LIM BO SENG Biography - Military related figures

 
 

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LIM BO SENG

Name: Lim Bo Seng                                                                   
Alias: Tan Choon Lim                                                                 
Born: 27 April 1909 Nan'an, Fujian, China                                           
Died: 29 June 1944 Batu Gajah Jail, Malaya                                           
                                                                                     
Lim Bo Seng (April 27, 1909 - June 29, 1944) was a World War II anti-Japanese       
Resistance fighter who was based in Singapore and Malaya.                           
                                                                                     
Born in 1909 to Lim Loh alias Lim Chee Geee, a wealthy businessman who owned a       
biscuit and brick manufacturing business in Singapore, Lim was the 11th child       
but the first son. At the age of 16, Lim came to Singapore in 1917 to study in       
the Raffles Institution of Singapore under the British colonial government, and     
later went on to further his studies in the University of Hong Kong.                 
                                                                                     
In 1930, Lim married Gan Choo Neo, a Nonya woman in the Lim Clan association         
hall of Singapore. They had seven children.                                         
                                                                                     
Initially raised as a Taoist, Lim converted to Christianity after receiving         
strong European influence.                                                           
                                                                                     
At the time of the Second Sino-Japanese war, Lim, a loyal Chinese patriot, took     
part in fund-raising on Japanese resistant forces and boycott activities of         
Japanese goods organized by the Nanyang Federation.                                 
                                                                                     
On February 11, just before the fall of Singapore to the Japanese, Lim left his     
family for the last time to the care of his wife and fled from Singapore to         
Sumatra with other Chinese community leaders, before making his way to India,       
where he recruited and trained hundreds of secret agents through intensive           
missions from the military and intelligence point of view in India and China.       
Around this time, together with Captain John Davis, they set up the Sino-British     
guerilla group Force 136 in mid-1942. One of his best friends and students, Tan     
Chong Tee, participated actively in anti-Japanese activities until his capture       
on 26 March 1944.