The Pasific war, which commenced on 7 December 1941, finally came to the Celebes. In the early morning of 11 January 1942, about 15.000 Japanese troops landed in the archipelago via Tarakan. Three years later, on 1 May 1945, 20.000 Allied troops took over control of the island from Japanese troops. Thousands of bombs were dropped on the island by the Allied troops in only in four days. It was the second time Tarakan became a terriying battlefield since the first one when the Japanese troops invaded the island in 1942. The Japanese invasion on Tarakan has been called 'Pearl Harbor of Indonesia'.
