THE STORY OF JEMADAR OJAGAR SINGH - BEYOND THE CALL OF DUTY

SEJARAH NORTH BORNEO SABAH

SPECIAL EDITION - SECOND WORLD WAR 

THE SANDAKAN UNDERGROUND MOVEMENT

THE STORY OF JEMADAR OJAGAR SINGH - BEYOND THE CALL OF DUTY

Jemadar Ojagar Singh, a very tall Sikh was a proud man and fiercely loyal to the British. So was his father Pal Singh, who had come out to British North Borneo with his brother Chanda from their home village of Mannan, in India. Both men had joined the constabulary in Jesselton, where Pal had married Sant Kaur the daughter of another policeman, Sadhu Singh, whose son, Dial, was also in the Police force. Pal's second son, Ojagar, born in Mannan where he spent his childhood, arrived in Borneo at the age of ten. By the time he was eleven he, too, had joined the Constabulary, as a bugler.

As a Jemadar (Senior Warrant Officer), he was the father of eight children, five daughter and three sons, the youngest of whom was Anup. Raised in a family with high developed sense of duty, Ojagar would have wished for nothing more than able to fight for the King and to defend the country and the empire that he loved.

Jemadar Ojagar Singh's house was on top of a hill near the Police Headquarters at Bukit Merah. From there he could see what was happening out at the sea and on the Island of Berhala.

Before the war, Sandakan was the administrative centre of North Borneo, and most key European personnel were based there. After the Japanese occupied North Borneo, the island was turned into a detention camp almost all European was interned, initially on Berhala Island before moving to Batu Lintang Camp at Kuching , Sarawak.

European control over the British North Borneo Armed Police Constabulary also came to the end. Major A Rice Oxley, the pre-war commandant, was interned by the Japanese on Berhala Island along with civilians internees.

Berhala Island, located three miles off the shore of Sandakan, could be approached from the towns via boats. The island was previously a quarantine station for leprosy settlement under the British North Borneo Chartered Company rule. The Chartered Company used it to intern Japanese national.

With the absence of European officers, the local policemen at Sandakan were led by three local junior officers : Inspector Samuel Guriaman, Sergeant Major Yansalang and Warrant Officer Jemadar Ojagar Singh. The Japanese believed that these men were loyal to them. Instead, the three remained loyal to their European officers and the Allied cause.

Apart from the Constabulary a well established military/police force that was trained to fight, Sabah's only potential defenders were members of a part time militia unit form in 1937 was known as the North Borneo Volunteer Defence Force but were not sufficiently trained to engage in all out warfare.

Even as he was in internment at Berhala Island, Major Rice Oxley, who was also the Chief Volunteer Force, requested the three junior officers to corporate with Dr James Taylor the principal medical officer who was allowed to remain free in order to carry out his duties at the Sandakan civil hospital. Rice Oxley also asked them to corporate with POWs interned at Mile 8 POW Camp.

The Civilian in Sandakan and the Constabulary have been secretly active sending the foods, drugs money and other necessities to Berhala Island. Dr Jim Taylor headed a humanitarian underground assistance group. The group existence was due partly to Dr Laband and partly to Ernesto Lagan an ex employee of Harrison and Crossfield and a member of the volunteer, who was married to Pedro Dominic's granddaughter Katherine Neubronner.

The Civilian and the Constabulary developed close links with Chinese, Malay and other native people who opposed the Japanese occupation such as the Funk, Azcona, Lai, Apostol, Cohen, Dick Majinal, Pop Wong, Matusup Gungau and others. Together, they became a larger movement known as a local assistance group. This free men and women smuggled foods and medicines to their families and friends interned on Berhala Island. All racial groups were involved in the underground : Europeans, Chinese, Indians and Locals. All groups are represented.

Jemadar Ojagar Singh was stationed at mile 8 police station. As the officers, he and Inspector Guriaman were responsible for the area in the vicinity of the POW camp. He was also responsible, along with other junior officers, for providing guards for the civilian internment centre on Berhala Islands.

The Constabulary closely connected with Ernesto Lagan, who was now working as a detective for the Japanese. Shortly after the civilians were sent to Berhala, he had received a message from the Constabulary's Commanding officer, Major A Rice Oxley, seeking financial assistance for himself and two other officers, Captain HB Rowland and Lieutenant MG Edge. The note had been passed from Salleh to Sergeant Ikes and Corporal Koram. Corporal Koram passed the note to Lagan who canvassed those he was sure he could trust and appointed Sergent Yusof Basinau to begin collecting whatever money anyone can spare. The contributors were Inspector Samuel Guriaman, Sergeant Major Yansalang, Sergeant Abin, Corporal Koram, PC Kai, Damudaran, Lumatop, Kassiu, Gorokon, Mohamed Tahir Matusin and Jemadar Ojagar Singh.

