Memoirs of National Service

Memoirs of National Service

in Singapore,

1969-1971.

by Terry Foenander.

The following chapter, relating to my National Service period in Keat Hong Camp, Singapore, is just one of several chapters, others of which will be uploaded at a later point in time.

Keat Hong Camp.

About July or August, 1969, at the end of my clerical course at the re-located School of Manpower Management, at Pasir Laba Camp (SAFTI), I was posted, together with two fellow clerks, Heng Chor Meng and Ng Kay Tee, to Keat Hong Camp, where the 40th Singapore Armoured Battalion was based. My vocation was as a clerk typist. The commanding officer was Major Goh Lye Choon.

Keat Hong Camp was situated on Chua Chu Kang Road. It must have been an old British army camp as most of the buildings were colonial style. I remember that as we entered the front gate, the guard room was on the right and directly in front, about a hundred metres ahead was the administration building, where I was to work. This was a two-storied building and I was the clerk for the General Staff Officer, whose office was on the top floor, on the right hand corner of the building. Following the lane beside which this building stood, round a corner, to the left was the building in which I was housed. Each room housed about eight to twelve persons. Then, another few metres down was the mess hall. Behind our barrack block was a large open field, which was eventually used to build more tank sheds. On the opposite side of the field [from our barrack block] was a canteen. I can’t exactly recall what was in front of the administration building but I remember that further up this low hill were the [original] tank sheds. I remember that in this camp was based another unit but I don’t remember much more about it. This other unit was, in fact, the 41st Singapore Armoured Brigade, which was obviously our parent unit.

The General Staff office in which I worked was occupied by three persons, myself, as the clerk typist, a sergeant (one whose name I still recall was Chan Chee Wai), and the GSO, of whom we had a succession while I was there. I can remember three of them by name, Captain Colin Theseira, Lieutenant Abdul Samad and Lieutenant Yeo See Cheh.

Colin Theseira seemed to be a fun loving person with a devil may care attitude, but this far ahead in time I would not be able to recall much of him. I know Lieutenant Samad would often make me stay back late to work. I never really enjoyed working with him and was rather glad when he left. The best officer I ever worked with, while doing National Service, was certainly Lieutenant Yeo See Cheh. I was told that he had previously been a school teacher and was not really keen on being in National Service, but then who was? Yeo See Cheh also made us work back late but he often made up for this by buying us dinner and I remember that he once took me and Sergeant Chan out to some food stalls nearby and gave us a dinner treat. He was a very meticulous person and preferred his office neat and tidy and all work completed as soon as possible. Sergeant Chan Chee Wai was also a great person to work with. He was jovial in nature, but very efficient. There was another sergeant, an Eurasian, who also worked at one time in the GSO’s office, but I cannot recall his name.

Next door to our office was a room which had a large map of Singapore on one wall, with coloured pins marking the homes of all the members of our unit. The names and addresses of all these personnel were also kept in this room, which was kept locked at all times. This was the “Recall Room.” Every now and then we had occasions where the Commanding Officer of the unit would initiate the Recall System, by which, at any time of the day or night, the duty officer was informed that the unit was on alert. He would then inform all the other officers, by phone, and this was passed on to Senior NCO’s or other key personnel. For those personnel living out, there were chosen key personnel, in all cases those with telephones, to contact other members of the unit living in their area, and get them back to camp as soon as possible. If the recall was at a very late hour, when no public or other transport was available, I believe that military transport was sent to collect living out personnel. Once everyone was back at work, and the Commanding Officer was satisfied that the recall system was initiated in the fastest possible time, he could stand the unit down, or continue to work us on, as he pleased. I remember being involved in several of these recalls while at the unit, some in the middle of the night or the very early hours of the morning. No one liked being recalled, but it was all in the name of security and being alert.

