Tan Chong Tee (born 1918) is a World War 2 veteran. Born in Shrewsbury Road, Singapore, Tan took part in many anti-Japanese activities like boycotting Japanese goods and fund raising since the Second Sino-Japanese war broke out in 1937.
Tan lost touch with his family in 1942 and joined the Force 136, befriending Lim Bo Seng. He took part in Operation Gustavus to resist the Japanese occupation. However, he was later captured in 1944 and spent the next 18 months in jail under the torture of the Japanese troops. When Tan was finally released from jail, he found out that his older brother Tan Chong Mao was executed by the Japanese and his mother was beaten to death by the Japanese.
He wrote an autobiography to tell the heroic stories of Force 136.
Lim Bo Seng (simplified Chinese: 林谋盛; traditional Chinese: 林謀盛; pinyin: Lín Móushèng; April 27, 1909 - June 29, 1944) was a World War II anti-Japanese Resistance fighter who was based in Singapore and Malaya.
Born in 1909 to Lim Loh alias Lim Chee Geee, a wealthy businessman who owned a biscuit and brick manufacturing business in Singapore, Lim was the 11th child but the first son. At the age of 16, Lim came to Singapore in 1917 to study in the Raffles Institution of Singapore under the British colonial government, and later went on to further his studies in the University of Hong Kong.
In 1930, Lim married Gan Choo Neo, a Nonya woman in the Lim Clan association hall of Singapore. They had eight children, one of whom died in infancy.
Initially raised as a Taoist, Lim converted to Christianity after receiving strong European influence.
At the time of the Second Sino-Japanese war, Lim, a loyal Chinese patriot, participated in fund-raising on Japanese resistant forces and boycott activities of Japanese goods organized by the Nanyang Federation.
On February 11, just before the fall of Singapore to the Japanese, Lim left his family for the last time to the care of his wife and fled from Singapore to Sumatra with other Chinese community leaders, before making his way to India, where he recruited and trained hundreds of secret agents through intensive missions from the military and intelligence point of view in India and China. Around this time, together with Captain John Davis, they set up the Sino-British guerrilla group Force 136 in mid-1942. One of his best friends and students, Tan Chong Tee, participated actively in anti-Japanese activities until his capture on 26 March 1944.
The Kempeitai (Japanese:"ken (憲, 'law') and hei (兵, 'soldier')" [1] was the military police arm of the Imperial Japanese Army from 1881 to 1945. It was not an English-style military police, but was a French-style gendarmerie. Therefore, while it was institutionally a part of the Imperial Japanese Army, it also discharged the functions of the military police for the Imperial Japanese Navy under the direction of the Admiralty Minister (although the IJN had its own Tokkeitai), those of the executive police under the direction of the Interior Minister, and those of the judicial police under the direction of the Justice Minister. A member of the corps was called a kempei.[2]
In World War II Allied propaganda, the Kempeitai was often called the "Japanese Gestapo".
The Kempeitai was responsible for the following:
Travel permits
Labor recruitment
Counterintelligence and counter-propaganda (run by the Tokko-Kempeitai as 'anti-ideological work')
Supply requisitioning and rationing
Psychological operations and propaganda
Rear area security
Running prisoner of war and forced labor and special camps (The Kempeitai apparently provided guards for several 'human experimentation' units which housed 'difficult' prisoners.)
Provision of "comfort" women (jugun ianfu) for the "comfort houses" (These were brothels maintained by the IJA for the use of its troops. Originally Japanese volunteers were used but as these became rare or limited to the use of officers, many Chinese, Korean, Taiwanese, and some European women were kidnapped and placed in these facilities to be "used" by members of Japan's military. The Kempeitai also regulated the accommodation facilities of the brothels, checked the identities of their customers, and controlled the violence and drunkenness within.)[citation needed]
Tan lost touch with his family in 1942 and joined the Force 136, befriending Lim Bo Seng. He took part in Operation Gustavus to resist the Japanese occupation. However, he was later captured in 1944 and spent the next 18 months in jail under the torture of the Japanese troops. When Tan was finally released from jail, he found out that his older brother Tan Chong Mao was executed by the Japanese and his mother was beaten to death by the Japanese.
He wrote an autobiography to tell the heroic stories of Force 136.
Lim Bo Seng (simplified Chinese: 林谋盛; traditional Chinese: 林謀盛; pinyin: Lín Móushèng; April 27, 1909 - June 29, 1944) was a World War II anti-Japanese Resistance fighter who was based in Singapore and Malaya.
Born in 1909 to Lim Loh alias Lim Chee Geee, a wealthy businessman who owned a biscuit and brick manufacturing business in Singapore, Lim was the 11th child but the first son. At the age of 16, Lim came to Singapore in 1917 to study in the Raffles Institution of Singapore under the British colonial government, and later went on to further his studies in the University of Hong Kong.
In 1930, Lim married Gan Choo Neo, a Nonya woman in the Lim Clan association hall of Singapore. They had eight children, one of whom died in infancy.
Initially raised as a Taoist, Lim converted to Christianity after receiving strong European influence.
At the time of the Second Sino-Japanese war, Lim, a loyal Chinese patriot, participated in fund-raising on Japanese resistant forces and boycott activities of Japanese goods organized by the Nanyang Federation.
On February 11, just before the fall of Singapore to the Japanese, Lim left his family for the last time to the care of his wife and fled from Singapore to Sumatra with other Chinese community leaders, before making his way to India, where he recruited and trained hundreds of secret agents through intensive missions from the military and intelligence point of view in India and China. Around this time, together with Captain John Davis, they set up the Sino-British guerrilla group Force 136 in mid-1942. One of his best friends and students, Tan Chong Tee, participated actively in anti-Japanese activities until his capture on 26 March 1944.
The Kempeitai (Japanese:"ken (憲, 'law') and hei (兵, 'soldier')" [1] was the military police arm of the Imperial Japanese Army from 1881 to 1945. It was not an English-style military police, but was a French-style gendarmerie. Therefore, while it was institutionally a part of the Imperial Japanese Army, it also discharged the functions of the military police for the Imperial Japanese Navy under the direction of the Admiralty Minister (although the IJN had its own Tokkeitai), those of the executive police under the direction of the Interior Minister, and those of the judicial police under the direction of the Justice Minister. A member of the corps was called a kempei.[2]
In World War II Allied propaganda, the Kempeitai was often called the "Japanese Gestapo".
The Kempeitai was responsible for the following:
Travel permits
Labor recruitment
Counterintelligence and counter-propaganda (run by the Tokko-Kempeitai as 'anti-ideological work')
Supply requisitioning and rationing
Psychological operations and propaganda
Rear area security
Running prisoner of war and forced labor and special camps (The Kempeitai apparently provided guards for several 'human experimentation' units which housed 'difficult' prisoners.)
Provision of "comfort" women (jugun ianfu) for the "comfort houses" (These were brothels maintained by the IJA for the use of its troops. Originally Japanese volunteers were used but as these became rare or limited to the use of officers, many Chinese, Korean, Taiwanese, and some European women were kidnapped and placed in these facilities to be "used" by members of Japan's military. The Kempeitai also regulated the accommodation facilities of the brothels, checked the identities of their customers, and controlled the violence and drunkenness within.)[citation needed]
