The Private Leslie Thomas Starcevich Memorial, Beaufort, Sabah

Recently, I purchased a copy of "Sabah, Under the Rising Sun Government, by Stephen R. Evans, as both my husband Terry and I are interested in the WWII history of Sabah and North Borneo as a whole. Terry had read this book a few years ago and he now remembered a piece about an Australian soldier who won what happened to be the last Victoria Cross of WWII for single handedly over-running a Japanese machine gun post, on a hill in Beaufort, allowing British troups to overcome them and gain victory.

After a bit of research on the internet he found out that the memorial stone was on Victoria Cross road near Beaufort Police Station. then he found a map of Beaufort with the Police station marked on it, and thought htis would be a good place to start looking.

Early this morning (while I was getting soaked to the skin after a very wet and windy night of camping on Mamutik - story to come later!), Terry made his way to Beaufort, slowly, in our 28 year old Toyota landcruiser BJ40 (see earlier post). an hour and twenty minutes later, he was at the Beaufort Police station. Expecting to speak Malay (with words pre-prepared on a piece of paper), Terry greeted the female desk Sergeant with a "Salamat Pagi", to which she replied in perfect English, "Good Morning, and how can I help you?" Terry explained that he was looking for this memorial which was supposedly near the police station, and showed her the photo in the book. She didn't know where it was, but went to two of her colleagues and pointed to the picture. One of the police men knew exactly where it was and, realising it would be easier than explaining the location, he gave Terry a police escort to the site!

On arrival at the memorial site, there is a brown tourist road sign pointing up the road to the memorial and also a brownish granite engraved description of the history of the memorial which says:

"The monument honours the memory of Private L T Starcevich of B Company. He was awarded the British Army's highest honour, the Victoria Cross, for gallantry, during the attack on Beaufort. Private Starcevich charged Japanese positions with his Bren gun to relieve British troops that had come under relentless and heavy enemy fire. He killed five enemy soldiers at one fortification and two at another. His actions enabled British troops to advance and secure victory. The monument was designated a heritage site in 1998."

The police man pulled over and indicated for Terry to do the same and when Terry got out of the car, the police man pointed down the small embankment to the memorial (which you could easily drive past if you didn't know it was there!!) and explained that the building next to the memorial (which is now a school) was the old Beaufort police station and the road that they were standing on was Jalan Victoria Cross, but was know named Jalan Tugu (Memorial Road). Terry thanked the Policeman profusely and was left to his own devices and take photos - as seen below.

With the help of the local police, the mission was made easy.

Here is a map of the location of the Memorial:

If you are interested please have a look at this Wikipedia link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Thomas_Starcevich to read more about Leslie Thomas Starcevich.