Sandakan Death March
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The Sandakan Death Marches were a series of forced marches in
Borneo Borneo () is the List of islands by area, third-largest island in the world, with an area of , and population of 23,053,723 (2020 national censuses). Situated at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, it is one of the Greater Sunda ...
from
Sandakan Sandakan () formerly known at various times as Elopura, is the capital of the Sandakan District in Sabah, Malaysia. It is the second largest city in Sabah after Kota Kinabalu. It is located on the Sandakan Peninsula and east coast of the sta ...
to Ranau which resulted in the deaths of 2,434 Allied
prisoners of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war for a ...
held captive by the
Empire of Japan The Empire of Japan, also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was the Japanese nation state that existed from the Meiji Restoration on January 3, 1868, until the Constitution of Japan took effect on May 3, 1947. From Japan–Kor ...
during the Pacific campaign of
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
at the Sandakan POW Camp,
North Borneo North Borneo (usually known as British North Borneo, also known as the State of North Borneo) was a British Protectorate, British protectorate in the northern part of the island of Borneo, (present-day Sabah). The territory of North Borneo wa ...
. By the end of the war, of all the prisoners who had been incarcerated at Sandakan and Ranau, only six Australians survived, all of whom had escaped. It is widely considered to be the single worst atrocity suffered by Australian servicemen during the Second World War.


Background

In 1942 and 1943, Australian and British POWs who had been captured at the
Battle of Singapore The fall of Singapore, also known as the Battle of Singapore, took place in the South–East Asian theatre of the Pacific War. The Empire of Japan captured the British stronghold of Singapore, with fighting lasting from 8 to 15 February 1942. S ...
in February 1942 were shipped to North Borneo to construct a military airstrip and
prisoner-of-war camp A prisoner-of-war camp (often abbreviated as POW camp) is a site for the containment of enemy fighters captured as Prisoner of war, prisoners of war by a belligerent power in time of war. There are significant differences among POW camps, inte ...
s at
Sandakan Sandakan () formerly known at various times as Elopura, is the capital of the Sandakan District in Sabah, Malaysia. It is the second largest city in Sabah after Kota Kinabalu. It is located on the Sandakan Peninsula and east coast of the sta ...
, North Borneo (
Sabah Sabah () is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state of Malaysia located in northern Borneo, in the region of East Malaysia. Sabah has land borders with the Malaysian state of Sarawak to the southwest and Indonesia's North Kalima ...
). As on the Burma Railway the prisoners were forced to work at gunpoint, and were often beaten whilst also receiving very little food or medical attention. In August 1943, with the intention of controlling the enlisted men by removing any commanders, most officer-ranked prisoners were moved from Sandakan to the Batu Lintang camp at
Kuching Kuching ( , ), officially the City of Kuching, is the capital and the most populous city in the States and federal territories of Malaysia, state of Sarawak in Malaysia. It is also the capital of Kuching Division. The city is on the Sarawak Ri ...
. Conditions for the remaining prisoners deteriorated sharply following the officers' removal. Rations were further reduced, and sick prisoners were also forced to work on the airstrip. After construction had been completed, the prisoners initially remained at the camp. In January 1945, with approximately 1,900 prisoners still alive, the advancing Allies managed to successfully
bomb A bomb is an explosive weapon that uses the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy. Detonations inflict damage principally through ground- and atmosphere-transmitted mechan ...
and destroy the airfield. It was at this time, with Allied landings anticipated shortly, that camp commandant Captain Hoshijima Susumi decided to move the remaining prisoners westward into the mountains to the town of Ranau, a distance of approximately . He claimed that this was an order of Lieutenant General Baba Masao, commanding officer of the 37th Japanese Army. The former military airstrip is now known as Sandakan Airport, which serves Sandakan town.


