| 24th January 1942
Japanese attacks Sabah begun on 1st
January 1942 in Labuan (Victoria) followed by Membakut and Beaufort.
A week later Kota Kinabalu (Jesselton) was captured followed by
Sandakan (Elopura).
Tawau was occupied on 24th January
1942. The Japanese navy and army reached Tawau.
For 3 ½ years, Tawau residents, the British, Chinese and the local, were kept
under the strict discipline of their Japanese conqueror.
Some were recruited as workers and laborer by the Japanese to do farming,
construction and repair works.
According verbal stories told by the old Hakka farmers, during these 3 1/2
years, in order to avoid recruited by the Japanese, they hide and live in the
jungle and survive on food planted by themselves such as sweet potato and
tapioca.
On 24 January 1942 after Tawau surrendered to the Japanese, the
occupation leading to a decline in the
economy, considerable suffering by the populace, destruction of the
town by Allied bombing in
April and May 1945 and Japanese surrender in Borneo in September
1945.
The British Military
Administration that began in December 1945 was followed by the
establishment of the Colony of
British North Borneo in July 1946, the Reconstruction Development
Plan in 1948 and the take-
over of the pre-war Kuhara Japanese Estate by the British Colonial
Development Corporation,
renamed the Borneo Abaca Limited (BAL) estate.
On 10th June 1945, army from North Australian Division liberated Tawau. The
town had suffered much bombing and fire and had to be completely rebuilt.
Without boats to go out to sea, no farms, no supplies; the townspeople made do
with supplies from the jungle.
Between 1951 and the
establishment of Malaysia,
the population of the town grew from a little over 4,000 to somewhat
over 6,000, the district
population to around 40,000, an automatic telephone exchange was
established, there were major
wharf improvements, there was considerable growth in the size and
diversity of the BAL estate,
and education delivery, including that provided by St Patrick's, was
established on a firm footing.
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