Talk:Batu Lintang camp

message: So far, I am the main (and sadly, pretty much the only) contributor to this article. 
I am researching the World War II Japanese-run camp for POWs and civilian internees at Batu Lintang, Kuching, Sarawak, Borneo. I would be delighted to hear from anybody who has any information about or interest in this camp - you can either leave a message on this page, on my talk page, or email me by hitting the 'Email this user' link in the toolbox on the left of the screen on my user page or talk page. Thank you. Jasper33 (talk) 14:11, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: untitled

message: Well done Jasper33, this is not far off Good article status. Grant | Talk 01:17, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Wow! This is perhaps the most comprehensive article for DYK I've ever seen. Of course not far off GA status. In fact, it might go for a FA candidacy, provided some more days of work is done!! Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 18:22, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Excellent work, Jasper33! You put me (a local) to shame.– Matthew A. Lockhart (talk) 18:35, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well done! I'd say this is not far off Featured article status. --Camptown 21:05, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, what all of them said. This is amazing! J Milburn 22:32, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's an extraordinary interesting article! Jasper33, does any of your sources include a map of the camp? Were there ever any individual escape attempts? Bondkaka 23:10, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Just added the http://www.far-eastern-heroes.org.uk/Baldwin/html/batu_lintag.htm map to the article as an external link.  Thanks Bondkaka - wouldn't have thought of it otherwise! Jasper33 23:37, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

text: I went there today. If anyone uses Google Earth, here are the places I have visited and subsequently marked; and here is an alternative map of the camp that was scanned from Kuching: 1839-1970 by Elizabeth Pollard (1st edition 1972). – Matthew A. Lockhart (talk) 10:36, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Here is a map of the teacher's college, from Who shall separate us by Abang Yusuf Puteh (1999). The author studied there beginning in 1949 while most of the older buildings are still intact and was used for educational purposes. I believe that this map is the most accurate amongst all three, especially when compared to aerial photographs. – Matthew A. Lockhart (talk) 19:06, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rating 

message: Of course, the visit will not be complete without them. I will upload the photos after I have sifted through them. Meanwhile, please have this.– Matthew A. Lockhart (talk) 19:06, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've found this one on my web trawls, but funnily enough, it's the only official US one I've found. There must have been many others taken.  Have you found any others?  I didn't include it in the 'Liberation' section of the article as there were so many to choose from and not that much space as the section is quite short. Looking forward to your photos Jasper33 19:54, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Should we start a gallery? – Matthew A. Lockhart (talk) 20:00, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I was wondering about that, but have several qualms.  Generally I think photos work best if they are within the text, rather than stranded at the end of the article - helps to keep them in context. Also the article is very long as it is (61kb last time I looked) - or maybe images aren't counted? (No idea: I'm not a techie!).  I have saved hundreds of AWM thumbs of Batu Lintang on my computer, and deciding which to use to illustrate the article wasn't easy.  I wonder if we'd have the same problem deciding with a gallery.  I do however think a photo of the site as it is today would be useful, placed in the relevant part of the text. I'm also tempted to put up the two plans you've provided as external links, although the second one takes rather a long time to download. What do you reckon? Jasper33 20:15, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Matthew, what was I thinking?  Your photographs are superb and I think they would be wonderful in the gallery at the end of the article. (And besides, I think I'm getting perilously close to displaying ownership of this page, and we've got the blessed consensus - you don't need me to tell you to add away!) We could see about perhaps trying to incorporate some of them: I'm thinking of the 'Punjabi barracks' in particular - do we know which camp this was originally part of? I was interested to read on the plaque that Sarawakians had been held at Batu Lintang as I have found no reference to this so far.  Do you have any information on this?  We ought to put it into the article. Thanks again for the photos - seeing the place, however changed, in colour somehow brings it more immediately to life. You get little sense of how lush with tropical greenery the place is from the B&W photos (even though you can see the palm trees and bamboo) - perhaps fitting given the starkness of what else they show. Jasper33 07:56, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If we were to use Abang Yusuf Putih's map as a reference, the Punjabi barracks is the building numbered 25. It is not actually the building itself; rather the building seen in the photograph is constructed "using the old concrete stumps of a Punjabi camp building". The concrete stumps are most likely to be pre-war, during the time when the camp was the barracks of the Punjabi regiment. As for whether Sarawakians were held in the camp or not, I'll need time to find out.– Matthew A. Lockhart (talk) 09:04, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Photographs 

message: The Australian War Memorial (AWM) collection of images from Batu Lintang is considerable. The following are aerial photgraphs which give an idea of the camp layout, or parts thereof. They can be viewed on the AWM website (www.awm.gov.au) in the collections database.
*044152
*106498
*106499
*106500 (Higher altitude photo of part of Kuching, joins 106501)
*106501 (ditto, joins 106500)
*129037 - same as OG3454
*157483
*OG3249
*OG3251
*OG3454 - same as 129037
*OG3455
*OG3456
*P00014/024
*P0987/004
*P0987/006
Jasper33 19:54, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Aerial photographs of the camp 