Aware that not all the police could be relied upon, Ojagar and Sergeant Major Yansalang made sure that only the most trustworthy of their men were roastered for guard duty at Berhala. They did it in such a way that only the most loyal and sympathetic policemen were allocated to duties that took them regularly to Berhala Island and mile 8 station. With this men in place, many activities started to take place. Food and medicine were smuggled in from the mainland to the civilian internees and a group of POWs on Berhala Island. Supplies were also made available to the POWs at mile 8.

After Major Rice Oxley and the Governor were moved to Kuching. Ojagar and his men, heeding the Major's instruction, were nominally placed under the charge of Captain Lionel Colin Matthews, the main contact person from the Australian POWs and to assist the later with his task of carrying out the underground activities.

The goal for the underground movement were initially humanitarian but expanded into smuggling food and medicine, smuggling of radio parts, collecting of money, gathering of intelligence and eventually military. The underground turned into a dangerous organisation. With the help of these and other courageous locals, a cache of small arms was organised. This include some British equipments mainly weapons brought in from the Philippines. There were about a hundred weapons including three machine guns, hidden about three kilometres from the camp near mile 6. The plan was to use this weapons as part of a general prisoners insurrection to either seize the camp and town or undertake a mass escape of all prisoners and become guerrilla fighters.

Connected to the insurrection plan was the building of a transmitting radio. This would be used to contact American Guerrillas in the Philippines and submarines with a view to obtaining more arms and other support. This development was not just about escaping; it was a challenge to the Japanese position in North Borneo, and one that inevitably would invoke most violent Japanese response.

Berhala Island was where the first and second team of the allied POW escaped. The first team comprised R.K. Mc Laren, Private R.N. Butler and R.J. Kennedy. They arrived at Batu Batu, Philippines on the 13rd June 1943 and was greeted by Colonel A Suarez. The second team consisted five colleagues Lt. Rex Blow, Lt. L.N. Gillon and Sgt. W. Wallace, Captain R.E. Steele and Lt. C.A. Wagner followed thereafter and arrived Tawi Tawi, Philippines on 30th June 1943. They were all integrated into the Philippines guerrilla forces.

Their escape from Berhala Island was successfully executed by members of the underground intelligence organisation directed by an intelligent officer, Captain Lionel Colin Matthews and Dr Taylor. They were responsible with the delivery arrangement of food, medical supplies and money to the POWs. Matthews introduced secret radio links with the outside world and organised the British North Borneo Constabulary for armed uprising against the Japanese.

The Japanese ordered their guards in combination with the local Police Force to search for the escaped Australian. They hunted frantically all over the island but could not locate them. The Japanese military police offered enormous sums of money as rewards for the recapture of the Australians.

The underground movement was soon discovered by the Japanese. Matthews was arrested by the Kempeitai and was subject to brutal treatment and starvation of which he refused to reveal and information to implicate his associates.

The Japanese took all who were involved in the Underground movement of which among others they planned to arm the POW in Sandakan to overpower the Japanese. Those capture composed of international group of Chinese, Europeans, Eurasians, Kadazan, Sikh, Murut, Filipinos, Suluk, Javanese and MY Cohen a wealthy Jewish women, together with 19 Australian POW and five civilians and their wives.

Ojagar Singh was also one of those involved in helping eight Australian POWs to escape from Berhala Island. While many had attributed the escape of the eight POWs to people like Corporal Koram but Ojagar was the man in charge of the police detachment on Berhala that had allowed Rex Blow, Ray Steele and six others to escape to Tawi Tawi. He was also one of the major contributor to a fund that assisted the POWs to escape. Many members of the Constabulary, including Detective Ernesto Lagan and Corporal Abin, also gave money to the fund. Ojagar assisted in the mapping of possible escape routes by providing a map taken from the Constabulary office to Abin, who then passed the map to Matthews. The map showed the main installations and building in Sandakan.

Jemadar Ojagar Singh was especially targeted by the Japanese. Although police friends had warn him that his name had been revealed by others under interrogation, he had refused the entreaties of his wife escape, believing that, if he did, the Japanese would harass his family and probably hold them ransom.

Shortly after Ojagar's arrest the Japanese, acting on further information, escorted him to his house. Ojagar, who remained perfectly calm, told his wife to look after the children. The Japanese then ordered his daughter, Biba, to show them the chicken coop, further up the hill. The searchers, who knew exactly what they were looking for , retrieved letters sent by Rex Blow seeking assistance for his escape. They then searched the house, moving gold jewellery, cash, a pistol and ammunition. As the family had no means of support, Mrs Singh, who was pregnant, moved into the police barracks.

