Actor Aloysius Pang given final military send-off, cremated Sunday evening
Aloysius Pang's coffin being carried into the hearse before it left for a military funeral at the Mandai Crematorium on Jan 27, 2019.
SINGAPORE — As hearts went out to the late actor Aloysius Pang, the skies opened. Four days after his death in a military accident shook the nation, the young man’s family, close friends and colleagues gathered at the Mandai Crematorium to give him a final military send-off on Sunday (Jan 27).
Moments earlier, rain poured down on the crematorium, but the skies cleared as Pang’s body arrived at around 4.45pm from his funeral wake at MacPherson Lane.
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WhatsApp Telegram EmailFlanking the driveway were about 300 soldiers from the Army's Artillery formation. Standing at attention, they saluted the passing hearse as tunes from the military band resounded through the crematorium.
Following closely on foot was Pang’s older brother, Kenny.
Eight pall-bearers bore his coffin on their shoulders as they moved into the funeral service hall.
Several of Pang’s colleagues attended the service, including his actress girlfriend Jayley Woo and celebrities Elvin Ng, Desmond Tan, Pierre Png and Pan Lingling.
The media were not allowed into the private service at the family’s request. Colonel Michael Ma, the chief artillery officer at the Singapore Armed Forces, handed the state flag to Pang’s family.
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At about 5.10pm, six servicemen standing guard outside the service hall fired three shots into the air as a mark of respect. After a minute of silence was observed, a military musician sounded the bugle call in a final farewell to the young actor.
He was cremated at about 5.15pm.
Full-time national serviceman Liew Soon Hao, 19, was seen saluting the late actor from across the service hall.
Approached after the service, he said: “As a fellow Army man, I should do it.”
Mr Liew was at the crematorium in May last year as well, to send off the late Corporal First Class Dave Lee, a guardsman who died after he showed signs of heat injury in the wake of a fast march in Bedok Camp. They were from the same company.
Mr Liew visited Pang’s wake on Saturday and Sunday, and decided to go the whole hog to send him off. “A lot of people are... mourning Aloysius, so I (thought I would) come here,” he said.
Earlier in the afternoon, preparations for the military funeral were already under way at the crematorium when TODAY arrived at 2.50pm, more than two hours before Pang was due to be cremated.
Soldiers were seen rehearsing the procession as onlookers watched.
Madam Wendy Lim, 53, mother of fellow actor Shane Pow — a close friend of Pang’s — was waiting outside the service hall at 3pm.
Holding back tears, she told TODAY that she was “very heartbroken” at the news, as Pang had been a skilful actor from a young age.
Pang had appeared in many shows with her son, added Mdm Lim, a housewife. “He’s so young, yet he’s already gone,” she said.
Corporal First Class (National Service) Pang, 28, died on Wednesday night in Waikato Hospital, New Zealand, after battling serious injuries to his chest and abdomen.
The armament technician — who was taking part in an artillery live-firing exercise — was crushed between a lowered gun barrel and the cabin of the self-propelled howitzer he was called in to repair last Saturday.
The howitzer is an artillery gun mounted on an armoured chassis.
An independent Committee of Inquiry will probe the circumstances leading to his death. ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY DARYL CHOO