Events


First marches

The first phase of marches across wide
marshland In ecology, a marsh is a wetland that is dominated by herbaceous plants rather than by woody plants.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p More in general ...
, dense
jungle jungle is land covered with dense forest and tangled vegetation, usually in tropical climates. Application of the term has varied greatly during the past century. Etymology The word ''jungle'' originates from the Sanskrit word ''jaṅgala'' ...
, and then up the eastern slope of
Mount Kinabalu Mount Kinabalu ( Dusun: ''Gayo Ngaran'' or ''Nulu Nabalu'', ) is the highest mountain in Malaysia and Borneo. With a height of , it is the third-highest peak of an island on Earth, the 28th highest peak in Southeast Asia, and 20th most prom ...
occurred between January and March 1945. The Japanese had selected 470 prisoners who were thought to be fit enough to carry baggage and supplies for the accompanying Japanese battalions relocating to the western coast. In several groups the POWs, all of whom were either malnourished or suffering serious illness, started the journey originally under the intention of reaching Jesselton (
Kota Kinabalu Kota Kinabalu (; formerly known as Jesselton), colloquially referred to as KK, is the state capital of Sabah, Malaysia. It is also the capital of the Kota Kinabalu District as well as the West Coast Division of Sabah. The city is located on the ...
). Although the route took nine days, they were given enough rations for only four days. As on the
Bataan Death March The Bataan Death March was the Death march, forcible transfer by the Imperial Japanese Army of around 72,000 to 78,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war (POWs) from the municipalities of Bagac and Mariveles on the Bataan Peninsula to Camp ...
, any POWs who were not fit enough or collapsed from exhaustion were either killed or left to die en route. Upon reaching Ranau, the survivors were halted and ordered to construct a temporary camp. As one historian later commented: "Those who survived... were herded into insanitary and crowded huts to then die from
dysentery Dysentery ( , ), historically known as the bloody flux, is a type of gastroenteritis that results in bloody diarrhea. Other symptoms may include fever, abdominal pain, and a feeling of incomplete defecation. Complications may include dehyd ...
. By 26 June, only five Australians and one British soldier were still alive."


Second marches

A second series of marches began on 29 May 1945 with approximately 536 prisoners. The new Sandakan camp commander,
Captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...
Takakuwa Takuo, ordered the prisoners towards Ranau in groups of about fifty with accompanying Japanese guards. The march lasted for twenty-six days, with prisoners even less fit than those in the first marches had been, provided with fewer rations and often forced to forage for food. Compound No. 1 of the Sandakan camp was destroyed in an attempt to erase any evidence of its existence. Only 183 prisoners managed to reach Ranau. Upon their arrival on 24 June 1945, participants of the second marches discovered that only six prisoners from the first series of marches during January were still alive.


Final march

Approximately 250 people were left at Sandakan after the second march departed. Most prisoners were so ill that the Japanese initially intended to let them starve to death, forcing many to scavenge in the surrounding forest for food. However, on 9 June 1945 it was decided to send another group of 75 men on a final march. The remaining men were so weak that none survived beyond . As each man collapsed from exhaustion, he was shot by a Japanese guard. All remaining prisoners left at Sandakan who could not walk either were killed or died from a combination of starvation and sickness before the Japanese surrender on 15 August 1945. Many Japanese soldiers also died from starvation, with some even turning to
cannibalism Cannibalism is the act of consuming another individual of the same species as food. Cannibalism is a common ecological interaction in the animal kingdom and has been recorded in more than 1,500 species. Human cannibalism is also well document ...
in order to preserve their fighting effectiveness.


Operation Kingfisher

Operation Kingfisher was a planned rescue operation for servicemen at the Sandakan camp that was abandoned in early 1945. The operation is said to have been derailed by inaccurate intelligence. The exact details of the proposed operation are unclear as the operation itself was top-secret, but is said to have involved Australian paratroopers being dropped into the vicinity to evacuate prisoners. There is no specific recorded date for the cancellation of the operation, though the reassignment of the Agas 1 team to a West Coast mission due to "information received about the POW's" places the time period of the abandonment at around 16–19 April. Agas reconnaissance missions continued to compile reports and survey the camp until early June, with Major Gort Chester requesting advice on how act on his compiled evidence to no response. The Agas team would later, incorrectly, report that there were no prisoners left in the camp, leading to the official end of any planned operation. There are arguments as to whether the operation itself was feasible. Reports produced by the Agas team in May 1945 ruled the evacuation of prisoners by air infeasible due to the destruction of the Ranau airfield. Evacuation by land to awaiting submarines was considered, but quickly abandoned of the grounds of the terrible condition of the men. Australian paratroopers, as well as Royal Marines, were placed on standby for the operation and were ready to go ahead upon receiving up-to-date information from the Agas team, but said intelligence was never received. The blame for the operation's failure was the subject of much controversy once the full reports of the camps death toll were received. General
Thomas Blamey Field marshal (Australia), Field Marshal Sir Thomas Albert Blamey (24 January 1884 – 27 May 1951) was an Australian general of the First World War, First and Second World Wars. He is the only Australian to attain the rank of field marshal. Bl ...
and other Australian officers attempted to shift blame onto General Douglas MacArthur on the grounds that he did not provide adequate air support. However, such reports imply that the Allies were on the brink of action and have been proven to be inaccurate. It is generally assumed that the decision to call off the operation before the surveillance was completed was made by the Australian military.