message: This 2007 summer school (Jan 2007) at the University of Cape Town sounded interesting. It was titled 'Japanese Camps during World War II: the civilian experience'. The web page has a good reading list, including some Dutch references. Web page here. Jasper33 23:25, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Useful reading list 

message: I'm surprise no one has mentioned this yet. Frank Bell (1916-1989), along with his fellow prisoners ran an 'undercover university' in the camp. They ran classes, wrote text books and award diplomas. The book, 'Undercover University', was first published privately in 1990. I'll see if I can get the ISBN.– Matthew A. Lockhart (talk) 16:22, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've added some info but couldn't find out much about it.  I'll see if I can get the book from Amazon. Jasper33 12:02, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hurrah for Amazon - the book arrived this morning.  I have created a stub on Frank Bell but will need a while to digest the contents of the book before I make any additions to the BL article. Jasper33 11:58, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Undercover University 

message: I've been gradually adding to this as I come across more references.  Borneo Burlesque by George Forbes et al sounds very interesting, if a little pricy at $500 AUS.  There's some interesting information in this second hand bookshop catalogue entry (Pioneer Books):
:Forbes, George (Story) Borneo Burlesque: Comic Tragedy/Tragic Comedy 
:(Australia: Printers Pty. Ltd. for 'a group of 8th Division officers who were once comrades of misfortune in P.O.W. Camps in Sandakan and Kuching, Borneo': 1947) Pictorial cloth (that is, hard covers) pp. 130 (260 x 202 mm) Artwork by Don Johnston and Jock Britz. An account of the entertainments produced by Australian officers in POW camps in Sandakan and (from October 1943) Kuching, in Borneo, 1942-1945, beginning with a choral performance late in 1942 and going on to include variety shows, musical comedies, sketches in the style of radio plays, mystery thrillers, Gilbert and Sullivan's 'HMS Pinafore', straight dramas, Shakespeare, A.A. Milne, and a pantomime ('Sinbad the Sailor'). Produced by 'Bill' Clayton. The illustrations include 170 pencil sketches of officers and men in Kuching camp, as well as 21 fine colour reproductions of the posters which were painted and used in the camp to advertise the shows (20 of them were painted by Captain Don Johnston in collaboration with Capain Jock Britz, and one, for 'Murder Manor', by Lieut. George Forbes). This is No. 129 of the edition limited to 338 copies, and signed by Don Johnston, Jock Britz, George Forbes and 'Bill' Clayton. An ownership inscription at head of front free endpaper. Spine moderately sunned, as are the margins of the front cloth; otherwise an about fine copy. $500 
Several of the books I've located have plans of the camp.  I can't reproduce them here because of copyright issues, but will list them (at a later date - bit busy now) so that they can be sourced. Jasper33 08:41, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ugh. Good books from certain parts of the world are too prohibitively expensive for me.– Matthew A. Lockhart (talk) 11:09, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bibliography 

message: This category was removed by an editor, but I have reinstated it. War crimes were committed in this camp: several of the Japanese army staff involved were executed for their part in these crimes. Jasper33 11:34, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Jas; I couldn't agree more, especially since Captain Negata and Dr Yamamoto were actually convicted of war crimes. Grant | Talk 17:03, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Grant. Still reading my many purchases, whilst getting distracted by other things, but I will get round to my major overhaul at some point...  I groaned when I got on to Defying the Odds: Surviving Sandakan and Kuching by Michele Cunningham, as it's a brilliant synthesis of the camp's history - albeit with an Aussie bias ;) - and I wish I'd had it when I started the page as it would have saved me an awful lot of donkeywork!  She's done a fantastic amount of research on the War Crimes trials, and provides lots of detail on the proceedings. Well worth rooting out. Jasper33 19:36, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Japanese war crimes 

message: These are the plans I have found so far.  In addition, a lot of the AWM aerial photos give pretty good birds-eye views of the camp (see Aerial photographs of the camp section above for reference numbers).
Date   	Source                                                                                                                                                                                                	Comments
1972   	Pollard, Elizabeth, 1972, Kuching 1839-1970                                                                                                                                                           	North at bottom of plan
1976   	Howes, Peter H. H., 1976, "The Lintang Camp: Reminiscences of An Internee during the Japanese Occupation, 1942-1945" Journal of the Malaysian Historical Society, Sarawak Branch no 2 (March 1976), 34	
1989   	Watterson, Neville, 1989, Borneo: The Japanese P.O.W. Camps - Mail of the Forces, P.O.W. and Internees                                                                                                	
1991   	Bell, Frank, 1991, Undercover University                                                                                                                                                              	
1994   	Watterson, Neville, 1994, Borneo: The Japanese P.O.W. Camps - Mail of the Forces, P.O.W. and Internees Part 2                                                                                         	Adapted from Pollard 1972
1995   	Lim, Julitta Shau-Hua, 1995, From an Army Camp to a Teachers’ College: A History of Batu Lintang Teachers' College, Kuching, Sarawak                                                                  	
1998   	Ooi, Keat Gin, 1998, Japanese Empire in the Tropics: Selected Documents and Reports of the Japanese Period in Sarawak, Northwest Borneo, 1941-1945                                                    	Based on Howes 1976 and Watterson 1989
1999   	Puteh, Abang Yusef, 1999, Who Shall Separate Us                                                                                                                                                       	
2000   	Darch, Ernest G., 2000, Survival in Japanese Camps with Changkol and Basket                                                                                                                           	Copied from Bell 1991 with a few additions
no date	http://www.cofepow.org.uk/pages/asia_borneo_batu_lintang.htm                                                                                                                                          	Direct copy of Pollard 1972, slightly cropped on right hand side
no date	http://www.far-eastern-heroes.org.uk/Baldwin/html/war.htm                                                                                                                                             	Copied from Lim 1995 with additions
Jasper33 11:27, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Plans of the camp 

