Changi Chapel Museum

Yesterday we took advantage of my day off - due to Chinese New Year - to take a mini tour with some Singaporean friends from Nottingham who are here for a few months. There were a few places that we wanted to go, and that we wanted to scout out for operation 777, so first up was the Changi Chapel. We had intended to visit the Istana - the presidential palace - but the queues were eye watering, so we went ahead with plan B - Changi Chapel.

The museum and chapel is tucked away next to the main Changi Prison, still used as a penitentiary today. The museum was very well put together, with a lot of eyewitness accounts of the PoW camps and the events surrounding the fall of Singapore. What was most interesting was that there were plaques donated by the various battalions that served in Singapore, and the one that you can see to the left is that of the 5th Beds & Herts. It's sideways now, but I'll try and put it the right way round soon! What amazed me was the sheer diversity of regiments (India, USA, Australia, Malaya and so on), and the age of the men who were fighting. Many were younger than me, and that is something that hits home when you go to something like this.

The museum also includes a lot of information on the Burma/Thailand railway, and loads of artefacts, including a lot of things that were made by the men who worked on the railway. What astonished me is that in the Changi PoW camp, within 3 weeks they were putting on plays, and after a while were giving lectures at the "Changi University", on anything from Maths to Egyptology.