SPECTRALWhat happened here
The buildings went up in the 1930s as part of Kitchener Barracks, a British army base. During the Japanese occupation of Singapore, from 1942 to 1945, the Changi area held tens of thousands of Allied prisoners of war, and the barracks were used by the Japanese military.
After the war the buildings became a British military hospital, and from 1975 a Singapore government hospital. When Changi Hospital merged into the new Changi General Hospital in 1997, the old site was left empty.
The legends
Stories say that the Kempeitai, the Japanese military police, used the buildings to torture prisoners. Visitors who slipped in at night told of screams, ghostly patients in the wards and a figure in an old Japanese uniform.
The site's fame grew with local horror films and ghost-hunting videos, and it became a dare for teenagers.
Fact or legend?
The suffering of prisoners and civilians under the occupation is well documented across Singapore, but there is little evidence that this building in particular was a place of torture. The ghost stories owe much to that painful history and to the emptiness of the wards.
Visiting
Old Changi Hospital is state land, closed to the public, and trespassing is an offence. Changi's wartime history is told with care at the Changi Chapel and Museum nearby.
