his father as the Third Rajah of Sarawak. In 1941, Kuching became the venue of the Brooke Government Centenary Celebration. A few months later, the Brooke administration came to a close when the Japanese occupied Sarawak.
World War Two
During the Second World War, six platoons of infantry from 2/15 Punjab Regiment were stationed at Kuching. Kuching would be defended because of its airfield, and because its occupation by the enemy would give access to the important Dutch airfield at Singkawang II, sixty miles to the southwest and only some 350 miles from Singapore.
Kuching was surrendered to the Japanese forces on 24 December 1941, and Sarawak was part of the Japanese Imperial Empire for three years and eight months, until the official Japanese surrender on 11 September 1945, on board HMAS Kapunda at Kuching. From March 1942, the Japanese operated a POW and civilian internee Batu Lintang camp, three miles (5 km) outside Kuching.
After the end of World War II the third and last Rajah, Sir Charles Vyner Brooke ceded Sarawak to the British Crown in 1946. Kuching was revitalised as the capital of Sarawak under the British Colonial Government. When Sarawak, together with Northern Borneo, Singapore and the Federation of Malaya, formed the Federation of Malaysia in 1963, Kuching was maintained as the State Capital
