People speak sometimes about the “bestial” cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel.
―f0 Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Russian novelist
In 1995 at a “tuak” rice wine drinking session at the Kuching home of Tusau Padan, he regaled me with a World War II story so unbelievable, it sounded like a drunken tale.
Reminiscing, Tusau was 11 when he and his father witnessed the macabre and grisly killing of several European children by Japanese marines in his village of Long Nawang in East Kalimantan in 1942.
In the words of Tusau:
“I saw a five-year-old stripped naked and forced to climb a pinang (areca nut) palm tree and pretend to be a monkey.
“After tiring he slipped down and a Japanese soldier waiting under the tall palm plunged his bayonet in his buttocks.
“The last to be killed was a six-month-old infant who was playfully tossed in the air and then thrown into a clump of thorns of “jeruk” a local orange tree.
“As the child began to wail, the Japanese used a bayonet to silence the little one who was thrown in the shallow hole where the mother had similarly been mutilated minutes earlier.”
With the late Tusau, intoxicated and typically smiling through his gold teeth, I never took him seriously. But two years later in 1997, Datuk Ng Tieh Chuan from Pelanduk Publications released the war novel Crimson Sun over Borneo written by Hugh Hickling.
On June 15, during the burial of remains at Tarakan’s “Field of Honor”, commander of the Dutch forces in Kalimantan, Brigadier General W.J.V. Windeyer, said that it was “one of the worst (atrocities) so far disclosed in Borneo”.
Hickling, a former Sarawak attorney general, said in Crimson Sun Over Borneo: “Man’s inhumanity to man is one thing, man’s inhumanity to the defenceless, to women and children, is even worse. To use children as play target practice for soldiers was yet another form of cruelty.”
A year later, I told author Dr Bob Reece about Tusau’s story which was included in his book Masa Jepun.
I aso found excerpts of the Long Nawang story in Tom Harrisson’s World Within (1959), and Hudson Southwell’s Unchartered Waters (2000) and Lim Beng Hai’s Sarawak under the Throes of War (2010).
As the story went, on December 26, 1941 a day after the Japanese bombed Sibu, the divisional Resident Andrew Macpherson and his six-month pregnant wife Clare led the exodus of 24 Europeans comprising senior Brooke civil servants up the 562km long Rajang River.
A day after arriving at Long Nawang on January 22, 1942 they settled in the abandoned Dutch outpost adjacent to Sarawak’s Belaga district.
Two weeks later on February 2, seven others from northern Sarawak joined MacPherson at the small European settlement.
They were Marudi District Officer Donald Hudden, Sarawak Oilfields general manager B.B. Parry, Fr Joseph Feldbrugge and four Dutch airmen whom the Dutch priest had rescued after their aircraft had been shot down in Marudi.
Hudden returned to the Kelabit highlands, but was killed and beheaded by several Iban former convicts who were paid by the Japanese to carry out the crime.
After the invaders had captured the oil towns of Tarakan and Balikpapan a Long Nawang resident named “Guru Lucas” informed the Japanese about the European settlement at Long Nawang.
With the fall of Tarakan, a small detachment of about 50 Dutch officers and soldiers under Lt D.J.A. Westerhuis, and his wife headed upriver.
Arriving at Long Nawang in early April, Lt Westerhuis and wife moved into the residence of the former Dutch controller of Long Nawang.
In early August, four others including a missionary pilot, joined MacPherson.
Flying to Long Pujuman in North Kalimantan, Reverend Fred Jacoson asked pastor Reverend Andrew Sande and his family to join him at Long Nawang as the Japanese were looking for refugee White men.
After setting his small aircraft on fire, the foursome trekked many villages several weeks.
On August 19, the day before the Japanese launched an attack on Long Nawang, two Kenyah farmers reported a large detachment of 72 Japanese soldiers heading their way.
Instead of sending his men to check out the information, Westerhuis berated the duo and locked them up in a cell.
Lt Westerhuis then ordered that the ammunition and other weapons be locked up in the storehouse near his quarters for “safe-keeping”.
Afraid that some of the native were dissatisfied with his decision, he kept the keys to the ammunition store, which was “out of bounds to the soldiers” and natives alike.
Even though the Dutch NCOs, including three European sergeants and four sergeants, protested because none of them were allowed to carry guns with ammunition, it fell on deaf ears.
At 8.20am on August 20, the Japanese machine-gunned the Dutch officers at the parade ground and killed four Brooke officers at the barracks.
A grenade from a knee mortar hit the ammunition store, setting it on fire.
In desperation, Westerhuis waved a white flag outside the window of his residence hoping to surrender according to the Geneva Convention rules.
Instead, the Japanese answered with a burst of machine gun fire killing him instantly.
All was lost!
Next week: Part 2 – My 2,000km flight to Long Nawang
The views expressed here are those of the columnist and do not necessarily represent the views of New Sarawak Tribune.
