About Adam Park
The quiet leafy suburb of Adam Park is a remarkable WW2 heritage site;
In February 1942, the nineteen ‘black and white’ houses became the backdrop for three days of the heaviest fighting of the week long Japanese campaign to capture Singapore. Men of the 1st Battalion Cambridgeshires held off the IJA’s 41st Regiment amidst the ruined houses, shell pocked gardens and manicured tennis courts for 72 hours before the surrender of the island. Reputedly the last shots of the Japanese invasion were fired at Adam Park. Three medals were won for the defence of the estate and hundreds of troops from both sides were killed in the action.
In April 1942 the estate once again resounded to the sound of marching feet as the estate was used to house over 3,000 British and Australian POWs working on the Syonan Jinja, the Shinto Shrine along the shores of the MacRitchie Reservoir. Their relatively comfortable existence was abruptly ended in 1943 when the majority were shipped to Japan or to the infamous Thai Burma Railroad.
Most remarkably the estate has remained virtually unchanged over the intervening years. The houses, tennis courts and lawns over which the combatants fought at close quarters remain standing. Virtually all the outbuildings, garages and kitchens that were used to accommodate the 2,000 Australian remain intact today. The buildings housing the Japanese Guard House, the Prison Hospital, Officer’s Mess, camp canteen and Prison Chapel are all still to be found on site. Singapore’s WW2 story is all around you. Walk carefully around the estate as the debris of war can still be found scattered across the lawns and amidst the flower beds.
This website is the first Virtual Battlefield Museum for Singapore and aspires to provide a one stop shop for all things on the Adam Park WW2 Heritage site. The site provides a unique insight into life and death in Singapore in 1942.