Moving images of the Syonan Jinja at MacRitchie Reservoir

A rare clip with scenes taken at a ceremony at the Syonan Jinja (from 1:23 to 3:30 in the clip), a shrine built during the Japanese Occupation with POW labour. The shrine was to have been a most beautiful of shrines with pebbled streams, stone lanterns, a stone stepped paths and torii gates and set in a 1,000-acre park with public recreational and sporting facilities. Pebbles, intended for the water filter beds at Bukit Timah, were diverted for its use. A new city was also to have been built around it. The grand plans were cut short with Japan’s defeat in the war and the shrine was destroyed before the British returned for fear of its desecration. More on the shrine can be found at this post: Lost places – the shrine across the Divine Bridge.

The opening of the Syonan Jinja in 1943 (source: http://www.himoji.jp/himoji/database/db04/images_db_ori/2200.jpg).