FAMILY HISTORIES · KARMUWALA
Massa Singh Sandhu
1913–1980
During the Japanese occupation, an internee named Gwen Kirwan spent eight days confined to the guardhouse at Sime Road Camp. One of the guards brought her fruit, though, had he been caught, it could have cost him his life. The guard was Massa Singh Sandhu, from Karmuwala in Punjab. For much of his working life he kept watch over other people, first prisoners at Changi, then internees at Sime Road. After the war he drove a taxi by day and kept watch again by night.
Massa Singh, 1948. Cleaned and detail-enhanced version of the tinted family portrait. View the original in the gallery.
Listen to Massa’s 1979 recordings ↓
Massa was born in Karmuwala, Punjab, in 1913, the son of Bhan Singh Sandhu and Esher Kaur, and reached Singapore sometime in the 1930s. His family remembers him starting as a guard at Changi Prison around 1937, the year it opened. 1, 2, 4, 18
He married Kartar Kaur Mohar, probably in 1938. Born in 1918, she came from Tur, near Khadur Sahib in Punjab, and joined him in Singapore around 1940. 11, 21
From Changi to Sime Road
In November 1941, Massa wrote to the superintendent at Changi with a family request. His brother-in-law, Udham Singh, had just arrived from India and had nowhere suitable to stay. Could Udham share Massa’s quarters for two months? 14, 20
He asked for two months. Three months later, on 15 February 1942, Singapore fell to the Japanese. 24
Massa went on working as a guard under Japanese rule. In May 1944 the Japanese moved the civilian internees out of Changi Prison to a camp at Sime Road, and that is where the internees’ own accounts place him, helping some of them to get food. Gwen Kirwan was one. A birth record fits the picture: when Kartar had a child that year, the register listed Massa as a police constable and gave the family’s address as the internment camp on Adam Road. 5, 15, 27
Taxi by day, watchman by night
Peace left Massa without work, and the people he had guarded became his references. Gwen Kirwan wrote her testimonial on 25 August 1945, and M. S. Almenda followed on 22 October. Their letters asked others to help Massa and his family. 5
Every document seems to give Massa a new job. His 1941 letter makes him Prison Guard 195, and a 1944 birth record a police constable. In 1947 he co-owned two cargo boats licensed in Johore. His 1948 identity certificate calls him a “Taxi Owner”, and his British passport a “Businessman”. 14, 15, 16, 17, 18
To support nine children, Massa drove a taxi by day and worked nights as a watchman. He also lent money on the side: his family remembers it, and a Registry of Moneylenders file on his firm, Massa Singh & Company, runs from May 1967 to January 1974. 3, 25, 26
The family’s addresses trace their path across the city: from a warehouse at 410 Havelock Road, where Massa probably lived in as the jaga, or watchman, to 175 Cecil Street by February 1952, then 50-C Palmer Road, and on to Outram Park by April 1972. In the late 1970s their flat there was on the thirteenth floor of Block 28. 3, 16, 19, 22, 25
Massa died on 31 August 1980, of a heart attack, his family believes, while visiting Delhi. Kartar outlived him by thirty years, dying at St Andrew’s Community Hospital in Singapore on 25 November 2010. 1, 7, 11, 23
Massa’s voice outlasted them both. Two sides of a family tape labelled 1979, the year before he died, hold just over an hour of recordings. You can hear him below.
Massa in his own voice
Listen to Massa in two recordings preserved by his family and labelled 1979.
Side A · 32 min 34 sec
Side B · 30 min 25 sec
Family audio archive; date follows the family’s recording labels.
Another Karmuwala Sandhu, Hardit Singh, made his life in Singapore in the same decades, as a financier and Sikh community leader: read his story.
Family tree and photographs
Explore Massa and Kartar’s family tree, photographs and surviving documents below.
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Photographs and documents
Massa Singh, 1948
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Massa Singh, about 1975
Massa Singh, about 1975 (colour)
Jamabandi 1962 – 497
Testimonials from Gwen Kirwan and M. S. Almenda (typed sheet)
Gwen Kirwan’s handwritten testimonial, 25 August 1945
Letter to the Superintendent, H.M. Prison Changi, November 1941
Cargo-boat licence, boat JBC 1283, 1947
Cargo-boat licence, boat JBC 1282, 1947
Massa Singh’s British passport (1 of 2)
Massa Singh’s British passport (2 of 2)
Gharka land register, 1958–59 — owner account 311
Suoran, Massa’s eldest son, driving a family taxi with Massa’s grandchildren
Family portrait, 1970s
Sources and notes
01 Family information: details awaiting independent confirmation
Family information identifies Massa’s parents as Bhan Singh Sandhu and Esher Kaur, a younger brother Meher Singh born around 1915, and a sister whose name is not known.
