Elizabeth Choy

Elizabeth Choy Su-Mei nee Elizabeth Yong a.k.a. Yong Su Mei http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/news/2006/10/10/db1002.xml

Elizabeth Choy died on September 14,she was 95 years old then.She had risked her life supplying medicine,messages and money to British Civilians interned in Singapore's Changi Jail during the outbreak of the second Word War.

She and her husband Choy Khun Heng ,who were running a canteen,incurred further risks by sending inradio parts for hidden receivers on a daily ambulace run until the Japanese instituted a crackdown after a British-Australian raid sank seven Japanese ships outside the habour in September 1943.

The kempentai -Japanese military police,suspected that the raiders had acted on information was sent out from Changi by a transmitter ,hence they seized 57 internees on October 10, known as ''The massacre of the Double Tenth''. Fifteen subsequently died from torture and maltreatment ,but no transmitter was ever found.

Elizabeth Choy's husband was arrested first and she was lured to the YMCA in the hope of seeing her husband.She found herself placed with 20 men cramped,bug-infested cage that used to be a single commode ,which used to be for drinking.

She was slapped,kicked,spat at and subjected to electric shock treatments leaving her reluctant to touch any light switch ever again as she refused to confess.

Unable to suppresss her screams or stop the tears rolling down her face, she still insisted that she was merely helping those in need and always walked back to her cell . Eventually her courage and reputation for altruism impressed the though the kempetai who released her after 193 days though her husband,who was sentenced to 12years of jail, did not come out until the japanese surrendered.