This article looks at the Singapore Memorial which commemorates over 24,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers who mostly died during the Malaya Campaign, or as prisoners of war of the Japanese and have no known graves.
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The Singapore Memorial
The memorial and Kranji War Cemetery was designed by Colin St Clair Oakes, an architect who also designed many other cemeteries in Asia, including the Imphal and Kohima War Cemeteries in India.
the Kohima War Cemetery, in India.
On 2 March 1957, the memorial was unveiled by the Governor of Singapore, Sir Robert Black, who had himself been a prisoner of the Japanese.
The memorial was unveiled by Sir Robert Black, Governor of Singapore, on the 2nd March 1957.
The portraits above were published in the Aberdeen Weekly Journal on 19 March 1942 which published dozens of photographs of missing soldiers in this edition alone. I’ve been able to identify each soldier by cross-referencing their names with the War Office casualty lists. The two brothers 2876734 Private James McAllen and 2885231 Private Charles McAllen were both serving with the 2nd Battalion The Gordon Highlanders when they were captured. Charles survived captivity but James died on 20 January 1945 and is commemorated on column 79 of the Singapore Memorial. About half of the soldiers pictured died in Japanese captivity but only James has no known grave while the rest are buried in Myanmar (Burma) and Thailand.
Another soldier commemorated on the Singapore Memorial is Captain Patrick Stanley Vaughan Heenan of the Indian Army. Heenan was born in Reefton, New Zealand on 29 July 1910 and educated in Britain, including at Cheltenham College. Heenan was commissioned on 1 February 1935 and joined the Indian Army on 14 September 1936. In the years before the outbreak of war, Heenan had served with the 16th Punjab Regiment and Royal Indian Army Service Corps before the outbreak of war. He had also taken a period of leave to Japan, ostensibly to learn the language. On the outbreak of war, Heenan was serving with the 15th Mechanical Transport Company.