My Visit to Battlebox Singapore and Our Amazing Heroes

I’m absolutely thrilled to announce that Our Amazing Heroes is now available at Battlebox Singapore!

Author Shawn Seah with his children’s book series, Our Amazing Heroes, at Battlebox Singapore. Photograph by Shawn’s team.

My children’s book series celebrates several Singapore’s heroes who showed enduring values of strength, courage, and compassion during the Second World War: Ee Peng Liang, Captain Ho Weng Toh, and Mrs Elizabeth Choy. They are available at the Battlebox Singapore shop.

After visiting the shop to shoot my books (pun not intended), I visited the World War II bunker, which was a few steps away from the main shop.

This visit to Battlebox Singapore was definitely very meaningful; I am sure many history buffs will appreciate it too.

Stepping into the bunker feels like going back in time. Sure, the colonial masters are gone, along with their plans and political intrigue, leaving behind their an escape ladder for officers, separated toilets for non-officers, and empty (and somewhat chilling) rooms.

But a 21st century visitor can still imagine and ‘experience’ what it would have felt like.

Scene depicting the conference room where Lt General Arthur Percival made the decision to surrender to the invading Japanese forces. Photograph by Shawn’s team.

While admission is free (operator non-profit Global Cultural Alliance publicly stated that the site would be freely available and easily accessible to the public), visitors who pay can undergo an enhanced experience that includes an audio guide and anaglyph (red/blue) glasses.

This enhanced experience will bring history to life by letting people be involved in those scenes and not just passive bystanders, for example, using the anaglyph glasses to compare between Japanese and Allied perspectives of the battle right before the surrender.

Visitors can use anaglyph glasses for an enhanced experience. Photograph by Shawn’s team.

Battlebox Singapore is more than just about tunnels and wax figures, or old rooms and modern Virtual Reality and immersive technology (although I hasten to add that I liked the projections of scenes comparing the day before to the day after Singapore’s fall).

Scene at one of the rooms at Battlebox Singapore. Photograph by Shawn’s team.

This place carries an important, larger, national message, one that bears repeating in this SG60 year, as we mark 60 years of Singapore’s independence.

Hidden beneath Fort Canning Hill, this underground command centre reminds us that we Singaporeans must be ready to defend our island home ourselves.

These are arguably the two most famous photographs of (i) Lt General Percival and the British military leaders walking up the driveway of the Ford Motor Factory on the day of the surrender and (ii) the British surrender at the conference room of the Ford Motor Factory. Photograph by Shawn’s team.

After all, it was here that the British military leaders decided to surrender Singapore to the invading Imperial Japanese forces on 15 February 1942.

This surrender meant the beginning of many years of hardship, hunger, and suffering during the Japanese Occupation. But it also meant that this was the first time that our forefathers resolved that we could never again leave our fate to the hands of others, and we must determine our own future.

Our Amazing Heroes on display and next to Secrets of the Battlebox. Photograph by Shawn’s team.

If you are visiting this iconic heritage site, do remember to pick up copies of Our Amazing Heroes and bring these stories of heroism home!

Thank you for reading and your kind support.

Cheers,
Shawn Seah