Click here to view The Bergen Evening Record article dated February 17, 1942, on
Elmer A. Stevens’ wife speaking to a reporter from her husband Elmer’s parent’s house on 75 Poplar Avenue, Hackensack. 

The couple was working for Goodrich Rubber Company in Singapore, which was part of Britain since 1826, when on December 8, 1942, was invaded and taken over by Japan.

Mrs. Elmer A. Stevens, who had been in Singapore since March of 1940 with
The Goodrich Rubber Company, tells of the confusion when the bombing began and how they evacuated the island as the Japanese invaded the island. 

Mrs. Stevens was told by the Goodrich Company when she arrived in New York that her husband had left Singapore three weeks after she had left. She had only received a letter from her husband, who could not get on the boat because of lack of room, four days after she had been evacuated and was at his parent’s house in Hackensack awaiting more information and a hopeful reunion with him.

Click here to view the location of Singapore today and map of the conflict
during World War II.

Written by:
Bob Meli
June 3, 2016

Background image of Singapore invasion obtained from:

http://www.aei.org/publication/what-singapore-teaches-us/