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00:00These artifacts are oozing out of the ground.
00:05It's quite amazing that it still survived all these years.
00:10200 years on from Raffles' landing,
00:14archaeologists are reshaping what we know about Singapore.
00:19From uncovering evidence of ancient Singapura...
00:23It's been here for 700 years,
00:25and so whatever we find in here will be totally new discoveries.
00:29...to unearthing little-known stories of colonial Singapore...
00:34This is a very nice colonial period item.
00:37...and lingering mysteries of World War II.
00:41This was a scene of complete chaos, mayhem, catastrophe.
00:48New artifacts, new theories, new possibilities.
00:52It does rewrite history, not only of Singapore,
00:55but of all of Southeast Asia.
00:59In this episode, a hunt for lost World War II relics.
01:07Oh, my gosh, it's one of the handles.
01:10Archaeologists are looking at the Battle of Singapore
01:13from a different point of view.
01:15The invasion happened, the occupation happened.
01:18What other layers can we add to the historical narrative?
01:21Searching for personal fragments of history missing from the war stories.
01:29These are conflicts that are happening in our old backyard.
01:32Who knows, it might have been this bullet that killed one of them.
01:35In the stuffy confines of the British Command headquarters, officers come to a decision.
01:53Singapore is lost.
02:00After a week of fighting, they surrender to the Japanese.
02:07It's one of the greatest military defeats in the history of the British Empire.
02:2077 years after the fall of Singapore, archaeologists want to find answers from the battlefields.
02:28The Second World War would have marked the start of the end of the British colony.
02:32Conflicts are the type of events that cause changes to people, to societies and to places.
02:38It actually was a starting point for a chain of events that led to Singapore independence.
02:53Archaeologist Aaron Kao is at a World War II museum at Bukit Chandu.
03:00This entire area was once a deadly battlefield, where the local Malay regiment held their ground against Japanese soldiers.
03:08The Malay regiment is the first indigenous fighting force raised by the British army in Malaya.
03:15It was significant that we had an indigenous army raised to fight the Japanese.
03:23A platoon of 42 men, led by Lieutenant Artman, is tasked to defend the hill.
03:33They launch an all-out attack, defending a key route that would lead the Japanese to the British military hospital and main ammunition depots.
03:53They are severely outnumbered, but fight to the last man.
04:05The museum commemorates the men who died in the battle.
04:20But archaeologists want physical evidence to go along with it.
04:25Renovation work is scheduled to begin here soon.
04:30They are only given two weeks to excavate.
04:34Most of the time, development will change the landscape.
04:37And along with it, the loss of archaeological deposits.
04:40Once we lose these sites, there's no turning back.
04:43You know, the archaeological information will be lost forever.
04:50Most battle artifacts are made of metal.
04:53The most common artifacts that you can find at a battlefield site is definitely things like bullets and cartridges.
05:00Anything that is, you know, going to do with the clashing of two armies.
05:05To locate them, Arun is using a specific tool.
05:09So when I sense an object, I have to double-check it.
05:12Let's say if I get a ping here, right?
05:14So I have to go across just to pinpoint a location like X marks the spot.
05:20This is the first time archaeologists are breaking ground at Bukit Chandu.
05:31But they aren't exactly hauling in the artifacts.
05:35Probably a nail.
05:37But it's highly corroded, really out of shape.
05:39Definitely not a cartridge.
05:45Just a nail.
05:46Okay, we'll move on to the next one.
05:50I think it's another nail.
05:54Just keep getting nails.
05:56This is tedious work, and it's not always fruitful.
06:00But the team believes it is crucial to understanding Singapore's micro-history.
06:04These sites are important to be documented because if we look at historical records,
06:10we don't get a perspective of the individual soldier in the field.
06:15Archaeology is able to zoom in on the human experience,
06:18the emotional aspect of the soldiers being in a battle.
06:21These are intangible aspects that are also crucial in telling the story.
06:29Arun is not the only archaeologist at Bukit Chandu.
06:34Other members of the team are spread out across the compound.
