As the needs of armed forces change, once-important facilities such as air bases might wind up becoming unnecessary – and in these instances, the land might be converted to civilian use.
Given enough time, the very existence of these bases might wind up forgotten by the vast majority of people.
Over the years, a claim has emerged occasionally that fighter aircraft were based less than 10km from Banting, Selangor. Is this true?
VERDICT:
TRUE
It might come as a surprise to some, but this is in fact true.
The airbase in question was in use during World War 2 and immediately after; an oil palm estate now sits on the site today.
As written in a research paper by Wardatul Hayat Adnan of Universiti Teknologi Mara along with Dazmin Daud and Mohd Farizi Jamaluddin of UCSI University, the occupying Japanese built this airfield at a point 8.8km from Banting at a place called Kelanang.
The three then said that the Japanese-based Mitsubishi Zero fighters to cover the area between Port Swettenham – now Port Klang – in Selangor and Port Dickson in Negri Sembilan, adding that their research found that the airfield only housed a few fighters as well as hangars and barracks.
It was then added in the research paper that a 1951 London Gazette article had mentioned this airfield in the account of the British return to Malaya following the 1945 surrender of the Japanese.
“The Gazette stated that the Allied forces moved ashore from Morib to the Kelanang airfield on Sept 10, 1945 before proceeding to Telok Datok on Sept 14, 1945,” said the three.
They added that the Kelanang Airfield was also mentioned in other British documents closer to the time of the Allied landings in Morib in 1945.
“There was an article from the Royal Engineers Journal, volume 61 that highlighted the airfield. Price and Robertson (1947) wrote the first objective of the landings in Malaya in September 1945 was to secure strategic areas of Port Swettenham (now Port Klang), Kelanang airfield and the crossing of the coastal road over the Sepang River,” said the three.
The three added that the British Royal Air Force (RAF) then made use of the airfield at Kelanang, stationing Supermarine Spitfire fighters there by Sept 9, 1945.
“It was considered an important facility that must be captured first before Allied forces could march to Kuala Lumpur,” they said.
This was also mentioned in passing in an article on the official website of the RAF's No.11 Squadron Association, as it is said that its fighters were to make landfall at a point “just south of Port Swettenham at Morib beach and land at a Japanese airfield a couple of miles inland.”
As for what lies there today, this is mentioned in the research paper.
“The former airfield is currently located at 2.8012 ° N, 101.4617 ° E in a palm oil plantation. This palm oil plantation is called the Dusun Durian estate and it has been in operation since 1954,” they said, adding that the plantation is still there to this day.
SOURCES:
Adnan, W. H., Daud, D., & Jamaluddin, M. F. (2021). The Forgotten World War II Airfield: The Case of Morib Airfield. EDUCATUM Journal of Social Sciences, 7(1), 10-18. https://doi.org/10.
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