On 16 December 1941, a Japanese navy detachment on arrived at Miri from Cam Ranh Bay of French Indochina. The Japanese then launched an air attack on Kuching on 19 December, bombing parts of the town airfield while machine-gunning people in the town streets. The attack created panic and drove residents to the rural areas. The Dutch submarine managed to bring down the Japanese from Miri but, with the arrival of the together with other ships, the Japanese secured the town on 24 December. From 7 January 1942, Japanese troops in Sarawak crossed the border of Dutch Borneo and proceeded to neighbouring North Borneo. The 2/15 Punjab Regiment were forced to withdraw to Dutch Borneo and later surrendered on 9 March after most of the Allies had surrendered in Java. A steamship of Sarawak, the , was sunk while evacuating nurses and wounded servicemen in the aftermath of the fall of Singapore. Most of its surviving crew were massacred on Bangka Island.