06:37This is actually a construction debris rather than a soldier's belonging.
06:47With a limited amount of time, no one can say for sure if they can find the war artifacts they are after.
06:55This is part and parcel of the process of archaeology.
06:59I mean, not always we find out the types of artifacts that we want to find,
07:03but it doesn't mean that we're not going to find battlefield artifacts in other areas.
07:08This misadventures here and there, I think it helps to let us, as archaeologists,
07:13appreciate what we are actually excavating.
07:19Bukit Chandu is not the only World War II location the archaeologists are investigating.
07:24Oh, it looks like it's really humid in here.
07:45Oh, it's really humid in here.
07:51It's flooded, isn't it?
07:56Oh, it's more than a meter.
07:58It's quite deep.
07:59Yeah.
08:00Let's go up, let's get the waders,
08:02and then we can try and wade through this.
08:09Archaeologist Lim Chan Sien has been studying
08:12existing World War II structures.
08:15Together with volunteer Aung Ching Hui,
08:17they are at the largest war ruin in Singapore,
08:20the Jihua Battery.
08:24We are at one of the biggest gun positions ever built
08:27during the Second World War in Singapore
08:28and throughout the British Empire.
08:31The British set out to build a strong defence for Singapore
08:35and installed military fortifications around the island,
08:40including five of these 15-inch guns
08:42that protected it from a sea invasion.
08:46This reinforced Singapore's reputation as an impregnable fortress.
08:52If I would go back in time and I was standing by it,
08:54I mean, you'll be in awe of these things.
08:55It's massive.
08:56It's huge, right?
08:57It's several hundred tons, and it's like, you'll be impressed.
09:01Journalists came to witness the prowess of these guns,
09:04generating a lot of hype in the press.
09:19If any enemy ships got within 30 miles of Singapore,
09:22a good many would be blown out of the water.
09:26This long-range destruction would be done by big guns
09:29mounted at strategic points on the island.
09:32Each a self-contained unit with underground control rooms
09:38and ammunition stores.
09:40Shells nearly a ton in weight come up to the guns on automatic lifts.
09:45This would be done with a minimum of fuss.
09:46This would be done with a minimum of fuss.
09:51And maximum of efficiency.
09:52And maximum of efficiency.
09:54Singapore's defeat has been done by big guns at the side,
09:56from a modern relativistic line.
09:57He is very pretty.
09:58In the end of the neck,
09:59in the middle of the day,
10:00and his arms are full of strength,
10:01and the airs are full of strength.
10:02And I have to do that.
10:03It doesn't mean that he'll be in there."
10:04I have to do.
10:05That's another thing,
10:05I have to do.
10:06It's a big time and when he will turn it out.
10:08It says nothing.
10:09So I can do that.
10:10It's very soft.
10:11I can do it.
10:12It's a big time.
10:13I have to do it.
10:14And I have to do it.
10:15It's a big time.
10:16You have to do it.
10:17It looks like a few pockets.
10:18Workerships.
10:19And the cars are about the price.
10:21Singapore's defences are ready for anything, day and night.
10:44A lot of historians look at it from a very macro perspective,
10:47a very big perspective.
10:48The invasion happened, the occupation happened.
10:51Archaeology can look into this little micro level
10:54of how life was like within that single site.
10:58It will be a challenge to navigate the flooded complex,
11:01but Chen Xien is raring to go.
11:03I'd like to find a little bit more about the site
11:05and perhaps I'll be able to interpret
11:07how the soldiers' lives were like in the past.
11:09I got my waders on because we don't know how deep the thing is,
11:12so let's see, keep our fingers crossed.
11:18This is the first time Chen Xien has been given access
11:23to the underground complex.
11:24This is the first time Chen Xien has been given access
11:27to the underground complex.
11:28The complex is three storeys deep.
11:42a maze of tunnels connects the gun to its ammunition stores.
11:57It was almost like having a jigsaw puzzle.
12:11You don't know how many pieces you're missing,
12:13you don't know how many pieces you have,
12:15so we're really trying to figure things out in the dark.
