IPOH, Dec 30 — The underground bomb shelter found on the grounds of the Sultan Azlan Shah Airport here on Friday is one of the many World War II relics in Perak.
Perak Heritage Society president Mohd Taib Mohamed said there are many war relics in the state that have yet to be uncovered.
“The bunker, which is still intact, is part and parcel of WWII and has to be documented for posterity,” he told Malay Mail.
He added the find holds great potential for the state’s tourism.
“It can be turned into a war trail. Every year, many war veterans visit Perak. This bunker can be another place for them to visit,” he said.
“The experience of getting inside and looking at a bunker...not everyone has the opportunity to see the inside of a bunker,” he added.
From his research, Mohd Taib said the bunker was used by the British colonials.
“This is because the site of the present Perak Community Specialist Hospital at Jalan Permaisuri Bainun near the airport was used as an airstrip by the Japanese during WWII,” he added.
Mohd Taib however said a detailed perimeter search had to be carried out in the bunker.
“We found another hole near the bunker on Friday which we suspect is used as an airwell,” he said, adding that this was the first underground bunker to be unearthed in Malaysia.
State Tourism Committee chairman Datuk Nolee Ashilin Mohd Radzi said the state would send a team from the National Heritage Department and museum to check on the potential and authencity of the bunker.
“I was told the bunker was able to hold up to 30 people,” she said, adding that it was the only underground bunker still intact in Malaysia.
Describing it as an exciting find, Nolee said if the bunker was confirmed to be a heritage site, it would help in the state’s programmes with the war veterans.
“As the veterans visit us yearly, this can be a potential product for us,” she said, adding that it would be a high value product.
Malaya Historical Group chief researcher Shaharom Ahmad was quoted by media as saying on Saturday that the shelter was the first of its kind found in Malaysia.
The shelter, measuring around 9m long, 9m wide, and 2m high was discovered beneath a field nearby some police barracks, around 500m away from the main airport building.
Believed to be constructed between 1940 and 1941, the concrete shelter was built to protect Allied forces from Japanese military air strikes.
