51-619: His Majesty's Naval Base, Singapore , also Her Majesty's Naval Base, Singapore ( HMNB Singapore ), alternatively known as the Singapore Naval Base , Sembawang Naval Base and HMS Sembawang , was situated in Sembawang at the northern tip of Singapore and was both a Royal Navy shore establishment and a cornerstone of British defence policy (the Singapore strategy ) in the Far East between
102-546: A New Town by the Singapore Housing and Development Board . The town remains a major port, with Sembawang Wharves handling a high volume of bulk commodities cargo, such as timber and rubber. The planning of Sembawang New Town started in 1996 where the Woodlands MRT Extension was opened, and Sembawang MRT station was also opened at the same time. When the station was opened, the area was undeveloped except
153-515: A constituency named Seletar but later carved out forming a dedicated Sembawang Single Member Constituency beginning in the 1955 , then resized to a smaller constituency leaving only the northern areas. Sembawang has always been held by the People's Action Party since its formation and has been expanded to include subregions of Admiralty and Canberra since it became a Group Representation Constituency . Former President of Singapore Tony Tan Keng Yam
204-466: A major state-owned industrial conglomerate . Extensive land reclamation throughout Singapore has left Sembawang with one of the country's last natural beaches, the Wak Hassan Beach located at Sembawang Park . Today, the vegetable farms, rubber plantations and Chinese graveyards surrounding the former naval base have given way to modern housing, especially in the 1990s during the development of
255-696: A naval base on Singapore Island , where the capital of the Straits Settlements was located, as a deterrent to the increasingly ambitious Japanese Empire with its growing fleet. Britain lacked a naval ' Imperial fortress ' in the broad region of Asia, the Indian Ocean, and the Pacific Ocean. Instead, the British Empire relied on the squadron of the Bermuda based America and West Indies Station , utilising
306-626: A term thought to derive from Sanskrit malayakolam or malaikurram . While the Chinese chronicle of the Yuan dynasty mentioned the word Ma-li-yu-er , referring to a nation of the Malay Peninsula that was threatened by the southward expansion of the Sukhothai Kingdom under King Ram Khamhaeng . During the same era, Marco Polo made a reference to Malauir in his travelogue , as a kingdom located in
357-576: Is a Singapore Armed Forces military base on Admiralty Road, open only to military personnel on official business. The camp houses the 1st and 3rd Transport Battalion of the Singapore Army , as well as the Republic of Singapore Navy 's Naval Diving Unit (NDU) . Also, the compound housing the Naval Diving Unit was previously known as Terror Camp in deference to the old admin and Officers club section of
408-634: Is bordered by Simpang to the east, Mandai to the south, Yishun to the southeast, Woodlands to the west and the Straits of Johor to the north. Despite the relatively large development in the Sembawang New Town, the area remains largely suburban, with military, industrial and recreational facilities at its periphery. It hosted a major naval base and port facilities since the early 20th century, and continues to handle regular shipping traffic today along its wharves. The earliest reference to Sembawang
459-603: Is found in Franklin and Jackson's 1830 Map of Singapore , which refers to the River Tambuwang. The place is said to have got its name from the pokok sembawang ( Malay for the kayae ferruginea ), which has been renamed Mesua ferruginea from 1980. This tree can be seen at Sembawang Park . The Sembawang area in the early twentieth century was the site of the Nee Soon Rubber estate. During colonial times , Sembawang
510-539: Is home to several distinct ecoregions . The Tenasserim–South Thailand semi-evergreen rain forests cover the northern peninsula, including the Tenasserim Hills and the Isthmus of Kra, and extend to the coast on both sides of the isthmus. The Kangar-Pattani floristic boundary crosses the peninsula in southern Thailand and northernmost Malaysia, marking the boundary between the large biogeographic regions of Indochina to
561-509: Is separated from the island of Singapore by the Straits of Johor . The Malay term Tanah Melayu is derived from the word Tanah (land) and Melayu ( Malays ), thus it means "the Malay land". The term can be found in various Malay texts, of which the oldest dating back to the early 17th century. It is frequently mentioned in the Hikayat Hang Tuah , a well-known classic tale associated with