12:18Guided by old blueprints, they venture deeper.
12:27There's some writing on top.
12:29Men are forbidden to write in this ammunition hoist.
12:33So this is the lift, the hoist to bring out the ammunition.
12:37There's all sorts of things here.
12:39Oh my gosh, there's one of the handles.
12:42Oh, look at that.
12:43Still around.
12:45Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
12:49It's amazing that after 85 years or so,
12:51this structure is still in place.
12:52Ah, 1929.
12:59I'm optimistic, so you really hope that,
13:00well, maybe you left something, I can see,
13:02but it's flooded, I can't really see anything on the ground,
13:05and also by just having a look at it,
13:07you realise that a lot of things have been stripped away.
13:09The flooded tunnels make it difficult for them to go any further.
13:15So they plan on exploring another ruin nearby.
13:20So the air fear is over there,
13:22and that's us right here.
13:26Abandoned World War II structures
13:28can still be found in this vicinity,
13:31hidden from public view.
13:33So I think over here, where Chang Nhi Ho is,
13:36we might have something right there.
13:39It might be great to look around this entire area,
13:41and I suspect there's still a lot of things buried
13:43just beneath our feet.
13:51Across Singapore, archaeologists are investigating
13:54the remnants of World War II.
13:56Archaeologist Lim Chen Hsien is interested in remaining World War II structures.
14:07OK, this is...there we are.
14:09Solely facing the sea.
14:11Following an old map,
14:13Chen Hsien and volunteer Aung Ching Hui
14:16have found an abandoned structure,
14:18hidden within a golf course.
14:20I think archaeology in Singapore, it's real fun in the sense that
14:23it's not so much as archaeologists discovering new things,
14:26but it's really about us rediscovering things that we have forgotten.
14:31Up here?
14:32Yep.
14:38OK.
14:39This is a good sign.
14:40Blue is good.
14:44Chen Hsien believes this is an old World War II structure.
14:47So, archaeology does not limit itself to just that you need to dig for something.
14:53There's also a lot of above-ground archaeology.
14:56It's also about a survey of looking at how a site was used in the past.
15:04So, is there any scientific reason to paint it blue?
15:06If it's this observation post,
15:08and you're looking out towards the sea, right?
15:10And the sky.
15:11The sea is blue, the sky is blue.
15:13So, you need something to match with the sky.
15:15So, at least your eyes get accustomed to it.
15:19Most of the structure has been stripped away,
15:21so they can't be sure what it was used for.
15:26It's quite small.
15:27It's smaller than I anticipated.
15:29I was hoping to find at least some, you know, pedestals and things
15:32where they mount a range finder, telescope,
15:35but they don't have it here.
15:37So, there are no marks.
15:39Oh, there's something that's been removed here.
15:42Uh-huh.
15:43There we go.
15:44Yeah.
15:45Table.
15:46Yeah.
15:47The mount is there.
15:48Very nice square.
15:49Yeah, there we go.
15:50So, the plotting table is here.
15:51Yeah.
15:52It's quite exciting in the sense that there's still all these,
15:54these little hidden gems around in Singapore.
15:56Chen Xian thinks these mounts would have supported equipment
15:59that were used to look out for enemy ships,
16:01making this a possible World War II observation post.
16:05If we are here, let's say, in 1942, right,
16:08on E for the Battle of Singapore,
16:10there won't be any vegetation in front of us.
16:12You can see up for kilometres out into the sea.
16:15And if we're using this table here to plot,
16:18those information will be relayed back to the gun batteries
16:22to fire onto the target.
16:24But the Japanese don't invade from the sea.
16:39Instead, they come overland through Malaya.
16:44Two of the naval guns are turned around to attack the invading troops on land.
16:52They're shells make enormous holes in the ground,
17:09but do little real damage.
17:12The impregnable fortress failed to live up to its name.
17:17The British became a victim of his own propaganda,
17:21but unfortunately, due to various reasons,
17:23maybe also inadequate equipment,
17:26it didn't happen as what they had planned.
17:28They were just outplayed.