In the Battalion Orderly Room worked a Sergeant clerk and several corporals and privates. I can still recall several of their names, although most of them I do not now know the whereabouts of. Soh Hon Poh was one of the more knowledgeable corporals working there. He was relied upon by a lot of people who came to the Orderly Room for whatever reason. Then there was another corporal, Yen Cheng Chen, who only had a short time before he was discharged at the end of his service, shortly after I was posted there. Yen was a rather quiet, unassuming person, but very intelligent. Others who came and went were Charles Pennefather, Lim Soon Hai, Goh Peng Khoon and Lim Kim Hua, as well as the two original clerks who were posted in with me, Ng Kay Tee and Heng Chor Meng. Of all these persons, Soh Hon Poh is the only one with whom I have kept in touch with.

One of our adjutants at this camp was a Second Lieutenant, Malcolm Belletty. Malcolm eventually emigrated from Singapore, with his family, and came to Australia, sometime in the early or mid-1970’s.

One person whom I despised intensely at this camp was the Regimental Sergeant Major, Chia Yew Pan. He was loud and boisterous, and, to me a very unreasonable person. An incident which I will never forget and which illustrates this point was when he gave me extra duties on a coming weekend for something which I was not responsible for. I happened to be the duty clerk during a weekday once, and when that was the case, I was to have an early lunch, and then man the Orderly Room, when everyone else went for their lunch. During this particular break, one of the other clerks stayed back in the Orderly Room and was having a small snack which he did not finish, but left on his table, then went away for some reason. The RSM happened to be around, and, seeing the snack left on the table, decided that it was a mess, and gave me, as the duty clerk, extra duties. From that day I never liked that man, and was glad when told, several years later, that he had died prematurely because of some condition which he had had for years. This man was responsible, sometime in 1970, for several drivers [at our subsidiary unit, at Sungei Gedong Camp] going AWOL, because he had been harassing them.

While at this camp I made several acquaintances amongst the non-clerical staff, one of them being Willie A. Miranda, with whom I would hang around quite a bit. Willie was of Indian descent, but he was able to speak and understand Mandarin very well. I remember, one evening, when he came to the clerk’s barrack room to have a chat to me about something, two other off duty soldiers who were also in the same barrack room, said something to each other in Chinese, and it must have been derogatory about Willie, as he then turned to them and abused them about it and asked them to step outside, which they declined to do.

An incident that I recall about this time (1970) was when a staff member of the Admin building came across some grenades which were in a locker in our office. They had been locked in there for some time and no one must have taken any notice of them until we were cleaning out the office. When this person, who shall remain nameless, came across these grenades, he assumed that they were duds, and started handling one of them. Accidentally or not, he pulled the pin on this grenade, and when it clicked loudly, he must have had some idea that it was live, as he quickly let go of it, and moved away. Within seconds it exploded, but, fortunately, it was a smoke grenade and we were covered in coloured dust. The explosion brought several people from around the building, up to our office, but, when they saw that no one was hurt, they left us to clear the mess that it had made. I don’t remember if the person responsible for this incident ever got into strife over it, from his seniors, but he definitely got rid of the rest of those grenades.

One thing I never enjoyed was being duty clerk, and I doubt if anyone else enjoyed it either. This was because the duty clerk was required to stay in the Orderly Room at lunch time. As well, another requirement was that after duty he was to stay in the Orderly Room and sleep there overnight, locking up all offices and cleaning up, and then reopening the next morning. Also, if there was any typing or other clerical duties to be done, it had to be completed before going off duty - and there was always something to be done. Some officers would come to the Orderly Room late at night and request notes to be typed without any regard for the hour.

During this period I was keeping a diary which I constantly updated. This was always secured in my locker, in my barrack room. Somehow or other, several of the other clerks sharing the same room managed to get into my locker while I was away, and read my diary. I was never able to pinpoint any particular person who had got into my locker, but they started quoting passages from my diary to me. I later wrote in my diary about how they had managed to get into my locker and read the diary and I ended this particular entry with the words, “I hope they all go blind.” Soh Hon Poh later quoted this line to me. I can’t remember what happened after this, but I think I discontinued keeping a diary.

Often, after I got paid and once I’d finished working for the day, I would take a bus down the road, heading towards Bukit Timah Road, a couple of kilometers to buy large two litre buckets of ice cream, bring them back to the barracks and share it with my room mates.

