Black and White houses of Singapore were build in colonial times by the British government. Rumour has it they were used in World War II to house Prisoners of War. During the war, this area was known as the Sime Road Camp.
Before the Japanese invasion, the British Army and Royal Air Force started to build new headquarters on Sime Road but the Japanese arrived before they finished. General Percival and his staff had to abandon their new headquarters, and retreat to Fort Canning.
The Japanese took up their headquarters on Sime Road and both British and Australian Prisoners of War were moved to Sime Road. After the war new, stone houses were built on the platforms, again for the military. This is the area now referred to as Adam Drive.
At the end of the war, the Sime Road camp housed over four thousand people, including a thousand women and a few hundred children. It was a town in itself. There was a hospital, a farm area, church, carpentry, school, and a pub called the Flying Dutchman.
