We’ve just visited the most interesting museum I’ve been to so far in Singapore, the old Ford Factory in Upper Bukit Timah Road. The factory was the location at which the British signed the surrender to Japan on February 15, 1942. In the weeks leading up to the invasion, the Japanese troops had swept down through peninsular Malaysia. They quickly took the north of the island and by the time they had reached the Ford factory the outcome was inevitable. The British signed the surrender and Singapore became known as Syonan for the next 3 years.
The museum tells the story of the build-up to the invasion, the invasion itself, life under the Japanese, and the subsequent surrender of the Japanese in 1945. It was a turbulent and sometimes brutal time, depicted in the museum in photos, text, and first-hand accounts, together with an audio-visual presentation that we didn’t see. It’s well worth a visit.