Kranji War Memorial
One recent afternoon, I had the opportunity to share photographic techniques with couple of my friends who had just purchased their first prosumer compact camera and were eager to embark on the lifelong pixels journey. I mentioned lifelong as photography is a skill or hobby (or career, for that matter) that one can enjoy till our hair turned silver…or perhaps when none remains. (^O^)
To start them on the learning path of composition and depth of field (for a balanced picture)..somehow I thought of the Kranji War Memorial for it’s scenic and peaceful environment. I am a man of contradiction..much as I love military hardwares, I deplore the evils of war. Man are creatures of contradiction…in war , we kill so that we can live. In peace, we trained hard so we bleed less in war. We are what we are for what we fought for. During peace, never forget the wars……
A tribute to the more than 24,000 valiant men from the United Kingdom, Australia, Malaya, Sri Lanka, Canada, Netherlands, New Zealand, who lost their lives..so that we remained free…
Hope springs eternal for mankind….
A young chaplain…who passed away on the very day the British garrison surrendered to the Japanese invaders…
A resident garden lizard suntanning on one of the tombstones….
The garden lizard tail may be long…but it did not cast a long shadow that afternoon…
Fallen but not forgotten….
Gardener tending to the carefully manicured grounds…..
One of my pixels charges in deep concentration…..learning the art, respecting the place…
“The War Cemetery is the final resting place for 4,458 allied servicemen in marked graves laid out in rows on maintained and manicured lawns. Over 850 of these graves are unidentified.” Source – Wikipedia.
Visitors spending a drizzy afternoon at the venue….
“The Memorial’s walls are inscribed with over 24,000 names of allied servicemen whose bodies were never found, spread over both sides of 12 columns of the war memorial itself. On the Kranji War Memorial the names of 191 Canadian airmen are inscribed.
The grounds of the memorial is set on a hilly terrain with views around the largely undeveloped landscape, although signs of urbanity are clearly visible in the distance. The modern skyline of Johor Bahru in Malaysia can also be seen.
The grounds are immaculately maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and accessible only from Woodlands Road, the same road that the invading Japanese Imperial Guards came marching down on 9 February 1942“.. Source – Wikipedia.
“Every year, on the Sunday nearest to 11 November, a memorial is held to pay tribute to those who gave their lives. Known as Remembrance Sunday or Veterans Day, this day marks the date when the hostilities of WWII ended at 11am. Place poppies – the memorial symbol – on the neatly laid out graves on the manicured lawns and observe a two minute silence during the event.” Source – YourSingapore.
The memorial park is located at 9 Woodlands Road and opens daily from 7am – 6pm. No entry fee is charged.
P.S- All pictures in the blog are all rights reserved and copyrighted to Jensen Chua.