17:30When the Japanese landed on the island,
17:33the Battle of Singapore lasted just seven days.
17:41Amateur archaeologist Martin Fryer has a personal connection
17:44to the Asia-Pacific War.
17:47His relatives fought in a battle near MacRitchie Reservoir.
17:53Martin lives in Australia, but visits Singapore often,
17:58in search of a link to his family's past.
18:01This is a photograph of my grandfather, Private Walter White,
18:05who was in the area of MacRitchie during the hostilities,
18:08along with his first cousin,
18:10Sergeant William Bill White of C Company,
18:13who were instrumental in the defence of this hill.
18:16My mother never knew her father.
18:19She said that your grandfather was a prisoner of the Japanese
18:23and they starved him to death.
18:24That was all that she really knew.
18:26And so I wanted to learn as much as I possibly could
18:30to understand what he experienced and what happened to him.
18:35The MacRitchie Reservoir Park is today a popular spot for nature lovers.
18:41But it was once a strategic position for British forces,
18:46an important water source for almost one million troops
18:49and refugees at that time.
18:51MacRitchie Reservoir was actually the last water supply
18:54to Singapore city, so it was totally critical
18:56that British forces held this position.
19:03If you cut the water supply to a city,
19:05it's going to fall to its knees within days.
19:08This hill is where British and Japanese soldiers fought and died.
19:18One of Martin's starting points is the diary of his relative,
19:21Sergeant William White, who describes the fighting at MacRitchie.
19:25The hand grenades come over thicker now.
19:38How it missed me, God only knows.
19:41They come bullets flying.
19:54Grenades exploding.
19:56Machine guns rattling chaos.
20:01Our casualties are heavy.
20:29They are on top of us now.
20:35It is us or them.
20:42Martin hopes to find artefacts that can add to the account.
20:57Well, archaeology tells the story.
21:01It's the footprint in the ground.
21:03It just tells you the bigger perspective on the whole story.
21:10People think I'm mad.
21:11People think, well, what do you go out to Singapore
21:13and dig around in the dirt?
21:14Well, it's because I'm driven and I love it,
21:16and I love learning more,
21:17and I love finding the evidence in the ground
21:19and supporting the events that actually took place.
21:25I use this pointer probe to actually get in the hole
21:28and actually identify where the object is,
21:31which is picking up the strongest signal right here,
21:35and hopefully we'll pull up something interesting.
21:41So straight away, there is something down here,
21:44and lo and behold, it's a comb.
21:50Metal detecting is something where you have to be very patient
21:58because you're not going to find something every time you go out.
22:01Here it is.
22:11Another broken key.
22:13Doesn't appear to be a wartime key.
22:16Problem that I have on this hill is that the public come and picnic.
22:20We do find a lot of 21st century rubbish that's just been dumped.
22:25It just gets in the way and makes the job so much harder.
22:28Hopefully, when we get into the dense jungle areas,
22:31that's where it will be more interesting
22:33because people haven't been in there so frequently
22:35and whatever we might find is likely to be World War II.
22:46That's interesting.
22:48On appearance, this resembles a coin,
22:50and the inscriptions that we can see so far
22:53is it appears definitely to be a King George period Indian coin.
22:57So this coin could have been dropped during the fighting.
23:00It's certainly got the possibilities
23:02of being owned by one of the soldiers on the hill.
23:05But Martin wants to find battle remains,
23:08solid evidence that will tie this hill to the events he's read about.
23:12What I do on Hill 105, I find extremely challenging,
23:17and I love to be challenged.
23:19Then what Martin has been looking for turns up.
23:28You absolute little beauty.
23:37Archaeologists are exploring World War II sites
23:40for a more complete history of the fall of Singapore.
23:43Amateur archaeologist Martin Fryer is searching for artefacts
23:48from a key battle fought on the island.
23:52And he might just have found something.
23:55You absolute little beauty.
24:00That is a round.
24:02It appears to be a Japanese round.
24:04I can only imagine that these boys who were on this hill,
24:09because they were boys,
24:10these boys would have been terrified.