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#1732844855619612-551: The Indian Navy in principle access to Sembawang Port and Indian patrol boats escorting American naval ships through the Straits of Malacca . Admiralty Floating Dock No.9 , a large floating dry dock , the third-largest in the world at the time of its construction, was located at the base. It was used by the aircraft carrier HMS Eagle for a refit in 1939. At the time, the dry dock was described as having been floated from England to Singapore 10 years before. The graving dock
663-725: The National Library Board and situated within the Sun Plaza shopping centre. Malay Peninsula The Malay Peninsula is located in Mainland Southeast Asia . The landmass runs approximately north–south, and at its terminus, it is the southernmost point of the Asian continental mainland. The area contains Peninsular Malaysia , Southern Thailand , and the southernmost tip of Myanmar ( Kawthaung ). The island country of Singapore also has historical and cultural ties with
714-666: The US 7th Fleet in its operations in the Pacific and Southeast Asia. The United States Coast Guard , Marine Inspection Detachment (MIDET) Singapore is also a tenant. Apart from the US naval presence, the United States Air Force has its administration, logistics and support component for the 497th Combat Training Squadron being based there, while the squadron's flight operations are based at Paya Lebar Air Base . Since 2002, Singapore has granted
765-690: The World Wars . From 1921 to 1941 it was a China Station base, from 1941 to 1945 a repair facility for the Imperial Japanese Navy and from 1945 to 1958 a Far East Fleet base. Today, it is a commercial dockyard but British military activity still exists at the British Defence Singapore Support Unit (BDSSU). Through the 19th century, the British Government relied on four Imperial fortress colonies as primary bases for
816-478: The 1970s and 1980s, part of this former British naval base became the Singapore Armed Forces' Infantry Training Depot that served to provide a three-month-long basic military training (BMT) course to mostly national service recruits, and the premises continued the legacy of HMS Terror by being popularly referred to as "Terror Camp" . With the complete withdrawal of British forces from Singapore in 1971 ,
867-588: The 1970s–1990s to make way for Yishun and Sembawang New Towns. The last of the villages, Kampong Wak Hassan, was cleared in 1998. Present day Sembawang Road is a major arterial road linking the Northern and Central portion of Singapore. Many other roads in Sembawang are named after various Royal Navy dockyards, warships , admirals , countries and cities. Examples include Wellington , Canberra , Canada, Gibraltar , Kenya and Falkland . These names were given during
918-573: The Australian, British and New Zealand navies as well as those from other Commonwealth countries under the auspices of FPDA. As part of a 1990 agreement (concluded in 1992) between Singapore and the United States, American military forces (primarily naval and air force ) have been making use of Sembawang's base facilities. The Commander, Logistics Group Western Pacific has been headquartered in Sembawang since 1992, providing logistic support for
969-466: The British Ministry of Defence (MoD) continues to maintain a small logistics base at Sembawang wharf to control most of the foreign military activities there, which includes repair, refuel and resupply for ships of the Australian, British and New Zealand navies as well as those from other Commonwealth countries under the auspices of Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA). This special arrangement
1020-479: The Canberra Road and the then-developing Sembawang New Town. This was resolved in 1998 because of the accelerating development of Sembawang New Town, which was completed in 2004. These HDB flats were within Sembawang, Canberra and Gambas division. In late 2022, Sembawang had their first hawker centre and polyclinic at Bukit Canberra , which opened progressively from July 2022 onwards. Sembawang once begun as
1071-770: The Far East (along with the three other RAF bases in Singapore: RAF Changi , RAF Seletar and RAF Tengah ) during the critical period of Malayan Emergency (1948–1960), the Brunei Revolt in 1962 and during the Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation (1962–1966). Despite the withdrawal of British forces from Singapore in 1971 and the handover of the Singapore Naval Base to the Singapore Government in 1968,
