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APPENDIX I
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APPENDIX I
I. INTRODUCTION
In compiling this account, the Editorial Committee made extensive use of Captain T. M.
Winsley’s
A History of The Singapore Volunteer Corps 1854 – 1937, being also A Historical Outline of
Volunteering in Malaya
, Singapore, Government Printing Office, 1938.
When the Singapore Volunteer Rifle Corps (SVRC) introduced Volunteer military service to
Singapore in 1854, it was exclusively for and by expatriate Europeans. Its primary role was to
supplement police resources to protect the expatriates from ‘native’ violence but it also undertook
to resist the invasion of a foreign foe.
1
During WWI, by which time the Volunteer movement
had been extended to locals in the Straits Settlements as well as the federated and unfederated
states of the Malayan peninsula, legislation was formally passed to draft Volunteers in times of
war. The Volunteers played a significant role during WWII in operations against the Japanese.
The formal co-optation of the Singapore Volunteer Corps (SVC) to train conscripts after the
Colonial Government introduced National Service in Singapore in 1954, completed the process
of integrating the Volunteers fully into the national security role. Thus, on expulsion from
Malaysia in 1965, the Volunteers in the shape of the People’s Defence Force (PDF) had at least
an equal claim with the regular battalions—1 and 2 SIR—to being the forebears of the SAF. As
such, an account of the origins of the SAF would benefit from a quick summary of the history
of the Volunteers.
However, while the Volunteer movement in Singapore definitively began in 1954, and survived
in one form or another, it did not have an unbroken lineage in terms of corps of service or
orientation all the way back to 1854. It went through several metamorphoses leading eventually
to the configuration of the 101 and 106 PDF battalions and their reservist spin-offs, 102, 103,
104, 105, and 107 PDF battalions.
In 2014, a Committee to Strengthen National Service, chaired by Dr. Ng Eng Hen, Minister for
Defence, decided to re-introduce volunteer military service to promote national commitment to
the military defence of Singapore by opening up volunteer service to those who did not have
NS Commitments namely female Singaporeans, New Citizens and first generation Permanent
Residents. The Singapore Armed Forces Volunteer Corps (SAFVC) was formed in February
2015. SAFVC Volunteers (SVs) would attend a two-week Basic Training Course and an additional
one-week Qualification Course before they are called up for typically seven days a year to serve
alongside our NS and active servicemen in a supporting capacity. SVs could serve in a variety of
roles such as Auxiliary Security Trooper, Infomedia Staff, Medical Trainers, Maritime Trainers,
A BRIEF HISTORY OF
THE VOLUNTEER FORCES IN SINGAPORE