24:11You know, they were up against the formidable
24:14Japanese Imperial Guards who were ruthless.
24:17They were highly trained.
24:19I mean, this is quite emotional because, you know,
24:23so many boys on this hill were killed.
24:25Who knows, it might have been this bullet that killed one of them.
24:28These finds, buried over time and forgotten,
24:34provide Martin with the physical evidence he is looking for.
24:40Without those finds, we would only have just the accounts
24:44that the guys wrote in their diaries.
24:46It's a story that needs to be told.
24:49And I think that the relatives of the men who fought out here,
24:54they want to know what happened to their loved ones.
24:57Finding the artefacts on the hill pieces everything together like a jigsaw.
25:03Take a GPS spot.
25:07But these finds won't be leaving the site.
25:10In view of trying to keep this as an authentic Second World War site,
25:14we bury the artefact back in the ground so that it's intact with its history.
25:22McRitchey Reservoir to me is more than just researching the battle site.
25:27Today there's people running around and canoeing and kayaking
25:32with not an idea what happened here.
25:36There's remnants of the battle all around them,
25:38still out there on the hill under their feet,
25:40but they would never know, they'd never realise.
25:44It's close to the end of the Bukit Chandu dig.
26:01The team have covered most of the compound,
26:04but have yet to recover any World War II artefacts.
26:07Time is running out, and archaeologist Aaron Kao has to devise a new plan.
26:16My strategy is to have several units being excavated concurrently,
26:20so we can cover more areas.
26:26Aaron and colleague Michael Ung have opened a fresh unit in the compound.
26:31Doing fieldwork is all about patience.
26:33You don't heat gold all the time.
26:35I'll keep an open mind, because we know that the battle was fought on this hill,
26:39but exactly where those exchanges were, we're not certain.
26:48Let's take a look somewhere here.
26:49Somewhere here.
26:56Mike, I think we have a projectile.
26:59Oh, nice.
27:01Looks like an Arisaka.
27:04Okay, ready?
27:08Another one?
27:09Here is another projectile.
27:19After digging for two weeks, they have unearthed two Japanese bullet projectiles.
27:26This is the part that actually kills or destroys,
27:30the part that actually leaves the barrel of a rifle of a Japanese soldier.
27:34You can just imagine these objects flying around in 1942.
27:39It must have been very chaotic.
27:41It must be an air of fear in this place.
27:44It makes my hair stand, actually.
27:48Okay, I think let's pick them up first.
27:51Okay.
27:56These artefacts help tie the historical accounts to the battle at Bukicandu.
28:01In Singapore's context, we are developing very fast,
28:08and sometimes we fall short of documenting minute details in our lives.
28:14I think with archaeology, it helps us not to forget what happened here,
28:18what the soldiers have gone through, what were they experiencing.
28:22We are constantly providing different perspectives to what happened in the past.
28:25Two months before the Battle of Singapore, Britain had sent a naval fleet to prevent Japanese troops from landing in Malaya and advancing south towards Singapore.
28:46One of the ships was the HMS Repulse.
28:57But the British were surprised by a squadron of more than 80 Japanese planes.
29:04These torpedo bombers were coming in so close, you could see the pilots.
29:21They hit us right in the midships.
29:22They were coming in one after the other.
29:23They were coming in one after the other.
29:25She hit us right in the midships.
29:43They were coming in one after the other.
29:46We were led to believe that it was going to be a piece of cake.
29:57That the Japanese were second-rate.
30:12But we were so mistaken.
30:16I always loved the sea.
30:20And it was my one ambition to join the Navy.
30:23It was my first ship, and it was really home.
30:31And within minutes, she'd gone.
30:35Maritime archaeologist Dr Michael Flecker has been surveying shipwrecks in Southeast Asia for 25 years.
30:53He still has many unanswered questions about the sinking of HMS Repulse.
31:02There'd never been a ship sunk by aircraft fire, exclusively aircraft torpedoes or bombs or both, before.
31:11And it didn't take that much longer after those thinkings for Singapore to actually be taken by the Japanese.
