Dear Subscribers, History Enthusiasts and Friends
We have updated Citizen Historian with six new entries for the month of July.
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Dim Sum Dollies in the History of Singapore
Those who had caught the latest production of the Dim Sum Dollies will
agree that it resembles a mini-version of the National Day Parade (sans
march-past and fire-works and other knick-knacks). Hong… »

by Alvin Lee

I have been crazy about plastic models of German Armored Fighting Vehicles (AFV) since primary three. But I loved the small plastic German soldiers even more, in particular their uniform and equipment variations. It was every boy’s dream to own a German WW2 helmet (the predecessor to the modern PASGT shaped helmet). In… »

by Alvin Lee
“Excuse me. Where did you get this uniform from?” This is perhaps the most asked question we get. Nope. We are not a vendor at Beach Road’s buzzing army market. We are a sub-culture of collectors of original and reproduction World War Two militaria
If the word “militaria” is new to your ears, then… »

by Koh Zhongwei, Alvin
Continuing Politics of Defence Acquisitions: Singapore and the Hawker Hunters Part 1

The implication of going along with the Singaporeans was that to do so would well place the Kuala Lumpur conference in jeopardy. A row between the local partners at this stage could very well have led to an Australian and New… »

by Koh Zhongwei, Alvin

Singapore acquisition of Hawker Hunters from the United Kingdom in 1970 seemed a straight-forward economic transaction in theory, but in reality proved anything but simple.[i] Despite British obligation to help Singapore build up its armed forces in light of their accelerated withdrawal[ii], the British government was highly reluctant to sell such sophisticated… »

by Edgar Liao

“The worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history”
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s un-mincing pronouncement prefaces not a few accounts of the fall of Malaya and Singapore to a relentless Japanese invasion from December 1941 to January 1942. While no expert on the Malayan Campaign at all, it seems to me that… »

by Fumihito Yamamoto

Today, Japanese cuisine is extremely popular and is eaten all over the world, to the point perhaps that most people believe that Japanese eat Sushi, Sashimi and Tempura everyday and that these are traditional Japanese cuisines. But this is a misconception. While it is true that Japanese do eat such foods, most of… »

by Kevin Lee
Between the bustling Upper Bukit Timah Road and Jalan Asas (which bustles with eateries) is a road that seems caught in a time-warp. The road has no identification signs and is apparently nameless. The first part of the road is choc-a-bloc with rocks and what appear to be chips from bricks and tiles…. »

by Hong Lysa
It had been a long day. I had spent three hours that afternoon at a talk for teachers on historiography, which emphasized the importance of time and location in history-writing, both of the event and of the writing of it. How history-writing is not about finding out what really happened — an impossible… »