These phantoms helped make our streets safe
Little is known about it even now, more than four decades after it was disanded. But in the late 1950s it played a major role in making Singapore safe from secret societies. Its untold story is as full of cloak as dagger, of officers looking and acting like the men they were after, and getting mixed up in the rough stuff. Now, for the first time, The New Paper speaks to retired members of a police unit that was so secretive it was known only as... the Phantom Squad.
By Arul John [email protected] OUTNUMBERED, surrounded, attacked. The undercover police officer, who was wounded and bleeding, fell to the ground.
03 January 2004
By Arul John
OUTNUMBERED, surrounded, attacked. The undercover police officer, who was wounded and bleeding, fell to the ground.
He looked up, and saw his attacker aiming a spear at him. As it came down, the officer managed to deflect it from his vital organs.
His hand was a bloody mess, but he still managed to fire his revolver. And his last bullet claimed the life of his assailant.
Sounds like fiction - but Mr Patrick Tan will tell you that it's all fact.
He should know. He was the officer involved.
Mr Tan, 65, a retired police inspector, was a member of the Phantom Squad, a shadowy unit that targeted secret societies.
He described how, as a constable, he and four colleagues went to flush out a gang in the Beach Road area, and found instead that about 40 gangsters were closing in on them.
The cops split into two groups and retreated. One officer radioed for help.
Suddenly, Mr Tan was surrounded and hit on the head with a bicycle chain.
Bleeding profusely from his forehead, he ran for cover but fell to the ground. His attacker caught up and tried to spear him.
Mr Tan managed to grab the spear and it pierced only his left thigh.
His left hand was also wounded, with skin and flesh hanging loose from his middle finger. But he got out his revolver and fired, hitting the gangster in the chest.
Another officer, who saw what was happening as he drove past, got out of his car and chased the attackers.
Mr Tan made it to the car on his own, and then fainted.
He said: 'If not for that officer, I would have died. I was told the bullet lodged near my attacker's heart and he died in hospital three days later.'
BADLY INJURED
Mr Tan himself was in hospital. His head wound needed 14 stitches, while his finger needed 13. After he was discharged, he was given a month's medical leave.
He returned to the squad and the struggle with the gangsters went on. In the 1950s and 1960s, secret societies (SS) played havoc here.
Private investigator Lionel de Souza, a retired police officer, said it was difficult to curb their influence as many people saw the gangsters as Robin Hood figures.
He said: 'They informed SS members when police looked for them and let them hide in their kampungs and squatter areas.'
The Phantom Squad was formed in late 1958 or early 1959 with one officer and 12 men from the Police Reserve Unit (PRU) to get intelligence about planned gang attacks.
Its members often worked at night and 'moved like ghosts or phantoms'.
Mr de Souza said officers in the squad had to look and act like gangsters in order to catch gangsters.
CONSTANT DANGER
And the work involved constant danger.
Mr Tan said: 'In the 1950s and 1960s, the funeral procession of an SS member passing through a rival's territory could spark a fight.
'As the police did not know where many SS hideouts and hangouts were, the squad was formed to find these places, flush the SS out and eliminate them.'
Phantom Squad men were selected from young police officers who showed courage and were active in sports. They were sent to the PRU for intensive training in camouflage, surveillance, cultivating informers and criminal investigation.
Mr Tan and his squad also learnt the ins and outs of SS life from experts and the Criminal Investigation Department.
COLOUR CODES
He explained: 'As the 08 gang wore colourful clothes and the 24 gang wore black and white, we would wear colourful clothes when in a 24 hangout, to flush them out.'
Mr de Souza said the squad reported directly to the assistant commissioner of police and its members knew their assignments only on the day itself. Parangs and guns were often used against them, and one raid even turned up Sten guns.
The Phantom Squad also had to watch out for acid attacks and ambushes.
Once, after the gangbusters drove past a wooded area in Bedok, they were informed that a group of men with shotguns had just set up an ambush there. The cops had missed death by a few minutes.
Security firm chief Ronnie Lew, who is in his 60s, also used to be a member of the squad. He recalled how his group was once challenged by nearly 100 SS members at a Henderson Road glass factory but were left unharmed as the gangsters thought them too skinny to fight.
Mr de Souza said the squad was disbanded in 1960 after laws were passed allowing SS members to be detained for long periods without trial, choking their activities.
Added Mr Tan: 'I want to tell my story now, because many young Singaporeans do not know how bad things were before and I am glad the squad played a part in making the country safe for them.'
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Secret societies outlawed
MR Tan retired from the police force in 1983 and is now chief executive of a firm that is involved in private investigation, surveillance and other security matters.
In June 1959, strict laws were passed that made it an offence to harbour SS members.
In December that year, a two-week amnesty period was announced to allow people who claimed to have been forced to join secret societies to give themselves up.
One year after the laws were passed, the number of secret societies dropped from 334 to 168.
The number of SS incidents also dropped by 40 per cent in 1960 compared with 1959.