31:16What we'd like to achieve as a maritime archaeologist is to go and get tangible evidence of that battle.
31:25Hey, Mike, how are you?
31:35Mike Flecker, good to meet you.
31:37We've been waiting for you.
31:38Let's have a look at those plants.
31:39Remarkably, the HMS Repulse sank in just 11 minutes, killing 500 sailors on board.
31:47It's still a mystery why the massive ship sank so quickly.
31:51Dr Flecker hopes to find all the torpedo hits that sank the ship, something no one has been able to do yet.
31:58There was a survey done in 2007, so they went down, they confirmed one hit midships on starboard, which is here.
32:06The ones that have not been visually confirmed are these two portside hits.
32:11One here and one here.
32:14We've done many bypasses with the scooters and we never saw these.
32:18Maybe the wrecks tilt a little bit more over time.
32:20And that would be completely new information, so it's good to find that if we can.
32:28If they can find the two remaining torpedo hits, they might come closer to understanding how the disaster unfolded.
32:41HMS Repulse sank while en route to Quantan, Malaysia.
32:47The wreck lies some 90 kilometers off Tiamen Island, 56 meters deep in the sea.
32:54The team must first pinpoint the location.
32:57All right guys, we should be coming up on it now.
33:01I'll get the fish finder hooked up and ready.
33:04We've just got to put in the fish finder.
33:07It just sends a little chirp down to the bottom, which bounces off and it picks it back up and it'll give us our distance to the bottom.
33:14And then as we come over the wreck, we'll get the depth change as it picks up the actual depth of the wreck instead of the depth of the cement.
33:19It's coming up.
33:21Okay, slope, slope, slope.
33:23Some degree down there.
33:25Okay, we've got fish coming up.
33:28That's always a good sign.
33:30And there comes the wreckage.
33:32Wreck located, the team must now secure a line for their descent.
33:37I mean, we're talking about a 200 meter long wreck.
33:40That's massive.
33:41So what we do is we just drop the anchor and then as we go down, we will meet the wreck.
33:46Stop, we're in.
33:47Okay, we're good.
33:48We're hooked.
33:49We're hooked.
33:53Set.
33:56My father was fighting in World War II, so it's very close to home.
34:02To go and look at the repulse will be a very intense experience.
34:07I think it's time.
34:08Let's have a nice one.
34:10Yeah, that's a good one.
34:12I love diving.
34:19And now this is the ultimate of diving with a purpose.
34:38A huge number of men that were lost on board.
34:41So to actually see the tangible evidence of their demise.
34:44And you're reliving what was happening 80 years ago.
34:47This was a scene of complete chaos, mayhem, catastrophe.
34:54HMS repulse is over 240 meters long and weighs over 32,000 tons.
35:03Dr. Flecker and the team have only 25 minutes of air to find the two unconfirmed torpedo holes.
35:11With a vessel of this size, it is actually very easy to get lost.
35:15I've also dived on quite a few World War II vessels and they're not anywhere near as overwhelming as it is to dive on the repulse.
35:22So we are on the bottom and we're looking for a torpedo hole, but we're seeing these long ripped up holes in the vessel with metal going in and metal going out.
35:33And these are not things we expect to see.
35:49This destruction doesn't look like it's been caused by torpedoes.
35:54A torpedo would have done a lot of internal damage as well, whereas these holes were just seeing the sheet damaged on the outside.
36:01The interior is not necessarily affected.
36:02We got to the area they should be, but that area was missing.
36:17The part of the ship that would have had those torpedo holes is now gone.
36:20It's been ripped apart.
36:40It seems that the dive has surfaced more questions than answers.
36:47Our aim was to look for the torpedo damage on the port side.
36:52We got down there, but we didn't see any specific torpedo damage.
36:57These huge piles of tangled, twisted steel, and it's just mayhem.
37:01The whole bottom is mayhem.
37:02Maritime archaeologist Dr Michael Flecker is investigating the sinking of a British battleship, the HMS Repulse, an event that precipitated the fall of Singapore.
37:28It's time to review the footage from the dive.
