In 1942, Adnan, then a lieutenant, led his platoon to put up fierce resistance against the Japanese during the Battle of Pasir Panjang in Singapore, and was ultimately killed in action.

Adnan was born in a Minangkabau family in Sungai Ramal (present-day Bandar Baru Bangi), near Kajang, Selangor, Malaya.

On the last day of the battle, Adnan and his men were left with only a few grenades and had to fight the Japanese with their bayonets in brutal hand-to-hand combat.

[5] Although it is widely agreed that Adnan was killed during the Battle of Pasir Panjang on 14 February 1942,[2] the exact details surrounding his death differed between accounts from both sides of the war.

The Imperial Japanese Army's official account indicated that Adnan was executed and then hung upside down from a cherry tree after two days of stubborn resistance and refusal to surrender.

[5][6] British accounts confirmed that his corpse was found hung upside down after the surrender and this has been repeated in a number of authoritative texts on the Malayan Campaign.

Ahmad was killed in action after his ship, HMS Pelandok, was sunk in January 1942 in a Japanese air raid en route to Australia.

Mokhtar recalled that his father "did not talk a lot", was "a strict man and believed in discipline", and was "always serious and fierce ... yet had a good heart.

In 1999, Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong honoured Adnan as a national hero and his story begun appearing in history school books.