Aftermath

Due to a combination of a lack of food and brutal treatment at the hands of the Japanese, only 38 prisoners were left alive at Ranau by the end of July. All were too unwell and weak to do any work, and it was ordered that any remaining survivors should be shot. They were killed by the guards during August, possibly up to 12 days after the end of the war on 14 August. It has been estimated that in total, approximately 16% of the population of North Borneo were killed during the three years of Japanese occupation. In total, only six Australian servicemen managed to escape. During the second marches, Gunner Owen Campbell and Bombardier Richard Braithwaite managed to escape into the jungle, where they were assisted by locals and eventually rescued by Allied units. During July, Private Nelson Short, Warrant Officer William Sticpewich, Private Keith Botterill, and Lance Bombardier William Moxham managed to escape from Ranau and were also helped by the local people, who fed them and hid them from the Japanese until the end of the war. Of the six survivors, only four (Sticpewich, Botterill, Short, and Campbell) gave evidence at the various war crimes trials in both
Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...
and
Rabaul Rabaul () is a township in the East New Britain province of Papua New Guinea, on the island of New Britain. It lies about to the east of the island of New Guinea. Rabaul was the provincial capital and most important settlement in the province ...
. The world was able to receive eyewitness accounts of the crimes and atrocities committed. Captain Hoshijima was found guilty of war crimes and hanged on 6 April 1946. Captain Takakuwa and his second-in-charge, Captain Watanabe Genzo, were likewise found guilty of perpetrating the murder and massacres of prisoners-of-war and were hanged and shot on 6 April 1946 and 16 March 1946, respectively.


Commemorations

In 1948 the Australian journalist Colin Simpson visited British North Borneo to retrace the steps of the Sandakan Death Marches and later record the memoirs of six survivors for a radio documentary for the
Australian Broadcasting Commission The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is Australia’s principal public service broadcaster. It is funded primarily by grants from the federal government and is administered by a government-appointed board of directors. The ABC is a ...
's ''Australian Walkabout'' programme. The script was later published as ''Six from Borneo'' (1948). A War Memorial and Gardens of remembrance were built at Kundasang, Sabah in 1962 to commemorate those who had died at Sandakan and Ranau. The Sandakan Death Marches have been dramatised in the 2004
oratorio An oratorio () is a musical composition with dramatic or narrative text for choir, soloists and orchestra or other ensemble. Similar to opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an instrumental ensemble, various distinguisha ...
''Sandakan Threnody'' — a threnody being a hymn of mourning, composed as a memorial to a dead person. The oratorio was written by Australian composer Jonathan Mills, whose father survived a term of imprisonment at Sandakan in 1942–43. In 2011, Year 9 and 10 Drama Students at Toodyay District High School, in Western Australia, re-dramatised an updated version of the original 1947 ABC Radio play ''Six From Borneo'' with help from the Toodyay community, including Toodyay Community Radio, the Shire of Toodyay and Toodyay RSL. The launch of the Six From Borneo Project was attended by the Malaysian Consul General Puan Hamidah Ashari, Member for Moore Grant Woodhams MLA, Military Historian Lynette Silver, relatives of Sandakan POWs and Toodyay community members. On 9 September 2011, audio excerpts of the original recording were played on ABC radio (WA Perth 720) for the first time since 1947, along with audio excerpts of the rerecording. The play was due to be broadcast on Toodyay Community Radio in late 2011 and was then to be offered to other community radio stations across Australia. A copy of the rerecording has been submitted to the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia and to the ABC library in Perth, Western Australia. Between 2012 and 2014,
Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...
n students participating in the Premier's ANZAC Student Tour visited
Sandakan Sandakan () formerly known at various times as Elopura, is the capital of the Sandakan District in Sabah, Malaysia. It is the second largest city in Sabah after Kota Kinabalu. It is located on the Sandakan Peninsula and east coast of the sta ...
, Ranau and various sites of significance along the route of the death marches to learn about the atrocities committed and raise greater awareness (particularly among youth) about the experiences of Australian
POW POW is "prisoner of war", a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict. POW or pow may also refer to: Music * P.O.W (Bullet for My Valentine song), "P.O.W" (Bull ...
s in
South-East Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Australian mainland, which is part of Oceania. Southeast Asia i ...
during WW2. Sandakan was referred to by Prime Minister
Shinzo Abe Shinzo Abe (21 September 1954 – 8 July 2022) was a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan and President of the Liberal Democratic Party (Liberal Democratic Party (Japan), LDP) from 2006 to 2007 and again from 2012 to 2020. ...
in his speech to the Australian parliament on 8 July 2014. It was the first speech to the parliament by a Japanese leader.


