ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the Kranji War Cemetery and Memorial, established on the verdant hill slopes of an area in the northwest of the island by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Prior to the arrival of the war in Singapore in 1942, Kranji Hill was a temporary British military camp and, during the war, a hospital and small cemetery were also sited nearby to cater to those who were injured or died in the vicinity and elsewhere. In contrast, most of the visitors to Kranji tend to be foreigners, hence contributing to the other common perception of such Commonwealth sites as landscapes of mainly 'personal' salience, and repositories of private grief and memory. There is little doubt that the landscape of KWCM was designed as 'part of a geographical imagining of the British Empire, and the making of a tangible imprint of British presence'. The official opening of KWMC in 1957 was marked with great pomp and fanfare.
