History
The factory is the site of the historic surrender of the British to the Japanese on 15 February 1942, at the end of the Battle of Singapore in World War II. It was here that the meeting between Lieutenant-General Arthur Ernest Percival and General Tomoyuki Yamashita was held and the surrender document signed. Then British Prime Minister Winston Churchill referred to that event as the "worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history"; it was also widely seen as a turning point for anti-colonialism in Southeast Asia.
The factory was built by Ford Motor Works in October, 1941 and became Ford's first motor car assembly plant in Southeast Asia. However, Japanese forces invaded Singapore shortly thereafter. During the Malayan Campaign, the Factory’s modern assembly equipment was used by the Royal Air Force to assemble fighter planes. The planes came in parts that were shipped to Singapore in crates. However, most of these aircraft never fulfilled their destiny of defending Malaya. They were flown out of Singapore towards the end of January 1942, when prospects for Singapore looked bleak. Many battles were fought around the areas of the Ford Factory in Bukit Panjang, Choa Chu Kang, Bukit Batok and Bukit Timah. The factory was subsequently taken over by the Japanese Imperial Army and used as its military headquarters. Following British surrender, Japanese forces relocated its headquarters to Raffles College along Bukit Timah road.
During the Japanese Occupation, the Factory was designated as a butai or Japanese facility. Nissan, which was then a prominent zaibatsu or Japanese multinational company, took over the plant to assemble military trucks and other vehicles for the Japanese occupying forces.
The Ford Motor Factory resumed operations after the war in 1947 and was finally shut down in June 1980. On 7 February 2006, the Preservation of Monuments Board (PMB) announced that it would gazette the historic factory for preservation as a national monument on the 64th anniversary of the surrender on 15 February 2006.
Read more about this topic: Old Ford Motor Factory
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