Delayed release of records and testimonies following the trials

After the war much of the information surrounding the event's of the marches were kept from the families and the general public. In the beginning this was attributable to the conflicting information between the records provided to the Army and those recovered at the camp, as well as the conflicting survivor testimonies. These differing accounts meant that many men had the wrong recorded date or wrong cause of death recorded as the records at the camp would often record the deaths of executed prisoners to as a result of illness. Although, records were eventually rectified the information immediately proceeding the war presented a very complex and contradictory recounting of the camps events. However, after the war crimes trials in 1946, the reasoning behind this concealment changed from lack of reliable information to that of sparing families the grief and torment, with the rationale that the events of the marches were too terrible to be disclosed. In the midst of the trials, the Press, while not explicitly asked to conceal information, agreed with the government to only disclose the basic details of the camp. Most notably, the Army record keepers were also kept in the dark and relied upon press releases in order gain access to testimonies, records and general information associated with the war crimes investigations. It was during this time that investigations into the camp were undertaken. This included collecting bodies for the war graves commission and the recovery of the camp records. The results of this inquiry, after investigations concluded in 1947, were released to the relevant government agencies to be sealed for a minimum of 30 years. It is worth noting that there are some that attribute this withholding of information as an attempt to conceal the military's lack of intervention in this matter both in regards to the relative failure of the Singapore campaign and the abandonment of Project Kingfisher. Although these allegations have not been confirmed. Very little information was released to the public in the time between this sealing and the eventual upsurge of the narratives in the 1980s. While some books pertaining to the movements of these units during the war were released earlier, these did not pertain to the time that these units spent in captivity. Family members attempting to gain information from 1945 to the unsealing of these documents were presented with very little information, usually only being provided a confirmation of death. British families found gathering this information particularly difficult. It wasn't until the efforts of investigators, historians and soldiers brought these narratives to light in the 1980s and 1990s that Sandakan entered the public consciousness again and, for many families this was their first exposure to a full account of what happened to their relatives.


