VJ pilgrimage to Singapore follows in footsteps of a military father

Mary Barber retraces her father’s footsteps in Singapore: ‘I picture my father on the parade ground. In the background are shipmates and Japanese prisoners of war’

Amid the skyscrapers are the museums that commemorate war, violence, and occupation

Mary Barber with her sister Catherine and her father David in 2016. Inset, David shortly after he joined the Royal Navy

The veranda at the former British military barracks on Sentosa island, just off Singapore’s southern coast, is a welcome retreat in the stifling heat. My guide, Khor Sing Hong, a retired army captain, is pointing to a two-storey whitewashed colonial building opposite.

“That’s where your father would have stayed when he was here, and below it was the mess hall,” he says.