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#17328448556191122-514: The Malay Peninsula, possibly similar to the one mentioned in the Yuan chronicle. The Malay Peninsula was conflated with Persia in old Japan, and was known by the same name. In the early 20th century, the term Tanah Melayu was generally used by the Malays of the peninsula during the rise of Malay nationalism to describe uniting all Malay states on the peninsula under one Malay nation, and this ambition
1173-580: The Naval Base has since been handed over to the Singapore government , which in 1968 converted it into a commercial dockyard (as Sembawang Shipyard, now part of Singapore Exchange - listed SembCorp Marine ). After the short term ANZUK arrangement was terminated (started in 1971 and ended in 1974), New Zealand Force South East Asia (NZFORSEA) was created with the HQ being sited at the Stores Basin area adjacent to
1224-749: The Panama Canal after its 1914 completion, to patrol the western Atlantic and the eastern Pacific, while vessels based in Malta in the Mediterranean Sea could project naval and military force to the Indian and western Pacific oceans via the Suez Canal , which had been completed in 1869. In light of the rising threat of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN), this was no longer adequate. Originally announced in 1923,
1275-626: The Royal Naval facility which was called HMS Terror. Sembawang Road is one of the key roads built to connect the naval base to the city centre in the South. This road began as a track in the 1920s and was officially named Sembawang Road in 1938. Buses operated by various private companies were then the main mode of transport. The thoroughfare was also dotted with many villages along its length: Chye Kay Village, Sungei Simpang Village, Chong Pang Village, Sembawang Village. Most of these villages were cleared during
1326-770: The Royal Navy and British Army for control of the World's oceans. These were Bermuda and Halifax, Nova Scotia (military control of the latter was handed to the Canadian militia following Canadian Confederation in 1867, and naval control to the Royal Canadian Navy after 1905, along with Esquimalt Royal Naval Dockyard , which had been the main base of the Pacific Station ) in the North Atlantic, and Gibraltar and Malta . As it
1377-503: The Royal Navy's tradition of naming their respective naval base and dockyard, the accommodation barracks adjacent to the base became known as HMS Terror (from 1945 to 1971) in honour of HMS Terror , an Erebus -class monitor armed with twin 15-inch guns , which was based at one time in Singapore before the war. Since 1972, part of the compound is now occupied by the Republic of Singapore Navy 's Naval Diving Unit (NDU) . During
1428-902: The advancing IJA and became the IJN No. 101 Repair Facility through to the end of the Second World War during which time it was used by all 3 Axis powers . It was used by Italian cargo-carrying submarines until the Italian Armistice, and by German cargo-carrying submarines until the German surrender. With the surrender of Japan in August 1945, control of the naval base and Singapore was reverted to British and Commonwealth Forces in September 1945, when allied units of South East Asia Command under Lord Louis Mountbatten started to arrive in Singapore. In line with
1479-521: The ancient Indian text, Vayu Purana , may possibly refer to the Malay Peninsula. Another Indian source, an inscription on the south wall of the Brihadeeswarar Temple , recorded the word Malaiur , referring to a kingdom in the Malay Peninsula that had "a strong mountain for its rampart". Ptolemy 's Geographia named a geographical region of the Golden Chersonese as Maleu-kolon ,
1530-476: The construction of the base proceeded slowly at Sembawang until the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931. It was completed in 1938, at a staggering cost of £60 million – equivalent to £2½ billion in 2006. The base covered 21 square miles (54 km) and had what was then the largest dry dock in the world, the third-largest floating dock, and enough fuel tanks to support the entire Royal Navy for six months. It
1581-450: The current Sembawang Naval Basin. NZFORSEA consisted of 1 Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment (RNZIR), which was based at Dieppe Barracks near Yishun New Town , No. 141 Flight of Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF), with its Bell UH-1D/H Hueys based at Sembawang Air Base and frequent deployments of Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN) frigates. This was the last major foreign military presence based in Singapore. Total military strength at
