Images with a yellow border can be clicked to see a larger version.
Kranji from the North West and the North East
To the east of the Memorial are buried personnel mainly from the Navy, Air Force and Police Force. There are some Army graves in this area of the cemetery.
To the South of the Memorial lie soldiers from the sub-continent of India. From humble, but very important ‘Bhistis’ (Water Carriers - there are at least four buried at Kranji), to the men of the great Indian Infantry Regiments.
The headstone on the left commemorating Corporal H.H. Marston, Royal Army Medical Corps, has these words inscribed on the top, “BURIED NEAR THIS SPOT”. There are 730 graves thus inscribed in Kranji. They all relate to men who were taken for burial from the General Hospital to various cemeteries in Singapore, and who’s original graves had lost their identities. Whilst it is certain that these men were re-buried at Kranji, it is not know in which grave.
The headstone on the right commemorates an unknown soldier.
It should not be forgotten that there are many women buried and commemorated in Kranji. The photograph shows the grave of Nurse Dorothy M.M. Sugden of the Voluntary Aid Detachment.
Many nurses and other women died when the Japanese bombed ships carrying evacuees from Singapore during the desperate days of February 1942.
On the 13th February 1942, Vice-Admiral Spooner, Air Vice-Marshal Pulford and many others made an attempt to escape Singapore in an armada of small ships and boats. The boat carrying these officers was attacked and beached on a small island north of Banka Island. Two months later, the starving survivors surrendered. The two Flag Officers were not among them.
A series of photographs
of the War Cemetery.
Additional information is given with these.