Ojagar were taken to a spacious bungalow on Tanah Merah Road formerly home of the General Manager of Bakau and Kenya Extract company and now the notorious 'House of torture'. The Japanese seems delighted in brutalising prisoners who were physically larger than them. The Japanese were furious that Ojagar betrayed their trust. Ojagar was mercilessly tortured apart from trying to obtain information of the escape. During his violent interrogation, his jaw was broken and his elbow shattered. According to witness they called him the "stubbornly brave black bearded Sikh", as the steadfastly loyal policeman would reveal nothing, Dr Taylor tried to help ease his pain and pleaded to be allowed to treat Jemadar Ojagar but the Japanese denied him medical treatment as an additional punishment. Mrs Singh was not permitted to visit and it was only through police friends that she was able to find out anything. As she washed her husband's clothes soaked with blood and pus, she would pray, tears rolling down her cheeks, certain that he could hear Ojagar 'calling' to her that he would die and she must look after their children.

By mid September the Kempeitai had finished their investigation of what they called "The Sandakan Incident". Not only the principal ringleaders 'confessed', they had confessed most satisfactorily, mainly because Ozawa and Miura Isawu had 'translated' the confessions. The Australian believed that the mistranslations were deliberate. With the confession secured, all that remained was to ship the 52 civilians and 20 POWs to Kuching to stand trial for crimes ranging from insurrection to money changing.

Not long after, all members of the underground were transferred to the wharf, with the exception of Celia Taylor and Mrs Mavors, who had departed earlier with two medical officers Australian Marcus Clark and Canadian George Graham and one or two other internees rounded up belatedly from the interior.

As word circulated that the prisoners were to be moved, the families of the local people hurried to the road leading from the goal to the dockside, hoping for a final glimpse before there were herded onto Subuk, a small coastal vessel.

On ascertaining from the Japanese which two routes the vehicle transferring those held at the interrogation centre would take, the heavily pregnant wife of Ojagar Singh waited by the roadside with Anup and her other children. The lorry appeared in the distance, but their vigil was for naught. The canvas blinds of the vehicle were rolled down tightly and it took the other road.

Covered by machine guns mounted on the vehicles, the prisoners were loaded onto Subuk's deck and handcuffed to the railings. After a 36 hour delay in Kudat they proceeded to Miri, by passing Jesselton. After eight day voyage Subuk arrived at Kuching, where the prisoners were transferred to the Batu Lintang Camp.

After being transferred to Kuching on 19th October 1943, Ojagar and his colleagues underwent further interrogation before they were pun on trial.

On the 29th February 1944, the defendants were seated according to the seriousness of the charges were on trial, which many believed the trial was a staged affair, the prisoners were hardly given any opportunity to defend themselves. In many instances the interpreters were reported to have wrongly interpreted or refuse to translate in full the replies or question from the prisoners. At the end of the trial Jemadar Ojagar Singh, whose smashed elbow had still not been set and Abin, Lagan, Heng, Mu Sing, Alex Funk, Felix Azcona, Matusup and Matthews, who had risk their lives to help the internees, POWs and Australian brothers was sentenced to death by gunshot to the head. Lieutenant Rod Wells expecting death sentence was given twelve years jail. As he left the courtroom Rod Wells managed to hold Ojagar Singh in one final embrace.

On the 2nd March 1944 , the guard herded the condemned men into a prison van and a small convoy of staff cars and small vans headed down the road and stopped at a small clearing in an isolated patch of jungle about five kilometres from the courtroom known as a rubber estate at Batu Kawa on the outskirt of Kuching. In the centre of the cleared area was a long pit, with nine stout T shaped post placed at three metre intervals along one side. While nine man firing squad readied itself, the prisoners were tied securely to the post and a mark placed in the centre of the foreheads. They were all shot between the eyes killing them instantly and were pronounced dead, a fact confirmed by a doctor, who signed a death certificate. The eight bodies was placed in a coffin and buried in a common grave except the body of Matthews that was buried at a cemetery near St Catherine's Church.

None of the grave diggers knew the identity of the man they had buried. The families of the eight men executed would have to wait even longer for any information. With no official notification, it would not be until after the war that Ojagar Singh's wife would learn, by chance, that her husband had been executed.

The Sikh community in Kuching, aware that one of their members had been executed, petitioned the Japanese to allow Ojagar Singh's remains to be cremated according to Sikh rites, but the request was denied. There were no funeral rites, no prayers, no priest and no acts of remembrance for those buried in the mass grave in the lonely jungle clearing.