37:34When you're diving on air, as soon as you get under a certain amount of pressure, it starts to have an effect almost like drinking alcohol.
37:42So you'll think you're doing fine, but when you get back to the surface, you think, well, did I do that or didn't I do that?
37:48And some things are not that clear, and some things are almost beyond belief.
37:52But footage captured on Dr Flecker's camera leaves no room for doubt.
37:59This is a GoPro camera I had on the back of my tank.
38:04And here we're finding a dozen or so all along one side in a quite confined area, so they're clearly not torpedo holes.
38:10There's definitely signs that there's been salvage down there, and they've been using explosives on the outside of the hull.
38:17The HMS Repulse has fallen victim to shipwreck theft.
38:29Scavengers are after a type of steel that's worth a fortune on the open market, sold and used in scientific and medical equipment.
38:37Super thick armor plating had been bent all over the place, like tissue paper.
38:44When they're ripped up, we've lost the respect for all these people that have sacrificed themselves fighting during the war.
38:51It's a hopeless situation, and it's been allowed to happen.
38:55And we swam along this edge. That was all gone. All the way across there was just disappeared.
39:10If I was going by what we'd seen on that dive, there's more than 50% gone. Even 5% is appalling.
39:16The fact that we went down there to look specifically at what happened during World War II, and instead we're now looking at what happened one or two years ago.
39:31So, for me, the archaeological work is impossible. The evidence has disappeared. It will never reappear. It's gone.
39:46Archaeologist Aaron Kao is analysing the artefacts the team has unearthed.
39:57The projectiles found at Bukichandu join a larger collection, built up over a decade.
40:04When an artefact is removed from the ground, there's always an urgency to perform conservation.
40:11By cleaning these artefacts, we are also able to identify what these are.
40:17The team has amassed hundreds of World War II artefacts to date.
40:22Most look corroded or misshapen, but every piece is an important link to the past.
40:29This artefact is interesting. If you look at this part, that rod that goes across these two features here,
40:36the safety pin on this grenade was actually not pulled. So it was blasted into pieces even before it was used.
40:41This, I mean, this just simply tells us how ferocious the battle was.
40:46I mean, the poor fellow who this grenade belongs to was probably torn to bits.
40:50Besides a haul of firearm ammunition, the team has also unearthed personal artefacts from the soldiers.
40:57This particular item over here would be a drinking water bottle.
41:02So these are the personal implements of a British soldier.
41:05This one is interesting because this is the Army e-shield standard shaver.
41:11If we wind back the clock, it's something mundane.
41:16But because of what it has gone through and how it was deposited in the ground,
41:20and where it was deposited in the ground, it gives us a new meaning.
41:23The British surrender in World War II was a defining chapter of colonial Singapore.
41:38More than 100,000 soldiers were killed, wounded and captured,
41:44making it the largest surrender in British history.
41:53The objects left behind during the heat of the battles remind us of the reality of war,
42:01seven decades on.
42:02I can understand that people feel detached from the Second World War.
42:13So because Singapore was a colony, there was very little nationalistic feelings.
42:18I think archaeology can emphasise on the fact that these conflicts, important periods of our history,
42:24these are happening in our own backyard.
42:26The Second World War is a crux for the political awakening of this island.
42:33After the post-war period, we can realise that no, we should be self-governed.
42:38We can't depend on other people or someone who is 10,000 kilometres away to think on our behalf.
42:44We need to rule our own communities.
42:49Beyond World War II remnants, there are still spaces left untouched, waiting to be explored.
42:57As we excavate, it's almost like opening a portal into the past.
43:03Although archaeology is still new in Singapore, quite significant discoveries have been made.
43:11I believe there's still a lot more to discover to give us new perspectives, new answers.
43:18New stories to be unearthed, retold and rewritten.
43:22For more information, visit www.mars の-nars.ca-cour.com
43:28www.mars.ca-cour.com
43:33www.mars.ca-cour.com
43:35www.mars.ca-cour.com
43:40www.mars.ca-cour.com
43:42www.mars.ca-cour.com
43:52You
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