message: Never mind - I found other ranks so many times in the article I looked it up. 71.234.215.133 (talk) 05:14, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Other ranks" 

message: One missing interesting piece of information would be who issued the death orders mentioned in the article.
Sagu? Some person above Sagu? I find it intriguing because both death orders were after the surrender of japan.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.217.15.89 (talk) 19:24, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: the source simply says 'high command', but Colonel Tsuji was responsible for taking many such execution orders in his own hands and issuing them as if they came from higher up in the Japanese army - need a source, tho' - Toland does not specify him for this incident in Rising Sun ... HammerFilmFan (talk) 03:32, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Death Order 

message: A book published in January 2011, Children of the Camps: Japan's Last Forgotten Victims by Dr. Mark Felton of Fudan University in Shanghai has clearly used both the Wikipedia Batu Lintang camp page and the Tatsuji Suga page as the main source for his information on Batu Lintang and Colonel Suga, without acknowledging this use. I started and am the main editor contributing to both these pages.
*All the information that is in his book is already in these two Wikipedia pages or can be extrapolated from them.
*Some of the speculative and interpretative information that he has added in his book is incorrect, presumably because he misunderstood the Wikipedia information. Some of the errors are basic and show he had not fully researched the subject.
*All fourteen of the quotations he uses in his book are in these two Wikipedia pages. He even uses the misquotation of a passage that I misquoted. Bit of a smoking gun that.
*The basic layout of the relevant passages and the phraseology in Felton's book very closely echo the layout and phraseology I used for the Batu Lintang and Tatsuji Suga pages.
I have been researching this camp for eight years, and so know it pretty well by now. I am not claiming 'authorship' in any way. I based the Batu Lintang page I made in 2007 on many different sources, not all of which I cited. Felton publishes information from these uncited sources, yet only cites Ooi Keat Gin, Southwell and Firkins as his sources: he wouldn't be able to cite the other sources as he wouldn't know what they are. I summarised many sources to create the Wikipedia Batu Lintang page; Felton has clearly used the Batu Lintang page and yet quoted the sources I used as his main sources, rather than acknowledging his massive debt to Wikipedia. By not acknowledging Wikipedia, Felton is passing off other people's research and hard work - it took me a bloody long time to put those pages together - as his own.
So Felton 2011 should not be used as a source for the Batu Lintang page or the Tatsuji Suga page, as Felton 2011 is in itself based on and a 'mirror' of these two Wikipedia pages. Jasper33 (talk) 16:29, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Use of Wikipedia pages as unacknowledged sources by an academic: ''Children of the Camps: Japan's Last Forgotten Victims'' by Dr Mark Felton 

message: I am trying to contact Rebecca (Jasper), the talk or email element appears not to be working. I have a newspaper article about
My uncle who was interned in Batu Lintang until liberation. It may be of interest.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.183.128.165 (talk) 02:11, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Hello, I am so sorry - I am five years late seeing this message. If you see this again, you can email me via my talk page, but you have to sign in using a username - the email facility isn't available to anonymous IP editors. (I don't want to put my email address up here as I will get inundated with spam!) Thanks. Jasper33 (talk) 07:57, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  How do I contact Jasper ? 

message: at 3000 revolutions per minute?  Is this a typo?  Surely he wasn't cranking at 3000rpm?
2001:558:6022:19:95B9:3EA:9A42:48E4 (talk) 18:37, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I have gone back to the source, and it says this: "The illumination, afforded by three tin lids holding a few drops of coconut oil using pieces of rag as wicks, enabled us to see the two pulley wheels and the lid of the oil drum were in their places and the piece of Japanese belt that was to do duty as the driving belt was already in place. Alan ... was stripped to the waist and standing at the handle which would turn the oil drum lid, this in turn speeding up the smaller pulley wheel and this in turn forcing 'Ginnie' to turn at the required 3000 revs. per minute." ie there was a mechanical advantage given by the use of the pulleys and the oil drum lid that allowed this rate to be achieved. The author is Corporal GW Pringle. Jasper33 (talk) 10:15, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  The generator needed to turn . . .