Some of those whose relatives were involved in the Sandakan Incident had left town. Nevertheless seemed foolish to Ojagar Singh's wife to remain in Sandakan, especially as there were many members of the Sikh community willing to help. With their assistance, the Singhs had moved into an empty house at mile 1.5, where fourteen year old Hercharan assumed responsibility for the family, including his baby sister, born two months after Ojagar left Sandakan. As Hercharan had a working knowledge of Japanese, he was employed for a while as translator, and also became small time fishmonger, selling fish and shrimps, caught in a nearby stream. The family grew their own vegetables and to earn some cash, sold oil extracted from coconuts.

In late 1943, Mrs Singh's brother, Dial Singh, a Sergeant in the Lahad Datu Constabulary, arrived with his wife and two children. It was his intention to take the entire family back to his property outside Lahad Datu but, after all their belonging were loaded aboard the ship, the Japanese refused to allow anyone apart from Dial Singh to leave.

When he returned to mile 1.5 seven months later, he brought with him eight porters: the family was going to escape overland to Lahad Datu, through the jungle.

Crossing the bay in Sampan under cover of darkness, they made their way along the coast to Segama River, where Dial's friends were waiting with two larger boats. After spending a few days with the headman of Kampung Bikang, they continued upstream in pouring rain, frightening away crocodile that approached the boats with pieces of burning wood.

Forced to camp on an island due to rising floodwaters, and finding themselves surrounded by wild animals and snakes also seeking refuge from inundation, the adults kept an all night vigil beside the fire. About sixteen kilometres from Lahad Datu they left the vastly swollen river and all perils behind and continued on foot along the road, wading through knee deep flood water for the first three kilometres.

After living with relatives for about a month on Tengah Nipa Plantation, where the baby died of malnutrition and illness, they moved deep into the jungle, to a hut Dial Singh had built on his eight hectare property. Here they remained in hiding, subsisting on vegetables and tapioca that they planted, small fish and crabs caught in nearby streams and salt extracted from seawater.

For some time, Dial Singh had been meeting Americans who came to Lahad Datu by submarine from Tawi Tawi to gather intelligence. A police sergeant who learned about his activities decided to report him not directly, but by way of a letter written to the Kempeitai Chief, which he gave to Dial Singh to deliver. Fortunately, Dial Singh had doubts about the Sergeant loyalties and opened the letter.

That night he escaped into the jungle, where he remained alone, until the war was over. His family, meantime, only just managed to stay alive. Hercharan, who had been a tower of strength, fell ill and the two surviving younger girls weakened by malnutrition and beriberi, died after eating poisonous mushrooms. The others, apart from Anup, who did not like mushrooms, were extremely ill, but recovered and managed to remain hidden from the Japanese until the end of the war.

Alone in his hideout near Lahad Datu, Anup Singh's Uncle, Dial Singh had realised from the crump of exploding bombs that the war was coming to an end. In their little house in the jungle, Anup and others cowered in terror as Allied planes swooped lover over the rooftop, firing on Japanese position in town. Finally after leaflets had been dropped and all sound of hostility had ceased, the family returned to Sandakan where, after selling her last remaining gold bangle, Mrs Singh set about creating a new life for herself and her surviving family.

There is no mention of any payment of compensation to his widow or family at the end of the war. His position in the constabulary prevented the Australian government from providing financial compensation to his family. There was an understanding that the government of North Borneo would provide for the families of its administrative staff who lost their lives during the war, based on their term of service.

A story of loyalty, bravery, love, humanity, struggle, suffering, sacrifices, heroic deeds, horrendous brutality and cruelty. Brotherhood and friendship towards common good.

Jemadar Ojagar Singh could simply ignored the plights of the Allied POWs and got on with his life. However, he decided to remain loyal to the Allied cause and joined the underground movement. As he was in a position of some influence and authority, he also used his position to ensure that the assistance provided to the Allied POWs could be provided more effectively. Surely all these were efforts that went "Beyond The Call of Duty" .

Lest We Forget

Source :

1. Lynette Ramsay Silver - Sandakan The Conspiracy of Silence (1998)

2. Prof. Danny Wong - Historical Sabah The War (2010)

3. Arkib Negeri Sabah - World War Two : The Sabah's Story (2010)

4. Lynette Ramsay Silver - Blood Brothers Sabah and Australia 1942-1945 (2010)

5. Paul Ham - Sandakan Untold Story of the Sandakan Death March (2012)

6. Interviewed Anup Singh Son of Jemadar Ojagar Singh

7. Special thanks to Aman Avtar Singh Sandhu, Ryan Rowland, David Porter, Mick Smith and  Catherine Chua

Photos :

1. Courtesy Mr Anup Singh

Edited by : Kumis Kumis