Jadual Kandungan
Jambatan Temerloh (1960-1974)
Latar Pembinaan Jambatan
1926-1953: Pembinaan Jalan Temerloh-Maran
Latar pembinaan jambatan ini bermula dengan jalan Temerloh-Maran. Pembinaan jalan ini diceritakan oleh juruhebah Radio Malaya, Stewart Wavell, ketika pembinaannya pada tahun 1953:-
Jurutera pertama yang meneroka jalan ke Maran ialah Maurice Baker pada tahun 1926. Setelah beberapa bulan, beliau berjaya, namun usaha susulan terbengkalai akibat bencana banjir: “… Maurice Baker - the first engineer to survey the Maran Road. He made the journey on his own through swamp and jungle as far back as 1926 - the year of the great flood. His aim, like so many who have since trod this jungle, was to find a way through - to forge a road link between the east and west coasts of Malaya. He succeeded in his aim, but the floods annihilated months of painstaking labour.”
Pada tahun 1941, laluan yang lebih dekat ditemui, lalu pembinaan jalan dari Temerloh ke Maran bermula. Feri dibina di Temerloh bagi menyeberangi Sungai Pahang. Setelah hutan ditebang sejauh 8 1/2 batu sehingga sekitar Sungai Jengka, usaha tersebut terhenti oleh penaklukan Jepun pada Disember 1941. Sekembalinya British selepas itu, salah seorang yang terlibat dalam pembinaan ini, 'Taffy' Owen, cuba menjejaki semula kawasan tersebut, tetapi gagal: “Years later, in 1941, the old dream of a road through to Maran was revived. Strategically it became vital for the rapid movement of troops across the Peninsula. New pioneers marked out a more direct route from Temerloh to Maran. At Temerloh, ferries were built. Stone quarries were opened up. A base camp and workshop were established, and the jungle was felled by bulldozers up to the hills on the approach to the Jenka Pass. Eight and a half miles of earthwork were completed at the rate of 100,000 cubic yards a month, and the Jenka River was spanned with a bridge of giant trees. Then in December 1941, came the Japanese and an end to the dream of the Maran Road. But dreams have a way of lingering on. And in one man's mind the spirit of Maran remained unquenched throughout the war. That man was 'Taffy' Owen, the man who years before had laboriously pegged out a new pathway to Maran. Back once more in Malaya, this time as a member of Force 136, 'Taffy' promptly made a reconnaissance of the whole route. To his chagrin and sorrow, the rentices and pegs were overgrown and all the files on Maran had been lost.”
Usaha disambung pada Jun 1948, namun terhenti oleh kegiatan pengganas komunis: “Very little was left to him but his memories and his dream. There years went by and in that fateful month of June 1948, work began once again on the Maran Road. Yet a month later, terrorist activity compelled the survey to be abandoned.”
Pada Disember 1948, usaha penerokaan tapak jalan disambung semula, dengan diiringi sepasukan tentera. Walaupun menghadapi ancaman komunis dan bencana banjir, usaha ini akhirnya berjaya: “By December 1948, a decision was reached at the highest level to push the Maran Road through as a jeep track. A new survey was started. A party working under the guidance of Mr. W.B. Stillwell, with full military escort, made another determined attempt to find a path through to Maran. Security precautions forced them to work under extreme difficulty, and flooding compelled inaction and weakened morale. But a new line for the road was eventually completed.”
Pada Ogos 1949, Colonial Development Welfare Fund menyalurkan dana sebanyak $3.9 juta untuk projek Jalan Temerloh-Maran:-
“A month later, in August 1949, straight out of the blue came a gift of $3,908,000 from the Colonial Development Welfare Fund to build the Maran Road. Gradually an impressive array of bulldozers and other heavy earth-moving equipment was assembled.”
