Quick Facts
Biography
Agnes Fong Sock Har (born 1946) was one of the first female officers in the Singapore Armed Forces and the first female Commanding Officer when she took command of the first Air Supply Base in 1979.
Military career
In 1967, Agnes Fong Sock Har was working as a Clerk at the Ministry of Defense when the National Service called up its first batch of recruits. Agnes signed up, along with two other women. Together with Nancy Tan Soo Keow and Patricia Koh Kim Toh (both of whom served with the Singapore Police Force), the three women went through the 2nd People's Defense Force School Army Officer Cadets (Girls) Course and became officers later that year. In an interview with Pioneer, the Singapore Armed Forces publication, she said: "The early years were particularly frustrating. I was working in various logistics departments then. A few other women officers joined me later but we felt we were not contributing to the nation as much as we could. Nobody trusted women much those days and we were assigned unimportant tasks that were quite irrelevant to an officer's grooming."
Captain Agnes Fong Sock Har made history in 1979 when she became Commanding Officer of the 1st Air Supply Base. It was the first time a woman was promoted to the post of commanding officer and when asked how she felt, she replied, "I'll try hard to respond to the challenge. After all, I've more than my own future prospects to lose. This the first time they're putting a woman to such a major test." After appointment she was given more opportunities to develop her analytical and leadership skills. By the time she retired, Agnes had been promoted to Major.
Captain Agnes Fong was inducted into the Singapore Women's Hall of Fame in 2014. The Singapore Women's Hall of Fame was launched in 2005 to honor some of Singapore's pioneering women activists, educators, and philanthropists.