POW route

The "POW Route" during the three death marches series was documented in 1945 by British and Australian military. The route begins in Sandakan and ends at the " Last Camp" at Ranau. The stations of the route are now marked with a sign board. Since 2005, the route of the track became a heated dispute between two Australian war historians, Dr Kevin Smith and Lynette Silver. Dr Smith claimed that at Telupid, the track veered to the right towards Miruru via the Liwagu Valley but Lynette argued that it never went to Miruru according to the hand-drawn map found by the Australian Body Recovery team of the Office of Australian War Graves and later audited in 2012 by the Australian Army History and Mapping units. The argument was set to rest as Lynettes' evidence was supported by two of the last remaining trail cutters, Tuaty Akau and Zudin, who lived at the time to establish the route under
forced labour Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, or violence, including death or other forms of ...
for the
Imperial Japanese Army The Imperial Japanese Army (IJA; , ''Dai-Nippon Teikoku Rikugun'', "Army of the Greater Japanese Empire") was the principal ground force of the Empire of Japan from 1871 to 1945. It played a central role in Japan’s rapid modernization during th ...
(IJA) as well witnessing the horror of the death march. Both these witnesses have since died; Zudin on 14 May 2017 from breathing difficulties at the age of 87, and Tuaty on 29 October 2018 at the age of 105. In 2011, the future Australian Prime Minister
Scott Morrison Scott John Morrison (born 13 May 1968) is an Australian former politician who served as the 30th prime minister of Australia from 2018 to 2022. He held office as leader of the Liberal Party of Australia, leader of the Liberal Party and was ...
(appointed in 2018) decided to complete the track all the way from Telupid to Ranau together with two fellow Australian politicians, then Defence Minister Jason Clare and Independent
Rob Oakeshott Robert James Murray Oakeshott (born 14 December 1969) is a retired Australian politician. He was the independent Member of the House of Representatives for the Division of Lyne in New South Wales from 2008, when he won the 2008 Lyne by-electi ...
in the six-day walk from Telupid to the Last Camp site in Ranau together with Lynette Silver, husband Neil Silver and a group of 20 Australian students. In 2016, 27
Sutton Valence School Sutton Valence School (SVS) is a private school near Maidstone in southeast England. It has 560 pupils. It is a co-educational day and boarding school, boarding school. There are three senior boarding houses: Westminster, St Margaret's and Sutto ...
(SVS)
Combined Cadet Force The Combined Cadet Force (CCF) is a youth organisation in the United Kingdom, sponsored by the Ministry of Defence (MOD), which operates in schools, sub divided into Royal Navy, Royal Marines, Army and Royal Air Force sections. Its aim is to ...
(CCF) from the United Kingdom including seven girls visiting the route to mount a five-day trek through its forested section from Bauto to Muruk.


See also

*
Bataan Death March The Bataan Death March was the Death march, forcible transfer by the Imperial Japanese Army of around 72,000 to 78,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war (POWs) from the municipalities of Bagac and Mariveles on the Bataan Peninsula to Camp ...
* Batu Lintang camp * Berhala Island, Sandakan * Borneo campaign, 1945 * Tatsuji Suga * Frederick Campling * Operation Kingfisher (World War II) *'' Six from Borneo''


References


External links


The Sandakan Track – Sandakan-Ranau Death March (1942–1945)
Sandakan-Ranau Death March
Sandakan Memorial Park
Lynette Silver, who began assisting the Office of Australian War Graves (OAWG) with the development of the Sandakan Memorial Park in 1995, has been involved in a number of initiatives since that time.
Fraudulent Military Service
Investigating suspect claims made by various individuals in regard to war service and so on.
Prisoners of War Name List
A large amount of information regarding the fate of Australian and British prisoners sent to, or destined for, the Sandakan POW Camp, has been collated.


Laden, Fevered, Starved: Remembering Sandakan

Stolen Years
Australian War Memorial. Australian Prisoners of War-Prisoners of the Japanese

Reading List



Australia's War: 1939–1945

Sabah Forestry Department

ABC Western Australia Monday, 13 June 2005

Digger History: Unofficial history of the Australian & New Zealand Armed Services

ANZAC Day Commemoration Committee (Qld)

Pacific War Historical Society

Japanese War Crime Tribunal Documents 1946–1948

The University of New Mexico, University Libraries, Center for Southwest Research. Box 18, Folder 73:No. 1671A. 26 October 1945. War Crimes. Sandakan Area. Joint Statement by Chen Kay, Chin Kin, and Lo Tong against Sgt. Naoji Rosotani, Kempei Tai. Box 20, Folder 57: No. 3211. IMTFE, sworn deposition of Takakura, Tadashi, 9-8-47. Captain Takakura Tadashi was the commander of the Sandakan Camp when the POWs were marched from Sandakan to Ranau, on the Second Death March, 29 May 1945
Tourism and the Sandakan Death Marches

Construction of the secret radio at Sandakan camp: interview with Lt-Col R. G. Wells
{{coord missing, Malaysia Death marches in World War II Japanese war crimes in British Borneo North Borneo 1945 in the Japanese colonial empire Cannibalism in Asia Incidents of cannibalism