I HAD TO SACRIFICE MY LOVED ONES
Mr Tan Chong Tee's painting of his motherMr Tan Chong Tee was born in 1916 in Singapore. His family lived at Shrewsbury Road. His father worked in a carriage shop while his mother owned a floral nursery. He had only one older brother, Chong Mao.
When China was invaded by Japan in the 1937 Marco-Polo Bridge Incident, patriotic feelings stirred in the hearts of many Chinese people around the world.
Mr Tan was in his early 20s at that time.Like many enraged Chinese in Singapore, he took part in many anti-Japanese activities like boycotting Japanese goods and fund raising.
"I was a young man then, and because I was educated in Chinese, I was very active in raising funds for the war refugees in China.
"At that time, my mother and her generation of people also shared the same patriotic sentiments - maybe even more so, because they were originally from China. So my mother, along with the families of many other youths, and probably the whole society, were all very supportive of our anti-Japanese activities."
Click to hear Mr Tan Chong Tee (in Mandarin)
In 1941, he left for the Chinese wartime capital of Chungking to join the Chinese army to fight the Japanese invaders.
But he was deemed too young to join the army. Instead, he took the advice of a Chinese official to enroll in an art school.
Meanwhile, Singapore and Malaya fell to the Japanese. As the overseas Chinese refugees in Chungking grew in number, Mr Tan decided to organise an art exhibition in aid of these refugees.
Impressed by his patriotic deeds, the Chinese government sent an official to persuade him to join a special training centre in Chungking. The centre trained overseas Chinese youth to be resistance fighters who would later liberate their homeland from the Japanese.
Mr Tan was later recruited by Mr Lim Bo Seng to train in a military school in India. After his training, he joined the British-led Operation Gustavus as an undercover agent in Malaya involved in espionage, subversion and sabotage.
With the fall of Singapore in 1942, Mr Tan lost contact with his family.
"Knowing the cruelty of the Japanese troops, I was very pessimistic about the fate of my family. I tried hard not to think about them too much. Instead, I focused all my attention on my anti-Japanese operations."
It was only after the war had ended that he discovered that his brother, Chong Mao, had been executed by the Japanese during the mopping-up operation carried out within the first few weeks of the Japanese takeover.
Mr Tan’s mother went to see the Japanese to try to find Chong Mao. She was humiliated and beaten up. Her injuries left her bedridden, she spent her last days weeping over the loss of her son and died of grief in December of the same year.
"[My mother’s] final wish was to see me return home safely," Mr Tan said, "But I returned in triumph only to find out that my close ones were gone.
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