Adam Park WW2

Our guide Karien will take you around the area for a very special and personal tour. SHe is intimately acquainted with the are, as not only has she lived in Adam Park for several years, it is also the setting of her novel The Black and White House.

The enclave of colonial houses at Adam Park were built in the late 1920s by the PWD (public works department) to house the colonial government's civil servants. A walk through the area will teach us more about what Singapore would have looked like in the first half of the 20th century, who would have lived here, and what their lives looked like.

Just north of Adam Park was the Sime Road military camp, which during the war housed the headquarters of the British joint forces. From the HQ at Sime Road all military operations in Malaya were managed until the Japanese advanced too closely, and on the 11th of February 1942 the British officers had to flee to the bunker at Fort Canning, where they stayed until the surrender on the 15th.

In those last few days of the Battle of Singapore Adam Park saw heavy fighting, especially at the notorious 'Hellfire Corner' in the Battle of Adam Park between February 11th and 15th.

After the surrender, the badly damaged houses at Adam Park were used to house prisoners of war, before they were send to work on the railroads in Thailand and Burma.

Next to Adam Park we will visit the adjoining Sime Road camp, which became the Sime Road internment camp where many civilian internees were held. As we explore the area we will learn how the prisoners lived during that strenuous time.

On Sime Road we will have a look at the old military headquarters, now a private residence, from which not only the British operations where run but which also housed the feared Japanese Kempetai during the war.