The family’s current estimate places his arrival in Singapore most likely in the 1930s. Earlier family information tentatively placed it in the late 1920s or around 1930. These estimates have not been reconciled through an arrival record or named witness; the date remains uncertain.
The Delhi visit and reported heart attack are family information. Family information also connects one of Massa and Kartar’s sons with the youngest daughter of Kartar Singh Dosanjh of Tangra; the couple’s names have not been established. Esher is also recorded as Escher. The photographs are dated by the family to 1948 and about 1975. The passport separately supplies Massa’s birth year and birthplace; see notes 18 and 23 for his father’s name and death date.
02 Massa Singh’s British passport: description page
Records Karmuwala as his birthplace and 1913 as his birth year. The issue date is not established.
03 Violet Oon, “A turbanned head in the lion”, New Nation, 12 April 1972, page 2
This profile of Massa’s son describes taxi work by day, watchman work at night and the family’s move from Cecil Street to Outram Park by April 1972. His son’s four brothers and four sisters are consistent with nine children, without establishing that all nine were then living. The article gives neither exact street numbers nor a move date.
04 Changi service: family recollection and institutional context
Family recollections place the start of Massa’s guard work at Changi around 1937, not an independently verified appointment date. The National Museum’s collection entry dates the prison’s official opening to 1937, and NLB records prisoner transfers in January 1937. These institutional dates do not establish Massa’s service. His November 1941 letter is the earliest contemporary employment evidence identified. The Malaya Tribune report names Sarwan Singh, P.G.186; comparison with Massa’s P.G.195 cannot establish recruitment order without a guard-number register.
Open source · National Museum: opening year · NLB: January 1937 transfers
05 Testimonials attributed to Gwen Kirwan and M. S. Almenda, 1945
Kirwan’s account is dated 25 August 1945 and Almenda’s 22 October 1945. Both describe Massa as a guard at Sime Road who helped internees. Neither mentions Changi or gives P.G.195. The surviving typed sheet’s production date and “Signed” lines are unauthenticated; the handwritten Kirwan version is the same witness’s account, not a third witness. Her statement that Massa was then without work does not establish permanent discharge. Together with the November 1941 Changi letter, the accounts support guard work before and during the occupation, but not uninterrupted employment, transfer dates or a complete posting sequence.
06 Kartar Singh Dosanjh family history
The Dosanjh family’s account describes his wartime service and captivity in Hong Kong and Singapore. It is a family-history source, not independent verification of those events.
07 The Straits Times, 31 August 1987, page 30
A seventh-anniversary remembrance of Massa’s death on 31 August 1980. The publication year is not his death year.
08 YFull L-Y91197 tree
The family research reports haplogroup L-Y91197. This link describes the haplogroup; it does not itself establish an individual’s test result or prove a particular family relationship.
11 Family information: Kartar Kaur Mohar
Kartar’s birth year, arrival around 1940, natal family and death details are family information. Her father was Jawala Singh Mohar, her mother Inder Kaur Mohar, and her paternal grandfather Kahan Singh Mohar. Her siblings are recorded as Udam, Kernail, Puran and an unnamed sister. The Tur land records in notes 12–13 document Udham’s male line through Jawala to Kahan, but do not independently establish Kartar’s place in that family. No separate vital or travel record has been identified for the dates used here.
12 Udham Singh jamabandi, Tur, 2014–15, page 1, column 3
Names Udham Singh as son of Jawala Singh and grandson of Kahan Singh. The header identifies Tur, hadbast 320, Khadur Sahib, Tarn Taran. The entry does not name Kartar or Inder.
13 Punjab Jamabandi, Tur, hadbast 320, 2019–20, khewat 12, report LR26-28242649
Page 1’s owner column records the Udham–Jawala–Kahan line and the Karnail–Jawala branch. Generated in 2026, the report includes later annotations: its cycle label is neither an event date nor proof that a named person was still alive. It is marked “Not For Legal Purpose”. The link opens the official search page, not the individual report.
14 Letter to the Superintendent, H.M. Prison Changi, November 1941
The November 1941 letter identifies Massa as P.G.195 at H.M. Prison Changi and requests a two-month stay for a visitor recently arrived from India. The family manuscript identifies the visitor as his brother-in-law, Udham Singh; that name is not independently established by the damaged letter. The header day is damaged, and the possible 13 November forwarding annotation is not a secure composition date. The letter gives no appointment or retirement date.
15 Family-held certified birth-register extract: 1944 event, certified 20 September 1984
Names the parents as “Masa Singh”, Police Constable, and “Kartar Kour”, with the Adam Road internment-camp address. The 1984 certification is not a new residence event. The extract identifies no police unit or continuous posting history. The parents’ address does not establish that the child was born there, that the family were internees or that Adam Road and Sime Road were identical sites.
