in October 1938 due to financial reasons. Japanese forces landed in Miri on 16 December 1941. Sarawak fell into Japanese hands when they conquered Kuching on 24 December 1941. When the Japanese invaded Sarawak, Charles Vyner Brooke already left for Sydney (Australia) before the attack while his officers were captured by the Japanese and interned at the Batu Lintang camp. During the Japanese occupation, the Japanese used the airstrip for military purposes. However, the airstrip was heavily bombed by Allied forces. The British began reconstruction of the airstrip after the war; during the project many unexploded bombs were unearthed. On 5 September 1942, Japanese Field Marshal Prince Maida (前田利为) boarded a plane from Kuching to Labuan to officiate an airport that bears his name. However, he never arrived. One month later, the plane was found to have crashed off the coast of Tanjung Batu, Bintulu. The cause of the plane crash was not known. The Japanese later set up a wooden pole memorial made up of Belian wood in Bintulu. The wooden pole was later taken back to Japan by the family of Prince Maida. Chinese sawmill owners at Sibu and Bintulu were instructed by the Japanese to produce timber for repairs at oil fields and ship building. During the Japanese occupation, sawmills at Bintulu produced a total of 4,000 tons of sawn timber. Post-war period In the 1950s, major economic activities in Bintulu were the timber extraction industry, fishing, and Sago processing. In the 1960s, Bintulu was still a small fishing village, with a population of 5,000. No roads were constructed in Bintulu until 1969 when the first untarred road was built to connect Bintulu to Miri. The first bus that serviced the MiriBintulu route was owned by Majlis Amanah Rakyat (MARA). The MARA bus line was an initiative by the Malaysian federal government to provide public transportation for the people. The Iban villagers paid the bus driver with "vegetables, chickens, bamboo shoots, and other items". Before 1960, Bintulu was connected to Kuching by sea through a ship named "Swee Joo". After 1960, the ship "Chin Chin" was added to the route. It took around 36 to 48 hours to reach Bintulu from Kuching, depending on the sea conditions. Due to lack of food supplies from Kuching, the villagers had to make do with limited food, and several villagers resorted to hunting in the jungles to supplement the food