Lim Bo Seng

Lim Bo Seng

By Wong, Heng written on 1999-04-17

National Library Board Singapore

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Major-General Lim Bo Seng alias Tan Choon Lim (b. 27 April 1909, Nan Ann, China - d. 29 June 1944, Batu Gajah Jail, Perak, Malaya) was a prominent Hokkien businessman who undertook active leadership in anti-Japanese activities during World War II and is recognised as a local war hero. 

Early Life

Lim was the 11th child but the first son of Lim Chee Gee. At the age of 16, he came to Singapore and studied at Raffles Institution. He discontinued his education at the University of Hong Kong in 1929 when, upon his father's death, he inherited senior Lim's businesses which included the Hock Ann Biscuits and factories for brick manufacturing. In 1930, he married Gan Choo Neo, a Straits-born Nonya with whom he had seven children. Their's was a love marriage, unusal in those days.

Japanese Occupation

In the 1930s, Lim under the alias Tan Choon Lim participated in anti-Japanese activities in Singapore, particularly in supporting the China Relief Fund. Upon the request of Sir Shenton Thomas, the Governor, he also formed the Chinese Liason Committee to assist in civil defence. With the fall of Kota Bahru in Malaya in 1942, Lim, as head of the Labour Services of the Overseas Chinese Mobilization Council, and Tan Kah Kee organised more than 10,000 men for the British Government to man essential services and to construct defences around the island. As the Japanese troops decended upon Singapore, his men helped dynamite the Causeway. 

He escaped to India before Singapore's fall where he was joined by the British resistance group, Force 136, and was trained by the British for intelligence work. In 1943, he went to China to recruit Kuomintang colleagues for Force 136 - a special operations force formed by the British and the Chinese governments in June 1942 to support resistance groups behind enemy lines and to coordinate guerilla operations in support...