Singapore Naval Base - Misplaced Pages Continue
1632-597: The legendary heroes of Malacca Sultanate . Tanah Melayu in the text is consistently employed to refer to the area under Malaccan dominance. In the early 16th century, Tomé Pires , a Portuguese apothecary who stayed in Malacca from 1512 to 1515, uses an almost identical term, Terra de Tana Malaio , with which he referred to the southeastern part of Sumatra, where the deposed sultan of Malacca, Mahmud Shah , established his exiled government. The 17th century's account of Portuguese historian, Emanuel Godinho de Erédia , noted on
1683-482: The north and Sundaland and Malesia to the south. The forests north of the boundary are characterized by seasonally-deciduous trees, while the Sundaland forests have more year-round rainfall and the trees are mostly evergreen. Peninsular Malaysia is home to three terrestrial ecoregions. The Peninsular Malaysian montane rain forests ecoregion covers the mountains above 1,000 meters elevation. The lowlands and hills are in
1734-462: The old bus terminals located at the Northern tip of Sembawang Road, just next to Sembawang Park and the other located along Admiralty Road West. Sembawang has a total of five primary schools and two secondary schools. Three shopping centres, including Sembawang Shopping Centre , Canberra Plaza and Sun Plaza next to the Sembawang MRT station . Sembawang Public Library , which is managed by
1785-526: The peninsula – Asian elephant ( Elephas maximus ), gaur ( Bos gaurus ), tiger ( Panthera tigris ), sun bear ( Helarctos malayanus ), Malayan tapir ( Tapirus indicus ), clouded leopard ( Neofelis nebulosa ), and siamang ( Symphalangus syndactylus ). The Sumatran rhinoceros ( Dicerorhinus sumatrensis ) once inhabited the forests, but Malaysia's last rhinoceroses died in 2019, and the species' few remaining members survive only in Sumatra . The peninsula
1836-469: The previous British administration, and reflect the town's history as a British naval base . The main river running through Sembawang, the 4-kilometre (2.5 mi) long Sungei Sembawang, flowed along a winding route and ended to the west of Sembawang Shipyard. Its middle section was diverted in the 1920s to provide the land needed for the British Naval Base. During the 1970s, the Northern portions of
1887-641: The proximity of the nine sultanates on the Malay Peninsula . After the fall of Malaya on 31 January 1942, Singapore came within range of the artillery guns of the Twenty-Fifth Army of the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA), who were positioned in Johor within sight of the base. The IJA was poised to capture Singapore within a fortnight . The base was subsequently captured, largely intact, by units of
1938-496: The region of Malaios surrounded by the Andaman Sea in the north, the entire Strait of Malacca in the centre, a part of Sunda Strait in the south, and the western part of South China Sea in the east. Prior to the foundation of Malacca, ancient and medieval references to a Malay peninsula exist in various foreign sources. According to several Indian scholars, the word Malayadvipa ("mountain-insular continent"), mentioned in
1989-513: The region. The Titiwangsa Mountains are part of the Tenasserim Hills system and form the backbone of the peninsula and the southernmost section of the central cordillera , which runs from Tibet through the Kra Isthmus , the peninsula's narrowest point, into the Malay Peninsula. The Strait of Malacca separates the Malay Peninsula from the Indonesian island of Sumatra , and the south coast
2040-437: The river was straightened and canalized . The Southern portions of the river, which consisted of mangroves , ponds and grassland, was filled in during the 1990s in preparation for the development of Sembawang New Town. Two MRT stations are located in the area. They are Sembawang MRT station and Canberra MRT station . The Sembawang Bus Interchange , located next to Sun Plaza, was completed on 20 November 2005. This replaced
2091-524: The start of military presence in Sembawang. In February 1942, both bases were partially torched and wrecked by the retreating British forces during the Battle of Singapore to deny their use by units of the advancing Imperial Japanese Army . After the end of World War II in 1945, both bases were reverted to British control and would eventually go on to play an important part in Britain's continued military presence in
Singapore Naval Base - Misplaced Pages Continue
