Singapore Naval Base - History

History

See also: Singapore strategy

After the Great War, the British government devoted significant resources into building a naval base in Singapore, as a deterrent to the increasingly ambitious Japanese Empire.

Originally announced in 1923, the construction of the base proceeded slowly at Sembawang until the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931. It was completed in 1939, at a staggering cost of £60 million — equivalent to £2½ billion in 2006. The dock covered 21 square miles (54 km2) and had what was then the largest dry dock in the world, the third-largest floating dock, and enough fuel tanks to support the entire British Navy for six months.

It was defended by heavy 15-inch naval guns stationed at Johore battery, Changi, and at Buona Vista Battery. Other important batteries of smaller calibre were located at Fort Siloso, Fort Canning, and Labrador. Air defence relied on the Royal Air Force airfields at RAF Tengah and RAF Sembawang.

Winston Churchill touted it as the “Gibraltar of the East”.

After the fall of Malaya in 31 January 1942, Singapore came within range of the artillery guns of Imperial Japanese Twenty-fifth Army positioned within sight of the base in Johor, which was poised to capture Singapore within 2 weeks thereafter. The base was subsequently captured, largely intact, by units of the advancing Japanese Army and remained in Japanese control through the end of World War II.

External images
Sembawang Naval Base
Gate of HMS Sembawang, c. 1964
Sembawang Naval Pier, c. 1990's

With the surrender of Japan in August 1945, control of the naval base and Singapore was reverted to British and Commonwealth Forces in September 1945, when allied units of South East Asia Command under Lord Louis Mountbatten started to arrive in Singapore.

In line with Royal Navy's tradition of naming their respective naval base and dockyard, the accommodation barracks adjacent to the base became known as HMS Terror (from 1945 to 1971) in honour of HMS Terror (I03), an Erebus class monitor armed with twin 15-inch guns, which was based at one time in Singapore before the war. Since 1972, part of the compound is now occupied by the Republic of Singapore Navy's Naval Diving Unit (NDU).

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