16 State of Johore cargo-boat licences, valid 1 October–31 December 1947
The paired reproduction in the family book names Massa Singh of 410 Havelock Road and Bachan Singh of 323 Race Course Road in the owner-name and residence entries. Involvement in cargo-boat transport is inferred from this shared licensed ownership; the licences do not establish that Massa personally operated or crewed a vessel, completed voyages or ran a regular shipping business. They identify no route, cargo or earnings attributable to him. The licences are numbered 431/47 and 432/47; JBC 1283 and JBC 1282 are separate boat identifiers. Their validity establishes neither continuous residence nor home ownership or household composition. The warehouse description and possible live-in watchman role come from the family information and inference in note 25, not the licences.
17 Certificate of Identity, issued 3 June 1948
Records Massa as aged 35 and a “Taxi Owner”. It is a Certificate of Identity, not a passport, and gives no father’s name, guard number or service-ending date. It establishes taxi ownership by 1948, not when ownership began or when he combined daytime driving with night-watchman work.
18 British passport: title and description pages
Records “Businessman”, Singapore residence and “British Subject: Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies”. The title page names “MR. MASSA SINGH S/o PAN SINGH”. The family has confirmed that Pan Singh and Bhan Singh are the same person. These pages establish no issue date, business name or street address, and do not show whether he later acquired Singapore citizenship.
19 Family-held certified birth-register extract: February 1952 event, certified 7 September 1960
Records the parents’ home at 175 Cecil Street, Massa Singh as a taxi driver and the mother as “Karta Kaur”. The address relates to the 1952 birth event, not the 1960 certification or a move date. The evidence is a certified extract rather than the original register. The broader Havelock and Cecil Street residence periods remain family recollection.
20 Unattributed manuscript tradition about Massa’s working life
The family manuscript includes an unattributed first-person passage about Massa’s working life. Its author and underlying testimony have not been established, so it is not authenticated daughter testimony or independent corroboration. Udham was Massa’s brother-in-law, not his alias. “Marsa Singh” is a search spelling, not an established alias. A precise 1930–1944 service span, personal recruitment in 1936 and a May 1942 camp transfer remain unverified.
21 Approximate marriage year
The marriage is believed to date to 1938; its exact date and location remain unconfirmed.
22 Family-held marriage certificate, 20 September 1978
Names the second witness as “MASSA SINGH S/O PAN SINGH” and gives the abbreviated address “Block 28, 497-M”, Outram Park. The fuller family address is Block 28, #13-497M, Outram Park, with “13” denoting the floor. The floor detail comes from family clarification, not the certificate’s abbreviated address. This is a son’s marriage, not Massa’s, and the certificate establishes neither a residence span nor the ceremony’s venue.
23 Death-date discrepancy
Some family manuscript passages give 13 August 1980, but the seventh-anniversary memorial states 31 August 1980, the date used in this biography. No separate obituary substantiating 13 August has been identified.
24 National Archives of Singapore: fall of Singapore, 15 February 1942
The National Archives of Singapore’s Former Ford Factory overview dates the British surrender to the Japanese to 15 February 1942, roughly three months after Massa’s November 1941 letter. This historical context does not establish his personal posting sequence.
25 Family information: Havelock Road, Palmer Road and moneylending, October–November 2026
Family information supplied in October 2026 identifies 410 Havelock Road as a later family home and a warehouse. A live-in jaga (watchman) role is inferred from the nature of the premises, not established by an employment record. The family recalls that Massa also lent money on the side and confirms 50-C Palmer Road as a family address. The Registry of Moneylenders file cited in note 26 provides documentary support for his involvement in moneylending.
26 Registry of Moneylenders: Massa Singh & Company, May 1967–January 1974
Registry of Moneylenders file for Massa Singh & Company, covering May 1967 to January 1974, as listed in the National Archives of Singapore catalogue. The entry gives the firm’s address as Block 28, 497-M Outram Park, the same abbreviated address as the 1978 marriage certificate in note 22. It does not by itself establish when the business began or ended, its scale, or Massa’s personal role in it.
27 Context: civilian internees moved to Sime Road, May 1944
NLB’s Infopedia entry on the Changi Prison Complex records that in May 1944 the Japanese moved the civilian internees out of Changi Prison to Sime Road Camp, and moved prisoners of war into the prison. The Imperial War Museums give the same month for the move. This context does not establish when or how Massa came to serve at Sime Road, or whether the Adam Road address in note 15 refers to the same camp.
NLB Infopedia: Changi Prison Complex · IWM: civilian internment camps in East Asia