2142-705: The time stood at 850 with some 700 dependents. Under the auspices of the Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA), NZFORSEA took over the Royal Navy married quarters and billets, while the Installations Auxiliary Police Force (IAPF) was formed, the small police force was staffed by Singaporeans but commanded by an NZ officer to provide security to the whole area. This security blanket covered the British, UK and Australian facilities and personnel. When NZFORSEA withdrew from Singapore in 1989, it
2193-419: The title "Captain-in-Charge" to the senior officer at Singapore Naval Base from 1921 to 1942, including flag officers . However, contemporary sources state that the official title wasn't granted until 1931, when Captain Birkett took on the role. Included: Included: Sembawang Sembawang is a planning area and residential town located in the North Region of Singapore . Sembawang planning area
2244-469: Was also extended to the United States Navy since early 1960s to support the American involvement in the Vietnam War . As part of a 1990 agreement between Singapore and the United States, American military forces (primarily naval and air force ) have been making use of Sembawang's base facilities. The Task Force 73 (and Commander Logistic Group Western Pacific), part of US 7th Fleet , has been headquartered in Sembawang since 1992. The Sembawang Camp
2295-458: Was completed in February 1938 and was more than 300 m (980 ft) in length and was the largest dry dock in the world at the time. With the impending capture of Singapore by the Imperial Japanese Army in 1942, the dry dock gates were blown off and machinery destroyed. The dock was subsequently repaired and used throughout the war and was subjected to Allied air attacks to disable the dry dock in late 1944 and early 1945. Modern sources give
2346-468: Was defended by 15-inch naval guns stationed at Johore battery , Changi , and at Buona Vista Battery . Other important batteries of smaller calibre were located at Fort Siloso , Fort Canning , and Labrador . Air defence relied on the Royal Air Force (RAF) airfields at RAF Tengah and RAF Sembawang . Winston Churchill touted it as the " Gibraltar of the East". The base was renamed from HMS Terror to HMS Sultan on 1 January 1940 to acknowledge
2397-481: Was home to a major British naval base, the construction of which began in 1928 and was completed in 1938. The base included dockyards , wharves and workshops, as well as supporting administrative, residential and commercial areas. The Naval Base has since been handed over to the Singapore government , which in 1968 converted it into a commercial dockyard (as Sembawang Shipyard, now part of Singapore Exchange - listed SembCorp Marine ) that went on to become SembCorp,
2448-558: Was largely realised with the formation of Persekutuan Tanah Melayu ( Malay for " Federation of Malaya ") in 1948. The Malay Peninsula is covered with tropical moist broadleaf forests . Lowland forests are dominated by dipterocarp trees, while montane forests are home to evergreen trees in the beech family ( Fagaceae ), Myrtle family ( Myrtaceae ), laurel family ( Lauraceae ), tropical conifers , and other plant families. The peninsula's forests are home to thousands of species of animals and plants. Several large endangered mammals inhabit
2499-533: Was one of the notable Members of Parliament of Sembawang, and was succeeded by former Tanjong Pagar GRC Member of Parliament and former Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan beginning in the General Election 2006 , followed by Health Minister Ong Ye Kung beginning in General Election 2015 who was then joined by Poh Li San beginning in General Election 2020 . The completion of Royal Navy 's Singapore Naval Base (also known as HMS Sembawang) in 1938 and RAF Sembawang (also known as HMS Simbang) in March 1940 marked
2550-430: Was presumed that the only navies that could challenge the Royal Navy were those of European powers, no base equivalent to an Imperial fortress had been constructed outside of the Atlantic and its connected seas. This was despite the growing threats of the Pacific fleets of the Russian Empire and the United States during the 19th Century. After the Great War , the British Government devoted significant resources into building
2601-404: Was replaced by the smaller NZ Defence Support Unit, the South East Asia (NZDSU SEA), with the IAPF still providing security to other nations including the US facilities and personnel. The British Ministry of Defence (MoD) continues to maintain a small logistics base at Sembawang wharf to control most of the foreign military activities there, which includes repair, refuel and resupply for ships of
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