Much has been made about the “mysterious” solitary Japanese tomb sitting on the southern slopes of Mount Faber. The tomb, which could be thought of as a memorial to a painful time in Singapore’s history, contains the remains of a member of staff of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ (MHI) Kobe shipyard, a naval architect by the name of Komoto Ekasa (or Omoto Egasa). Komoto was among an group of 94 MHI staff who had been sent from Kobe to Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) in January 1942 in anticipation of the Fall of Singapore. Arriving in Singapore on 2 March 1942, the MHI employees’ immediate task had been to revive the damaged Singapore Harbour Board (SHB) repair facilities at Keppel Harbour to the point that it could be put in operation to support the war effort.
Enlisting the help of former executives and workers of SHB, MHI’s team was able to rapidly restore three of SHB’s graving docks at Keppel Harbour in a matter of weeks. By the third week of March, emergency repairs could be carried on the Imperial Japanese Navy oiler Tsurumi, which had been hit by a Dutch torpedo in the waters of the East Indies early that same month. By June, much of the repair facilities had been fully restored and was subsequently run as the No. 1 yard of MHI’s Syonan Shipyard (Syonan Shipyard’s No. 2 Yard was at Tanjong Rhu). Unfortunately for the hardworking Komoto, who had been appointed as the shipyard’s manager, he fell ill and passed on the 18th day of July 1942.
Komoto’s efforts would however not be in vain. While MHI’s Syonan Shipyard may have been unable to support the Japanese shipbuilding efforts due to material and machinery shortages as was intended, it proved to be a great asset to the Japanese fleet as a repair yard. Some 2364 ships were repaired by the shipyard from March 1942 to August 1945 even if only a handful of ships were built. The yard was also able to provide employment to local workers, with the number of local employees exceeding 3000 at the peak of its activities. The facilities would however suffer from shortages of spares, a lack of maintenance, and also damage from Allied bombing in 1944 and 1945. By the time of the Japanese surrender in August 1945, much was left in a state of disrepair. Extensive rehabilitation work and expense was required after the war to restore the facilities.
About Komoto Ekasa (小本江笠) and his link to Keppel House
Born in March 1895, Komoto was a graduate of Department of Marine Engineering of Tokyo Imperial University and joined MHI’s Kobe Shipyard and Machinery Works soon after his graduation in 1920. His death and place of burial was apparently not forgotten and several members of the naval architect’s family have paid visits to the grave over the years. A participant during a recent tour I conducted to Keppel House mentioned that a granddaughter of the naval architect had been in contact with her and had revealed that Omoto along with several other Syonan Shipyard staff members were residents of house (which the site of the grave had once been on the grounds of) during their time here. More on Keppel House can be found at: A house on which Singapore’s modern port was built.
