Life in the Early Years..
Background and Early life
Lim Bo Seng was born in Nan’an, Fujian, China, on 27
April 1909. Lim Bo Seng had 11 siblings in his family and he was the first son
in the family. In 1925, Lim Bo Seng came to Singapore at the age of 16 and studies in
Raffles Institution under the British colonial government. He went on to
read business at the University of Hong Kong. In 1930, Lim Bo Seng married Gan Choo
Neo, a nyonya woman from the Lim clan association hall of Singapore. They had
eight children, one of whom died in infancy. He was initially a Taoist but
became Christian after his marriage to Gan.
Roles and Contributions
When the WW2 broke out, Lim Bo Seng participated in the anti-Japanese activities such as boycotting of Japanese goods and fund-raising to support the war effort of china. he is an active contributor of the China Relief Fund and also became Director of the Labour Service Department in the newly-formed
Singapore Chinese Mobilization Council. He knew he will certain be a target of
the Japanese hence, he escaped to India and joined a British network
in Malaya known as Force 136 where he was trained for intelligence work and operate them. He went to China to recruit men for that task and
sent them to Japanese-occupied Malaya by batches through submarines.
After escaping to India, he hid in the
jungle with the other members of Force 136 to train agents who would intrude the Malayan jungles. Lim Bo Seng was also the head of the British Network
and the operation in the Malayan jungles. They established a spy network in Perak to
gather the information on the Japanese and then passes the information through radio to the Allied forces, allowing them to launch the
attack to reclaim back the mainland of Malaya.
Capture and Fearless Death
Due to the leaked information from one of Lim Bo Seng's men, the entire spy network was destroyed and many members of Force 136 was captured. Lim Bo Seng was also caught and was brought to the Japanese Secret Police Headquarters for interrogation. The Japanese tortured him to make him reveal the names of the other leaders and the hideouts
of Force 136 but he did not provide them with information despite knowing death was coming in his way. Instead he protested the ill treatments towards his comrades. Due to Lim Bo Seng's poor health conditions including all those tortures by the Japanese and letting his comrades have his food, he suffered and was bedridden.About a month later, On June 29 1944, Lim Bo Seng died of
dysentery. He was buried at an unmarked spot behind the prison.