In 1999 I went for holidays to Borneo, Malysia. At Kuching, capital of Sarawak I visted the police museum. In fact it was more a museum of local military history, fitted with life size figure of ANZACS (Liberation of Malaysai 1945) and british forces of the 60s (communist insurgency) and such. However, I was stunned when I was standing in front of german schweren Minenwerfer 16 in front of the entrance and paired with a british 13pd field gun. Surely this heavy piece was brought to Kuching as a war booty, but this is normaly connected to allied units, who were present in the european theatre. I couldnīt find out which british (if so) unit was garrisoned at Kuching and even the museum staff wasnīt very helpful or informed. I do not think that any sMW found itīs way from the european theartre to South East Asia during wartime. Any ideas?
Of course, I took a number of fotos, but have to find them in my archive...
The German empire had colonies in the Pacific before WW1 as well as concessions in China. The concession at Tsingtao was developed as the home port of the Pacific squadron of the German fleet. There were significant German land forces based at Tsingtao before WW1. It's conceivable that the MW16 was at Tsingtao when it was captured by the Japanese in 1914. Exactly how it the gun got to Sarawak can only be a matter of conjecture.
