Labuan
A Duty Free Offshore Island Where The Japanese Surrender Of North Borneo Was Signed In 1945, Holding Malaysia'S Largest War Cemetery And Four Major Wrecks · Victoria, Labuan
LABUAN IS A SMALL ISLAND OFF SABAH THAT THE BRITISH TOOK IN 1846 AND THAT THE WAR NEVER QUITE LEFT. THE JAPANESE FORCES IN NORTH BORNEO SURRENDERED HERE ON 9 SEPTEMBER 1945, and the spot is marked. THE LABUAN WAR CEMETERY IS THE LARGEST IN MALAYSIA - close to four thousand graves, most of them Australian and Indian, many of them unidentified, including men who died on the SANDAKAN DEATH MARCHES, of which only six prisoners survived out of some two and a half thousand. It is immaculate, enormous and almost empty of visitors. UNDER THE WATER ARE FOUR MAJOR WRECKS - two warships and two merchantmen, known locally as the AUSTRALIAN, AMERICAN, BLUE WATER AND CEMENT WRECKS - and they are the reason divers come. THE ISLAND IS ALSO DUTY-FREE, which is why everybody else does. The Menumbok ferry is twenty minutes against three hours from Kota Kinabalu, two of the four wrecks are deep enough to need proper certification, and the cemetery deserves rather more of your time than the duty-free shops do.
Labuan Federal Territory, Victoria, Labuan, Malaysia
LABUAN IS REACHED BY FERRY FROM KOTA KINABALU (roughly three hours) OR MENUMBOK (about twenty minutes), and by air from Kota Kinabalu and Kuala Lumpur. THE WAR CEMETERY IS OPEN DAILY AND FREE and is maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission; the SURRENDER POINT and the PEACE PARK are nearby and also free. THE WRECK DIVES REQUIRE AN OPERATOR AND APPROPRIATE CERTIFICATION - two of the four are deep and are not beginner dives - and the SEA IS ROUGHEST ROUGHLY NOVEMBER TO FEBRUARY. THE ISLAND IS DUTY-FREE, which is why the shops sell what they sell. AN ANZAC DAY SERVICE is held at the cemetery in April. IT IS A QUIET, FLAT, UNGLAMOROUS PLACE and a day and a night covers it unless you are diving.