Go to Japanese Cemetery Park at any time between 0700 – 1900 hrs and visit the grave of Yoshio Nishimura.
Significance:
I have been researching the dynamics of power, labour, and industry in Malaya before and during World War II. Yoshio Nishimura was the managing director of the Japanese mining company Ishihara Sangyo Koshi. The company’s exploitation of Malaya’s iron ore resources was key to Japan’s rapid modernisation and military expansion in the years preceding the war.
Yoshio Nishimura, who was based in Singapore, died in December 1934 of an apparent suicide. He was under investigation by the British Special Branch, who suspected his company of being a cover for espionage. The president of the Japanese Association at the time, his funeral was attended by five hundred mourners, the largest ever held at the cemetery. Before and after Nishimura’s death, Ishihara Sangyo Koshi extensively mined iron ore in Sri Medan, Batu Pahat in Johor; this was processed into steel and supplied to the Japanese Imperial Steel Works. Those defunct mines are now filled with rainwater, resembling wounds that have never healed.