17th September 1945: Soldiers of the Australian 2/31st Battalion pass through Bandjermasin in Borneo as they take responsibility for the island after the surrender of Japan in the Second World War. It was reported they were given an enthusiastic welcome by the locals.
The island of Borneo was under Japanese occupation from the end of 1941. Bandjermasin is now part of Indonesia.
From the collection of the Australian War Memorial, Canberra.
1st July 1945: Australians carry a wounded soldier along the beach at Balikpapan, Borneo. Smoke billows from burning oil tanks bombed by the Japanese.
The Borneo Campaign ran from the 1st of May until Japan’s surrender on the 15th of August, and succeeded in pushing the Japanese further from Australia. However, Japan’s inhumane treatment of Allied prisoners of war became infamous, and included sex slavery and death marches.
This photograph is dated the 21st of October, 1945. After surrendering to Australian forces, Japanese soldiers and civilians on the Southeast Asian island of Borneo prepare to leave for Jesselton (modern-day Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia) for repatriation.
As with Russia in territories annexed by the Soviet Union, Imperial Japan imported hundreds of thousands of their own people into occupied territories outside Japanese borders. These locations included Korea, China and Taiwan. There, they enjoyed a higher social standing than the original occupants.
In Times Gone By... 