Tawau Japanese War Memorial

Tawau Japanese War Memorial

Tugu Peringatan Perang Jepun Tawau
File:Tawau Sabah JapaneseCemetery-01.jpg The memorial site
Coordinates
Location	Tawau
Material	Birket Foster
Dedicated to	Japanese residents in Tawau

Tawau Japanese War Memorial (Malay: Tugu Peringatan Perang Jepun Tawau) is a former Japanese cemetery in Tawau in the Malaysian state of Sabah which now has been transformed into a memorial.

History

Following the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of 1902, many Japanese businessmen began to settle in the surrounding area of Tawau. On 19 January 1916, a Japanese Nippon Industrial Company bought a 240 acres for rubber plantation and another 607 hectares of adjacent land. The plantation known as "Kuhara Estate of Rubber and Manila Hemp" was established under the name of the owner, Fanosuke Kuhara. Another Japanese plantation known as "Kubota Estate" belonged to Kubota Umeme, specialises in coconut and has operated since 1916. According to statistics from 1921, 191 Japanese resided in Tawau, while before the outbreak of the Second World War there were 1,175.

Due to the growing number of the Japanese, the cemetery was built before the Second World War and used by the Japanese community as a burial site. The vast majority of the people buried here died before the Second World War.

Location

File:Tawau Sabah JapaneseCemetery-03.jpg

The grave stone with five Japanese names

Japanese characters in the back of one of the monument, dated 25 May 1988

This site is located on the road of Tanjung Batu Street, in the west of Tawau golf course. The site is fenced on three sides. Only a few relics recall its original function as a cemetery. One of the grave listed five Japanese names such as Sadatoshi Ohta, Ryoichi Muromoto, Isao Ohtomo, Koji Matsuo and Takeshi Kusumoto.

On the back of one of the monument built after the Second World War, several rows of Japanese characters can be seen whose translation as follows:

MOURNING THE DECEASED I regret that some of our friends have died so young. It is very sad. I just hope that you enjoy the afterlife And your holy light over radiates to us the living, peaceful and happy forever. The hearts of the people in this world are threatening And they fight for power and profit and they are ungrateful and not truly directed against the principles, victims of the innocent, terror at nothing. So that nothing can be done against injustices suffered. It is a lawless society. Former Tawau Rubber Estate employee Shimuzu Tatsuzo mourn with tears and built this grave stone commemorating the 63 years of the reign of Emperor Shōwa on 25 May.

References

Literature

• Ken Goodlet: Tawau - The Making of a Tropical Community, Opus Publications, 2010 ISBN 978-983-3987-38-2