextricably linked with that of Force 136, for he had a hand in setting it up and bringing it to fruition. The British regrouped after their disastrous capitulation and plans were afoot to regain their lost territories. However, they lacked intelligence on the Japanese troops in Malaya and this could only be remedied if they had a good intelligence network on the ground. For this purpose, Lim Bo Seng was persuaded by the British to help set up a clandestine spy network in Malaya. With Bo Seng's help, the British joined forces with Nationalist China to recruit and train the Force 136 members, which consisted mainly of overseas Malayan Chinese. From China, these men were sent to the Far East Military School in Poona, India where they were taught shooting and survival skills, jungle and guerrilla warfare and intelligence gathering techniques.
Upon graduation, they were sent to Malaya in batches, at first by submarine. The first team, Gustavus I, departed for Malaya on 11th May 1943 and landed in Tanjong Hantu on the 24th. The first base was set up at Bukit Segari. Subsequent batches were landed along the west coast of Malaya. Later on in the war, Force 136 members were parachuted into various Malayan states. As the war dragged on and it became apparent that Japan was losing the war, more and more British officers and Force 136 members were parachuted in, along with weapons and supplies. However, before Operation Zipper (the planned British invasion of Malaya) was launched, the Japanese surrendered unconditionally. Shortly after the surrender, Force 136 was disbanded, but not before its members had been feted as liberation heroes who had put their lives on the line for freedom.
References:
1 Fortress Singapore: The Battlefield Guide, Times Edition 2004
2 Force 136: Story of a WWII resistance fighter, Asiapac Books 1995
3 The price of peace: True accounts of the Japanese Occupation, Asiapac Books 1997
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