Sandakan Airport (IATA: SDK, ICAO: WBKS) is a domestic airport which serves Sandakan in Sabah, Malaysia. It is located 14 km (8. 7 mi) west of downtown Sandakan. In 2005, the airport handled 621,513 passengers and registered 10,876 flightsThe site was selected during World War 2 for a Royal Air Force (RAF) airfield, but by the time of the Japanese Invasion of Borneo, work had not progressed beyond clearing the area of vegetation. After the Fall of Singapore, the Japanese military decided that it... Sandakan Airport (IATA: SDK, ICAO: WBKS) is a domestic airport which serves Sandakan in Sabah, Malaysia. It is located 14 km (8. 7 mi) west of downtown Sandakan. In 2005, the airport handled 621,513 passengers and registered 10,876 flightsThe site was selected during World War 2 for a Royal Air Force (RAF) airfield, but by the time of the Japanese Invasion of Borneo, work had not progressed beyond clearing the area of vegetation. After the Fall of Singapore, the Japanese military decided that its aircraft needed a refuelling stop between peninsular Malaya and the Philippines and decided to complete the RAF airfield site. The Japanese Army transferred some 1,500 British and Australian prisoners of war from Singapore to work on the airfield. Commencing in August 1942, the prisoners, along with thousands of Javanese- and local labourers, built the airfield by hand, including a 1,400-metre (4,593 ft) runway, on a site composed of tufa. The airfield received its first flight in December 1942, when General Yamawaki Masataka landed in a bomber aircraft and declared the airfield open. At various times in 1945, all remaining prisoners of war were evacuated from the vicinity of the airfield, with all but six dying during what became known as the Sandakan Death Marches.
