Case file · Haunting
Changi Beach and the Sook Ching massacre
In February 1942 the Japanese military executed Chinese men on Changi Beach during the Sook Ching purge; the beach has since had a reputation for ghostly cries and headless figures.
1942 CE · 1.39, 103.99 · status: legend
The account
Sook Ching ('purge through cleansing') killed tens of thousands of ethnic Chinese in Singapore in early 1942. A marker at Changi Beach Park commemorates the victims.
The sceptical view
The massacre is documented history; the ghost stories are folklore that grew around a place of real suffering.