The Japanese Occupation of Sabah
The earliest colonial intrusion into Sabah was in 1665 when Captain Cowley explored the region. In 1763, British Admiral Sir William Dampier seized Manila from the Spanish and released the Sultan of Sulu in exchange for ceding his territory in Sabah to the East India Company. (EIC) The region was further surveyed for the EIC 1773. The Company also established settlements in 1773. However, due to persistent harassment from Sulu and Illanu “pirates”, the EIC abandoned North Borneo in 1775. Consequently, Sabah was essentially untouched until the formation of the British North Borneo Company (BNBC) in 1881.
The BNBC ruled “North Borneo” as a private fiefdom under a British Protectorate, being characterized by feckless mismanagement. Intermittent appeals to the British colonial administrations in India and Singapore for various forms of assistance (including sepoys from India), until it was overthrown by the Japanese in 1942.
The Japanese blitzkrieg through Southeast Asia reached Kalimantan, Sarawak, and Brunei by December 17, 1941. On December 27, Vichy Radio announced that Berlin had declared that fresh Japanese landings had been made and they conquered Labuan in Sabah on January 1, 1942, which they used as a launching pad to seize mainland Sabah.
Actually, an earlier attempt to land in Sabah on December 8, 1941, had been repelled by British troops mainly Punjabis of the Indian Army. Based on reports from Tokio Radio stated that the successful landing in North Borneo was made at dawn on December 16, but this was not confirmed by the British.
On January 6, the Japanese were able to secure their position in Kota Kinabalu (Jesselton), and on January 19, Sandakan (the capital city) was captured. General Tojo, the Japanese Prime Minister, said that the British began destroying the oil wells three months before the war and had taken away the equipment of 250 wells before the Japanese could get Sabah.
The Japanese occupied Sabah for about three years, and on September 9th, 1945, the Allied forces (mainly Australian and British troops) accepted the formal surrender of the Japanese forces in Sabah.
It should be noted that there were Japanese settlements and interests established in Sabah before the occupation, and the local Japanese residents had developed a stable economy under BNBC rule, with particular interests in plantations and trade, such as the fishing industry.
During the Japanese occupation, the Japanese displayed skill in achieving levels of colonial governance and administration similar to those of Western colonial powers, despite the limited time they ruled Sabah and the intense pressures of WWII. As with all forms of colonialism, imperialism, intervention, invasion, and occupation, there were some positive and negative effects, with the latter generally being more pertinent to the majority of indigenous people.
The Royal Navy stopped patrolling North Borneo in 1940, and British strategy hinged on maintaining a foothold in Singapore – viewed as an impregnable fortress commanding the sea lanes – so that the Japanese could be dealt with at leisure, while the bulk of its forces were concentrated on fighting the Axis in North Africa and Europe.
It was decided that no serious attempt would be made to defend Borneo, with the exception of Kuching, whose airfield would be of strategic benefit to the Japanese. Malaya Command adopted a “Denial Scheme”, whereby important strategic resources, particularly oil fields, would be destroyed to prevent the Japanese from benefitting from them.
Robert Smith, the Governor of North Borneo, was told that the BNBC’s police force and volunteers would be used as far as possible for internal security, but they were not to attempt to resist the Japanese.
The systematic military regime of the Japanese occupation went far beyond the token armed contingents of the BNBC. Ordinary people faced widespread cruelty and destruction, but the most severe retribution was meted out against prisoners of war. A warrant officer, W.H. Sticpewich, noted that only six of all British and Australian troops imprisoned by the Japanese in Sandakan and Ranau camps survived the war, with 80 per cent having been brutally murdered.
European “collaborators” were also targeted, such as the (Chinese) Headmaster of St. Michael’s School in Sandakan, who was executed, while the other teachers were imprisoned.
Traditionally, the Indigenous population were viewed as barbaric savages, notorious as head-hunters, an image the BNBC sought to promote to justify its lack of significant investment in local infrastructure and development. Their priority was solely to maximize their own profits, regardless of the impact on local people.
The Japanese essentially reiterated these views and were simply a continuation of the European “civilizing mission”, with the Japanese replacing the Europeans as benign colonial masters. For example, before the war, the Dusun sailed down the rivers to the coast to trade with Malay traders. During the war, the Malay traders were replaced by the Japanese.
Traditionally, the subsistence agriculture of the local people was based on meeting their own needs and small-scale trading activities in tamu (traditional markets). The BNBC activities were based on the timber, rubber, copra, tobacco, and manila hemp industries. Consequently, they were unable to feed the rapacious appetites of the Japanese. The Japanese commandeered whatever food the locals could not hide from them, and the Sabahans, Europeans, and other non-Japanese residents starved.
For example, in the largest city of Sabah, Kota Kinabalu, the pre-war population of 20,000 dwindled to 3,000 by the time of liberation, with 12% recorded as having died directly from starvation.
The Japanese closed all schools viewed as hostile to their interests, including St. Michael’s School in Sandakan, Chung Hwa Chinese School in Kota Kinabalu, and Ming Sing Chinese School in Sandakan. St. Francis’ Covent School in Kota Kinabalu was converted into an internment camp by the Japanese, and the Sisters were imprisoned in the Kuching internment camp.
The Japanese issued instructions to the remaining teachers regarding what they were to teach, which mainly concerned indoctrination on the necessity of the Japanese occupation, and understanding their responsibilities to unite all nationalities under the leadership of Japan.
The subsequent occupation by the Japanese undoubtedly saw a more profound deterioration in the material situation, with starvation and absolute poverty by 1945, due to a mixture of deliberate Japanese policies and the general havoc wrought by WWII. It is likely that the destruction of the oil wells encouraged Japanese neglect of Sabah.
The astonishing success of the Japanese in the Battle of the Java Sea in February 1942 meant that they conquered the Dutch East Indies, thus receiving a windfall of the fourth-largest oil reserves in the world at the time, rendering Sabah obsolete in Japanese imperial strategy (as they could get oil more cheaply and efficiently from the former Dutch East Indies).
Consequently, Sabah was left to languish in privation and starvation and by the end of the war, it was more acutely devastated than other parts of the British Commonwealth.
Sandakan and Labuan Island were totally destroyed, while Kota Kinabalu was heavily damaged.
After the defeat of the Japanese, many types of diseases continued to be endemic, and the population was more susceptible to them following the starvation and deprivations of the occupation, including malaria, dengue fever, dysentery, blackwater fever, ulcers, and skin complaints.
There was one positive aspect to the Japanese occupation and that was Sabah becoming a British Crown Colony. The British encouraged the growth of democracy and built schools and hospitals as well as other infrastructure. Furthermore, when the Sabahans were given the option to gain independence, they preferred the rule of the British Government.
From:
Rosdianah Binti Yacho & Arshad Islam The Effects of Japanese Occupation in Sabah: During and After World War II (1941-1963) in Intellectual Discourse volume 28 no.2 2020
Tom McLaughlin for BorneoHistory.net