Tatsuji Suga - Borneo

Borneo

On Borneo there were Japanese-run internment camps at Batu Lintang, Kuching, Sarawak, Jesselton (later Kota Kinabalu), Sandakan and briefly on Labuan island. Suga was based at Batu Lintang but was often absent on business at the other camps.

Suga is described in Three Came Home, an account by Agnes Newton Keith, a female civilian internee at Batu Lintang:

A little Japanese man, onetime graduate of the University of Washington, patron of the arts, recipient of World War I Allied decorations; a military man with shaven head; a sick man with diabetes who eats no sugar; a soldier who likes children; a little man with a big sword; a religious dilettante, born Shintoist and turning Catholic; a hero and a figure of ridicule; a Japanese patriot, Commander of All Prisoners of War and Internees in Borneo.

Rosemary Beatty, an Australian who was a small child when she was interned at Batu Lintang, recalled Suga's acts of kindness to her and other children:

I suppose the thing that really sticks in my mind really is Colonel Suga coming through the gates in his car and we would sneak into it and hide, and then he would drive off and find we were there. He'd take us up to his residence and serve us coffee fruit and show us magazines... He'd even give us lollies to bring back to camp.

Brutality by the guards at Batu Lintang increased when Suga was away; internees wondered whether he left instructions for this to happen or whether the juniors left in charge took advantage of his absence to further abuse the prisoners.

The atomic bombings in Japan at Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, followed by that of Nagasaki on 9 August, precipitated the abrupt end of the war. On 15 August 1945, Japan announced its official unconditional surrender to the Allied Powers. On 24 August, Suga officially announced to the prisoners at Batu Lintang that Japan had surrendered. Suga was a broken man: he believed that his entire family had been killed in the bombing of Hiroshima. In fact, his wife and four of his children survived the bombing.

Suga attended the official surrender of the Japanese forces in the Kuching area by their commander, Major-General Hiyoe Yamamura, on board HMAS Kapunda on 11 September 1945. Later that day Suga officially surrendered to Brigadier Thomas Eastick, commander of Kuching Force — a detachment from the Australian 9th Division — at Batu Lintang camp.

The following day Suga, together with several of his officers were flown to the Australian base on Labuan, to await their trials as war criminals. Suga committed suicide there on 16 September. Other officers were later tried, found guilty and executed. Southwell wrote:

Now, with the end of the war, he awaited a military tribunal. His country had been destroyed; his army defeated; his family lost. And, apart from the despair in his heart, the bushido tradition, the code of the Japanese warrior, had deep roots. The fateful day came on September 16th, one week before his 60th birthday, traditionally a time when a family would gather round in celebration. Colonel Tatsuji Suga believed he had no-one to gather around; and he had no desire to see that day alone.