Major-General Lim Bo Seng was one Singapore's heroes and a martyr of World War II. The Lim Bo Seng memorial was built as a tribute to him. After the Japanese invasion of China in 1937 Lim Bo Seng raised funds to support the Chinese war effort. Because of his anti-Japanese activities the British government considered banishing him from Singapore. He hired workers to defend Singapore and assisted in blowing up the Causeway when the British forces retreated from Malaya to Singapore. Even when it was clear that Singapore would fall the Japanese in 1942, he joined the underground resistance movement in Malaya. The Japanese Military Police (the Kempetai) captured him in March 1944. He died in June 1944 after three months of Japanese torture, where he resolutely refused to betray his comrades.