Lim Bo Seng was a Chinese resistance fighter based in Singapore and Malaya
during World War II. He is regarded as a war hero in Singapore.
Family background and early life Lim was born in Nan'an, Fujian, China,
in the final years of the Qing dynasty, as the 11th child but the first son in
the family. His father, Lim Loh, was a building constructor. In 1925, Lim came
to Singapore at the age of 16 to study in Raffles Institution under the British
colonial government. He went on to read business at the University of Hong Kong.
In 1930, Lim married Gan Choo Neo, a Nyonya woman from the Lim clan
association hall of Singapore. They had eight children, one of whom died in
infancy. Initially a Taoist, Lim converted to Christianity after his
marriage to Gan. As a businessman
Lim inherited his father's business when his father died in 1929. He started with
running two businesses in brick manufacturing and biscuit production
before venturing into building construction with his brothers. Apart
from being successful in his business career, Lim was also a prominent figure
in the Chinese community in Singapore. He was nominated for and held several
key positions in the community, including: Chairman of the Singapore
Building Industry Association; Board Member of the Singapore Chinese Chamber
of Commerce and Industry; Executive Member and Education Director of the
Singapore Hokkien Association. Anti-Japanese activism
When the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937, Lim and other Chinese in
Singapore participated in anti-Japanese activities, such as the boycotting of
Japanese goods and fund-raising to support the war effort in China.
Towards the end of 1937, hundreds of overseas Chinese working in
Japanese-owned industries in Malaya went on strike. At the time, the Japanese
government owned a tin mine in Dungun, Terengganu, Malaya, where about 3,000
Chinese labourers were employed. The tin was shipped to Japan and used as raw
material to manufacture weapons. Lim felt that if the workers in the Dungun
mine went on strike, the Japanese would suffer a huge loss, so he planned to
make the workers go on strike. Around February 1938, Lim travelled to Dungun
with Zhuang Huiquan of the Singapore Anxi Association to carry out their
plan. Zhuang went to the mine to persuade the workers to go on strike
while Lim contacted the local police and gained their support. By early March,
Lim and Zhuang achieved success as many workers left the mine and followed them
to Singapore. On 11 March 1938, Lim and the Singaporean Chinese community held a
welcoming ceremony for the workers, who were later resettled and found
employment in Singapore. In December 1941, Lim was put in charge
of organising a group of volunteers to resist the Japanese, who were advancing
towards Southeast Asia. The volunteers put up a fierce fight against the
Japanese during the Battle of Singapore in February 1942.
Life in Force 136 On 11 February 1942, Lim left Singapore
and travelled to Sumatra, Indonesia, with other Chinese community leaders and
made his way to India later. He recruited and trained hundreds of secret
agents through intensive military intelligence missions from China and
India. He set up the Sino-British guerrilla task force Force 136 in
mid-1942 with Captain John Davis of the Special Operations Executive.
Operation Gustavus Operation Gustavus was aimed at
establishing an espionage network in Malaya and Singapore to gather
intelligence about Japanese activities, and thereby aid the British in Operation
Zipper – the code name for their plan to take back Singapore from the Japanese.
On 24 May 1943, the first group of Force 136 agents, codenamed Gustavus I and led
by John Davis, arrived in Perak on board the Dutch submarine O 24. The O 24 would
rendezvous with Gustavus I again in September and November 1943 to transfer
supplies and personnel from Gustavus IV and V respectively. Its sister ship, the
O 23, under Captain Richard Broome, transported Gustavus II and Gustavus III
to Malaya on 25 June and 4 August 1943 respectively. Lim arrived in Malaya on 2
November 1943 as part of Gustavus V. He travelled under the alias "Tan Choon
Lim" to avoid identification by the Japanese, and claimed to be a
businessman when he passed through checkpoints.
In Perak, Davis and Lim reestablished contact with Major Freddie Chapman, who
was part of a British unit that stayed behind after the Malayan Campaign and
had been carrying out small-scale attacks against the Japanese in Malaya.