Penyaluran dana ini turut dilaporkan di akhbar: “A sum of $3,908,000 from the Colonial Development and Welfare Fund has been allocated to Malaya for the building of a road between Temerloh and Maran in Central Pahang and the installation of a ferry across the Pahang River. The road, passing through some of Malaya's thickest jungle, will open up new land for padi cultivation and other agricultural development. It will also cut the distance from Kuala Lumpur to Kuantan, on the East Coast, from 248 miles to 174 miles. The Temerloh-Maran Road was actually started in 1941 and more than $400,000 had been spent when the war interfered. The expensive earth-moving machinery bought for the task was withdrawn to Singapore and lost there during the occupation. A Government statement today said that work on the new road will begin early next year and will be completed probably in three years. It will bridge a number of tributaries of the Pahang River and where it skirts the river pass through some of the richest potential rice areas still undeveloped in the state.” (The Straits Times, 18 August 1949, Page 7: |"BIG U.K. GRANT FOR PAHANG JUNGLE ROAD").
Peralatan pembinaan dibekalkan dari U.S, U.K dan Jerman, dibawa dengan lori-lori melalui Jalan Bentong ke Temerloh. Seterusnya dibawa ke seberang Sungai Pahang bagi meneruskan kegiatan pembinaan jalan. Tenaga pekerja seramai 300 orang, sebahagiannya dari kalangan orang Melayu dan India, dilatih untuk mengendali dan menyelenggara peralatan tersebut: “Bull-dozers, angle dozers, scrapers, graders and shovels poured in from the U.S.A., the U.K. and Germany. Fleets of lorries wound their way up the Bentong Road to Temerloh. The finest and heaviest machinery in the world was ferried across the Pahang River for an all-out assault on the jungle. Young Malays and Indians were rapidly trained to operate these monster machines. Others discovered their deepest secrets and learned how to accomplish every conceivable repair. In a matter of months, a force of 300 men was carving out the jungle towards Maran.”
Projek diketuai oleh jurutera Mr. Stockdale: “How far have they got? When will the road be completed? These are questions which I put to men on the spot. Their answers you will be able to hear in a radio feature on the Maran Road to be broadcast from Kuala Lumpur next Friday. If you listen in then you will hear these great 32-ton machines in action. You will meet Mr. Stockdale, the Engineer-in-Charge whose dynamism is doing wonders at Maran. And you will hear a commentary on a battle - a battle which is enacted everyday on this great road - between a man-made monster machine and Mother Nature herself in the form of a giant Tuallang tree. The Maran Road is no ordinary road. Its engineers have moved hills into valleys, squeezed swamps from its path, and are building the greatest road that Malaya has ever seen. My memory of Maran is one of young Malayans, working as a team, relentlessly driving forward with an unconquerable spirit. You can call it the pioneering spirit, the Elizabethan spirit, or just disciplined determination, but looking back I think of it as - the spirit of Maran.”
Kiri: Peta lakaran ilustrasi jalan Temerloh-Maran oleh Noel Arulsingam (1953)
Kanan: Peta jalan Temerloh-Maran kini (Mapcarta).
(Sumber: Stewart Wavell @ The Straits Times, 21 June 1953, Page 4: | "The spirit at Maran: A story to make you proud").
1964: Jambatan Runtuh
Gambar-gambar berikut dikatakan diambil ketika banjir sekitar tahun 1964 di Temerloh:-
“Jambatan Temerloh terputus dibahagian tengah akibat banjir pada tahun 1960”. Kiri: “Sebelum banjir” (atau ketika dibaikpulih?). Tengah: “Ketika banjir”. Kanan: “Selepas banjir”. (Temerloh Klasik, July 2, 2011: |"Banjir Tahun 1960").
Setelah itu, jambatan tersebut telah dibina semula: “Gambar lama jambatan jalan Temerloh - Maran - Kuantan. Sisa jambatan ni dulu ada lagi boleh nampak dari atas jambatan baru,sekarang ni tak tau lah ada ke dok lagi,dah lama min tak lalu.”