Petagas War Memorial
Petagas War Memorial or Petagas Memorial Garden ( Mal. Taman Peringatan Petagas ) is a memorial set up as a park to commemorate the victims of the Second World War in Sabah. In particular, it is dedicated to the 324 men known by name who were executed at this location by the Japanese occupiers on January 21, 1944 - members of the underground Kinabalu Guerrillas , their leader Albert Kwok and men of various ethnicities from Sabah who, according to the occupiers, were part of the underground movement connected or supported - or who died in the Labuan Military Prison.
The park was built on the site where the massacre took place and where the victims were initially buried. The memorial is located in Kg.Peringatan Petagas in the Putatan district , in the Malaysian state of Sabah .
description
The memorial is located near Kota Kinabalu International Airport in Putatan District , on the railway line to Beaufort . The tree-lined area, surrounded by a white fence, extends over 7,800 square meters. To the left behind the entrance is an information board surrounded by park benches, which gives an overview of the history of the memorial in Malay and English.
From the gate with the inscription of the Petagas Memorial in Malay, Chinese and English, an 80-meter-long path leads to a covered stele, which is clad on all four sides with a 2-meter-high metal plate. Three metal plates provide information about the massacre and its historical background in Malay, Chinese and English. The fourth metal plate is an epitaph and contains the names of the dead. Immediately in front of the memorial there is an approx. 10 × 5 m enclosed green area. The remains of the dead are buried here.
West side
The epitaph - the metal plate on the west side facing the burial ground - bears the heading:
"In perpetual memory of those gallant men of all races who, loyal to the cause of freedom were murdered and burried at this place on 21st January 1944 and also those who met their death in the same cause at Labuan and were later burried here."
The following is a listing of all men buried at this point, separated by Kota Kinabalu and Labuan. Since the majority of the dead were Chinese, Chinese characters dominate the epitaph.
North side
The metal plate on the north side begins with the heading "Epitaph for the Kinabalu Guerilla Movement Martyrs" and a quote from the Gospel of John :
“Greater Love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his country. (JP) ”
Information about the massacre and its historical background follows in English.
East Side
The metal plate on the east side contains information in Chinese.
South side
The south side corresponds in structure and content to the north side, but is written in Malay.
Historical background
During the occupation of Borneo by the Japanese, the Chinese doctor Albert Kwok founded a more than 300-strong resistance group with which he initiated an attack on the occupiers on the eve of October 10, 1943 - the Chinese national holiday - in which more than 60 Japanese were killed , the majority by the machetes of the attackers. This attack is anchored in Sabah's collective historical consciousness as the Double Tenth Revolt . Kwok surrendered on December 19, 1943 and was first imprisoned in Batu Tiga prison and then executed in Petagas on January 21, 1944, along with 175 others, most of whom had nothing to do with the uprising.
The massacre
In the early morning of January 21, 1944, 176 men from Batu Tiga prison were put on a North Borneo Railway freight train . The train moved out of Jesselton and held against 5:30 on the open road near Kampung Petagas . Two large pits had been dug there the day before; the night rain had already partially filled it with water.
Albert Kwok as well as Charles Peter, Tsen Tsau Kong, Kong Tze Phui and Li Tet Phui had to stand in a row and bend forward. Four Japanese officers and the son of a Japanese businessman killed in the Double Tenth Revolt beheaded the five prisoners with the katana . The remaining 171 prisoners had to kneel in front of the pits and were killed by shots from two machine guns, around ten small arms or with bayonets. Eyewitnesses later reported that the screams of the men could be heard all day and the following night in Kg. Petagas.
Even before the massacre in Petagas, 96 prisoners - guerrillas and men suspected of supporting the guerrillas - had been tortured and killed in Batu Tiga. Another 131 men were transferred to the Labuan Military Prison for forced labor immediately after the massacre. Only seven of them survived, the others died of malnutrition and torture or were executed.
History of the memorial
On January 21, 1946, the second anniversary of the massacre, the Chinese War Victims Relief Association held a memorial service at the execution site.
The park area and the marble memorial stone were built in 1948 at the behest of the West Coast Memorial Fund Residential Committee . At the same time it was determined that the site of the massacre and the associated grave sites should be a permanent place of remembrance for all victims of Sabah in World War II. The inauguration of the memorial took place on the fourth anniversary of the massacre, on January 21, 1948. In 1949 the remains of the men interned in Labuan, who were murdered there by the Japanese military police, were reburied in Petagas.
In 1979, the Petagas War Memorial was renovated by the Kota Kinabalu City Council with financial support from the state government and added a parking lot and a public toilet. The wooden monument was replaced by a solid marble stone. During the renovation several stone clay jugs with human remains were discovered in the burial ground. It turned out to be the victims of the military prison exhumed in Labuan and buried in Petagas.
Since the opening of the memorial, a memorial ceremony has been held in the park every year on January 21st with the participation of high-ranking state politicians and the population. A representative of the Japanese government, the Japanese consul in Kota Kinabalu, attended the ceremony for the first time at the celebration in 1998.
The fact that the memorial continued to play an important role in Sabah's historical awareness in the years after 1963 is thanks to the then Prime Minister of Sabah , Tun Fuad Stephens and the head of state of Sabah , Tun Mustapha , whose personal history is closely interwoven with the Kinabalu guerrillas. Jules Stephens, the father of Tun Fuad Stephens, was a member of the underground movement among those executed in Petagas. Tun Mustapha was himself a member of a resistance movement and therefore felt connected to the Kinabalu guerrillas.
literature
- KG Tregonning: A History Of Modern Sabah (North Borneo 1881–1963) , 2nd edition, University of Malaya Press, Kuala Lumpur, 1965, reprint 1967
- Maxwell-Hall: Kinabalu Guerillas , Kuching 1949, Reprint 1963
- Danny Wong Tze Ken: Historical Sabah: The War , Opus Publications Kota Kinabalu, 2010, ISBN 978-983-3987-37-5
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Tregonning, page 219
- ↑ a b c d e Danny Wong Tze Ken; Pp. 152-174
- ^ Danny Wong Tze Ken, p. 150
- ↑ a b Information on the history of the memorial ( "History of Commemoration" ) on the memorial stone in the park; On-site exploration on August 1, 2012
- ^ A b Petagas War Memorial Garden, bloodiest history of Sabah ; Accessed August 29, 2012
- ↑ Extract from the daily press of the time .
Remarks
- ↑ The Chinese War Victims Relief Association , founded on October 20, 1945, was later renamed the West Coast Memorial Fund Residential Committee .
Coordinates: 5 ° 55 '16 " N , 116 ° 3' 16.5" E