They also met guerrilla fighters of the Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army, two
of whom were Chin Peng and Lai Teck. They reached an agreement that the
resistance group would fall under British command, in exchange for
weapons, supplies and training. One of the Chinese provision shops in Ipoh,
Jian Yik Jan, was used as an Allied espionage base. Communication between
the agents was done through smuggling messages in empty toothpaste tubes,
salted fish and diaries. Operation Gustavus failed before the
agents managed to achieve any results. A communist guerrilla who was captured by
the Japanese in January 1944 revealed the existence of the Allied spy network
operating on Pangkor Island. In response, the Japanese launched a
full-scale counter espionage operation on the island. By late March 1944, more
than 200 soldiers were on the island. On 24 March, the Kempeitai arrested a
fisherman, Chua Koon Eng, at Teluk Murrek on the Perak coast. Chua was
working on Pangkor Island when Li Han-kwang of Force 136 approached him
and requested to use his boat for their communications. Chua told the Kempeitai
what he knew when he was interrogated. Li was later captured by the Japanese.
He confirmed Chua's accounts of Force 136 under torture and pretended to
cooperate with the Japanese to escape from captivity. The entire spy network
was destroyed by 31 March 1944 and was not reestablished until February 1945.
Capture and death Lim was captured by the Kempeitai under
Major Ōnishi Satoru at a roadblock in Gopeng around March–April 1944, and
taken to the Kempeitai headquarters for interrogation. He refused to provide the
Japanese with any information about Force 136 despite being subjected to
torture. Instead, he protested against the ill treatment of his comrades in
prison. He fell ill with dysentery and was bedridden by the end of May 1944. He
died in the early hours on 29 June 1944 and was buried behind the Batu Gajah
prison compound in an unmarked spot. After the Japanese surrender, Gan Choo
Neo was informed of her husband's death by the priest of St. Andrew's School.
She went to Batu Gajah with her eldest son to bring her husband's remains home.
Lim's remains arrived at the Tanjong Pagar railway station in Singapore on 7
December 1945. Upon arrival, the hearse was sent off by a large procession of
British officers and prominent businessmen, from the station to Hock
Ann Biscuit Factory in Upper Serangoon Road, via Armenian Street. On the same
day, a memorial service for Lim was held at the Tong Teh Library of the
Kuomintang Association in Singapore. A funeral service was held on 13 January
1946 at City Hall. Lim's remains was transported in a coffin to a hill in
MacRitchie Reservoir for burial with full military honours. Lim was
posthumously awarded the rank of Major General by the Nationalist Government of
the Republic of China. The Lim Bo Seng Memorial was unveiled at
the Esplanade on 29 June 1954, the 10th anniversary of his death.
Descendants Lim's eldest son, Lim Leong Geok, was an
Executive Director of the SMRT Corporation and a key figure in the
development of the Mass Rapid Transit and Singapore's public transport system.
He was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Contribution award by the
Land Transport Authority on 31 March 2010.
Other notable children of Lim include his son Lim Whye Geok and daughter Leow
Oon Geok, who recounted memories of their parents in interviews.
One of Lim's grandsons, Lim Teck Yin, is a former Brigadier-General in the
Singapore Armed Forces and the current Chief Executive Officer of Sport
Singapore. In academia and popular culture
Around the 1990s, Asiapac Books published a comic book based on Lim's
life. It was written by Clara Show and illustrated by Chu Yi Min.
In 1997, Singapore's Chinese-language television channel, TCS Channel Eight,
aired a television series, The Price of Peace, about the Japanese occupation of
Singapore. Lim was portrayed by actor Rayson Tan as a semi-fictional
protagonist in the drama. An English-dubbed version of The Price of
Peace was shown on the English-language channel TCS Channel Five in 1999.
In recent years, Lim has been a subject of academia in Singapore.
Bibliography Further reading
Chapman, F. Spencer, The Jungle Is Neutral, Chatto and Windus. Subsequently
published in 1977 by Triad/Mayflower Books and in 2003 by The Lyons Press.
Poh, Guan Huat, Lim Bo Seng: Nanyang Chinese Patriot, Honours thesis
submitted to the History Department, University of Singapore.
Tan, Chong Tee, Force 136: Story of a World War II Resistance Fighter, by
Asiapac Books. Victoria School, "Lim Bo Seng Memorial".
External links Family interview