WW2 is more than Lt Adnan.

Not to sound blase, but I actually am a little fed up with all the hullabaloo of the heroics of Lt Adnan. There have been many fallen warriors, and the easiest take on this is can anybody tell me who are the rest of Lt Adnan's platoon members who died with him?

Can anybody tell me who are these Malay Officers who upheld their honour and uniform and rank? Only their names are left behind in some cyber pages.


* Leftenan Abbas Mohamed Said

* Leftenan Ariffin Hj Sulaiman

* Leftenan Wahid Mat Kidam

* Leftenan Raja Aman Shah

* Leftenan Abdullah Saad

* Leftenan Ibrahim Sidek

* Kapten Yazid Ahmad

In a book there is no mention of their names, only their bravery!

and do we know the names of the rest who also got massacred because I suspect they too refused to renounce their allegiance to their uniform...

Within a fortnight of the surrender, five Malay officer-internees were executed for refusing to serve under the Japanese or to put on civilian clothes and accept release. Men who escaped to Malaya were arrested and imprisoned within a year. Some of the other-ranks soldiers were sent as forced labour to Thailand and Indonesia. The majority were eventually released from prison camps in Singapore. Some 98 Malay personnel serving under the Imperial forces were taken by the Japanese military police and machine-gunned at the Gap, Pasir Panjang. During the defence of Singapore, the Regiment lost 159 men - six British officers, seven Malay officers, 146 other ranks.

And this is not counting the Malay Navy, RMNVR, FMS Volunteers and RAF Auxiliaries casualties and POWs. Although I know there are books published on some of these deeds, they are not easily available and therefore the public remains in ignorance of their heroics. I really suspect our historians and parties of interest are content to promote Lt. Adnan, so they do not have to make or take any extra effort to bring other of our national heroes to the fore. What say you?

I for one plead guilty of the same lack of effort as to date I have not entertained a request from an Ex-Navy Officer who has emailed me saying that he would like to share his memoirs and photos while he served in Malaya. As you can see from my blog postings, I really have no time at the moment to do that at this stage. But then I am not a bona fide Malaysian Historian right. And not even getting paid to lounge around in my airconditioned room as they may be so.

So should we complain if a two hour war documentary on The Fall Of Singapore touched on every darn unit except the Malay Regiment in the defence of Malaya and Singapore?