Batu Lintang Camp - Location and Organisation

Location and Organisation

Kuching lies some 35 kilometres (22 mi) up the Sarawak River from the sea; the camp was situated some 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) to the southeast of Kuching.

The barracks were built by the Sarawak Government in early 1941, when Britain, in agreement with the Rajah of Sarawak, sent the 2nd Battalion, 15th Punjab Regiment of the British Indian Army (2/15th Punjab Regiment) to defend Sarawak in case of attack by the Japanese. The camp was near completion for occupation by May 1941.

The Japanese first invaded the island of Borneo in mid December 1941, landing on the west coast near Miri; invasion was completed by 23 January 1942 when they landed at Balikpapan on the east coast.

The first Allied prisoners held in the camp were about 340 British and Indian soldiers who were interned there in mid-March 1942. In time, it held both Allied POWs and Allied civilian internees. Local Sarawakians including ethnic Chinese were not interned in the camp, although some were imprisoned in Kuching gaol. Allied civilian prisoners came almost exclusively from different territories on Borneo: from North Borneo (now Sabah), from Brunei, from the Straits Settlements island of Labuan, and from Sarawak, all of which were under British control, and from Dutch Borneo (now Kalimantan). In contrast, the POWs were brought to Batu Lintang from places such as mainland Malaya and Java as well as from Borneo. Many spent time at transit or temporary camps, such as the one at Berhala Island, North Borneo, prior to their transfer to Batu Lintang. The camp officially opened on 15 August 1942, at which time a commemoration stone was erected at the camp.

The camp commandant was Lieutenant-Colonel (Lt.-Col.) Tatsuji Suga. Suga was the commandant of all POW and internees’ camps in Borneo; there were others at Jesselton (later Kota Kinabalu), Sandakan and briefly on Labuan island and also at Tarakan, Banjarmasin and Kandangan; Suga was often absent from Batu Lintang as a result. His second-in-command was Lieutenant (later Captain) Nagata; some sources say Negata or Nekata). Most of the camp guards were Koreans, with a few Formosans (Taiwanese). There was a range of administrative buildings, quartermaster’s stores, guard houses, guards’ quarters and a camp hospital. Throughout its operation, all the camps at Batu Lintang, including the internee ones, were conducted under prisoner-of-war rules.

The entire camp was surrounded by a 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) perimeter barbed wire fence. The internees were segregated into categories and assigned separate compounds, each of which was also surrounded by barbed wire fencing. There were 8-10 compounds, although their make-up varied through the period of operation of the camp. The make-up was determined by the arrival and departure of different groups of prisoners as Batu Lintang camp was also used as a transit camp: at one point some of the Australian and British soldiers who were later to die on the Sandakan Death Marches were held at the camp. Contact between the inhabitants of the different compounds was forbidden and transgressors were severely punished.

The main groups of POWs were British officers, Australian officers and non-commissioned officers (NCOs), Royal Netherlands East Indies Army (KNIL) officers, British Other Ranks, British Indian Army (2nd/15th Punjab Regiment) personnel, Netherlands East Indies (Indonesian) KNIL soldiers. The British and Australian personnel had mostly been sent from Malaya and Singapore, after the Allied surrender there, whereas the KNIL soldiers and the Punjab Regiment had defended Borneo. The civilian internees were mostly Dutch Roman Catholic priests, British civilians (including children), and British and Dutch Catholic nuns.

Each compound had its own "camp master" (or "camp mistress", in the case of the women's compound). The camp master was responsible for liaising between the internees and the Japanese authorities. Each compound contained a number of long barrack buildings, usually 25–30 m (82–98 ft), each of which housed 30-100 people. A barrack master was appointed for each building. The camp and barrack masters were appointed by Colonel Suga.

In addition, the Dutch other ranks and about 50 British soldiers were stationed in a separate compound at the Kampong Batu Tujoh airfield (also known as Bukit Stabah), near Kuching.

The camp included areas that had once been a rubber tree plantation, and some of the trees remained inside the compounds, providing a limited amount of shade.