Most times, after duty, we would just gather in our room and talk of anything and everything. On weekends, If not on duty, I would head for home and stay there over the weekend. When leaving camp we were required to be in uniform and the same was the case when we returned to camp on Sunday nights. Travelling on buses in Singapore was free for all National Service personnel at that time. Before leaving the camp we were required to sign a book at the guard room, giving our destination, and the time of leaving, plus other details. When we returned we had to sign in again, with the time and date of returning.

Although most of our after duty activities were comparatively innocent, I do know that some of the living in personnel did get up to no good. I had on one occasion, gone to another barrack room, where I had to get back an item that had been borrowed by another soldier, from me. When I got to the barrack room, the door was locked, so I knocked, and was asked who it was. When I mentioned my name and the reason for being there, I was allowed in the room, and a couple or more soldiers were in there, obviously smoking marijuana. The soldier who had borrowed the item off me obviously trusted me enough to allow me in the room while they were involved in such a nefarious activity. Anyway, he returned the borrowed item to me, then inquired if I would like to join in this activity, but I politely declined and left the room. Some years later, after I had been discharged from the Service, and while on my way to see a National Day parade, I happened to bump into this former soldier once again, on the street, and the first thing he said to me, without even a proper “hello,” was if he could borrow some money. I politely advised that I did not have any money on me at that moment, and then hurried off, without further introductions. Obviously his activities had placed him in such a position, and the fault was no one else’s, but his own.

At times, after duty, some of us would head off to the Air Force base at Tengah, just a few kilometers up the road, to see a movie at the Armed Forces cinema at that camp. It was still a British base, but we were allowed to attend the cinema, using our military identity cards to obtain entry. Some of the movies shown there were fairly recent ones, and I remember one of the new movies that I saw there was the Beatles movie titled Let it Be.

The Singapore Armed Forces at this time had foreign advisers, from several different nations, for each of several corps. In the Armoured Corps, there were a few Israeli advisers co-ordinating exercises and instructing in certain areas. One such instructor from Israel, a Captain Zamir Ziv, I can remember, attended a large exercise we had during March, 1971. For the Air Force there were British advisers and for the Navy, advisers from New Zealand.

Back in July, 1969, when I was still on my clerical course at the School of Manpower Management, with Ng Kay Tee and Heng Chor Meng, neither one of us had passed the course, although we were still posted to Keat Hong Camp as clerk typists. Because of this we remained privates. About the beginning of 1971, as we were due to be discharged within a few months, the three of us were sent to repeat the course which was now held at the large Police Headquarters at Hill Street. This time al three of us succeeded in passing the course and when we returned to the unit, were told that we were to be promoted before our discharge. When informed of this, all three of us made a collective decision and told our adjutant that we would like to remain privates and be discharged as such. So it was that we remained at that rank on our discharge in April, 1971.

Just before my discharge from National Service in April, 1971, the unit was involved in a major mobile exercise to test the capabilities of its personnel and equipment. This involved daily movements in Armoured Personnel Carriers and other vehicles through areas of Singapore, overnight camps in certain areas, and administrative duties for us clerks. There was a carrier allotted to the personnel of the General Staff office, and I remember having to bring along my typewriter, which was strapped to the inside of the carrier. I thought it was a bit of a joke and that I would never use it on the exercise, but I can recall having to make use of it. Also, when we set up our nightly camps, the carriers had to be set up under camouflage nets. I don’t remember if there was any firing exercises involved on this occasion, but if there were I was not involved in it.

Finally my discharge came up and I was glad that it was over. Before actually marching out I had to go through all the usual formalities of getting cleared by several departments, returning most but not all our military equipment, and interviews with certain key personnel. When being enlisted in National Service, or in the Regular Army, all persons had to hand in their civilian identity cards, in exchange for military identification cards. On discharge, this process was reversed and I now had my civilian identity card returned to me. Also, all personnel leaving National Service were guaranteed employment in civilian life and I had placed down three choices. Then I was informed that I was to be given a position as a Customs Officer in the Customs and Excise Department, which occupation I commenced in June, 1971.