Cemeteries, War Graves and Quiet Hills

If you give one morning to Singapore's war graves, spend it at Kranji War Cemetery. It's free, it's usually open from 8am to 6pm, and it's the clearest picture of the Second World War here: more than 4,400 graves on a hill above the strait, with the names of those who have no grave inscribed on the Singapore Memorial. The cost is the walk from Kranji MRT, 10 to 15 minutes, and three flights of steps at the end. If you'd rather hear stories than read headstones, make it Bukit Brown on a weekend morning, when volunteers lead free walks.

Kranji, row by row

The cemetery began as the burial ground of a prisoner-of-war camp the Japanese set up here in 1944. In 1946 it was chosen as the permanent cemetery for Allied soldiers, and graves from elsewhere in Singapore were moved in. The Singapore Memorial stands inside it, 12 walls that look like a fighter plane from above and carry more than 24,000 names. Kranji State Cemetery sits just outside, with the graves of two former presidents, Yusof Ishak and Benjamin Sheares.

Dress respectfully, as you would at any cemetery. The hill has no step-free way up, and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission asks visitors who need assistance to contact it before they come. Buses 160, 170, 178, 960 and 961 stop on Woodlands Road, two stops from the station, if the heat gets the better of you. Kranji, Singapore's Countryside 5% fits the cemetery into a day with the wetlands.

Graves among the trees

Bukit Brown Cemetery opened in 1922 as the first Chinese municipal cemetery, open to Chinese of every clan, and closed to burials in 1973. Some of its tombs are among the largest and oldest in Singapore, and they now sit under forest.

Volunteers from All Things Bukit Brown lead free guided walks on weekends and public holidays, usually from 9am to noon, and ask you to register online first. Wear non-slip shoes and bring water. The Bukit Brown Wayfinder is the self-guided version, a trail of 32 graves on Hills 1 and 3, all visible from the road.

Families come to clear the graves and make offerings during Qingming, in March and April, so keep to the paths and give them space. These are family graves, so keep off the tombs and have your picnic somewhere else.

In Hougang, the Japanese Cemetery Park is open daily from 7am to 7pm, with rows of gravestones and a quiet hall, and the Japanese Association looks after it. Walk it early and eat afterwards, as Hougang's Japanese Cemetery and Kovan 209 suggests.

The reverse story is Bidadari. Bidadari Park is 13 hectares of woodland around Alkaff Lake, open 24 hours, in the estate built over the old Bidadari Cemetery, one of Singapore's oldest. NParks tells the history on storyboards along its Heritage Walk, and Woodleigh MRT is the nearest station.

Memorials by the Padang

The Civic District's memorials are the short, central version of all this. The Civilian War Memorial was the first in Singapore for the civilians who died in the Japanese Occupation, and its four columns stand for the Chinese, Malays, Indians and Eurasians among them. A vault beneath holds the victims' remains in 606 urns. Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew unveiled it in 1967, on the 25th anniversary of the surrender, and an inter-religious service is held there every 15 February. The park is open 24 hours.

A short walk on, in Esplanade Park, the Cenotaph honours the 124 men from the Colony who never came home from the First World War, and its reverse side was later dedicated to those who died defending Singapore in the Second. Beside it, the Lim Bo Seng Memorial is a 3.5-metre octagonal pagoda for the resistance leader, the only structure in Singapore that honours one person's sacrifice in the war. Together they take about half an hour.

Hills with a war on them

Fort Canning Park was a cemetery before it was a park. The Gothic gates beside the Spice Garden marked the entrance to Singapore's first Christian cemetery, used from 1822 to 1865, and NParks lists the former cemetery among the colonial monuments on its 22 hectares. Under the hill, the Battlebox is the bunker 9 metres down where the decision to surrender was made in 1942.

The fighting reached the south-western ridges that February. Reflections at Bukit Chandu tells the Malay Regiment's story in a hillside bungalow, and the Pasir Panjang Machine-Gun Pillbox stands on the road below. The National Heritage Board puts the battle at 12 to 14 February, and NParks's page says Kent Ridge Park is gazetted as one of 11 Second World War sites in Singapore.

Kent Ridge Park is where the ridge fight is remembered, with a plaque at Carpark B and a 280-metre canopy walk to the museum. Labrador Nature Reserve and Bukit Chandu puts the museum, the pillbox and the park into one day.

The east has its own pair. Changi Chapel and Museum tells the story of the prisoners of war and civilian internees held at Changi, with a replica chapel in the courtyard, and it's closed on Mondays except public holidays. Nearby, Johore Battery has a replica of the 15-inch gun that was meant to defend the island. Two of the three original guns could swing inland, and they fired on Johor Bahru and the Causeway between 5 and 12 February, before the British destroyed them.

On Sentosa, Fort Serapong is a battery on Mount Serapong, 92 metres at its summit, that became operational in 1887. British engineers destroyed it in the last days before the surrender. Information boards along the road tell its story, and the forest and some structures are restricted, so keep to the road.

Take these one pairing at a time. The WWII Heritage Combo pairs the Battlebox with Fort Canning, or Changi Chapel with the beach, which is plenty for one outing. If the trip allows only one stop, we'd still make it Kranji, where the rows leave you with nothing to do but stand still.