A series of death marches in Borneo, from Sandakan to Ranau, resulted in the deaths of 2,434 Allied prisoners of war held captive by the Empire of Japan during the Pacific campaign of World War II at the Sandakan camp, North Borneo. 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.Digger History Sandakan Death March: Japanese Inhumanity
Background
In 1942 and 1943, Australian and British POWs who had been captured at the Battle of Singapore in February 1942 were shipped to North Borneo to construct a military airstrip and prisoner-of-war camps at Sandakan, North Borneo (Sabah). 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. 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 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, dense jungle, and then up the eastern slope of Mount Kinabalu 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). Although the route took nine days, they were given enough rations for only four days. As on the Bataan Death March, 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. By 26 June, only five Australians and one British soldier were still alive."The Marches Australia's War, 1939–1945
Second marches A second series of marches began on 29 May 1945 with approximately 536 prisoners.Sandakan Death March The Pacific War Historical Society The new Sandakan camp commander, Captain 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.Laden, Fevered, Starved Sandakan POW Camp, 1942–1944 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 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 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.Remembering Sandakan: 1945–1999 "Captain Hoshijima Susumi was able to reveal from his knowledge of the war crimes interrogation documents that the last POWs had been killed at Ranau on 27 August 1945, well after the Japanese surrender. They had undoubtedly been killed, in Moffitt's view, to stop them being able to testify to the atrocities committed by the guards." 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 and Rabaul. 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's Australian Walkabout programme. The script was later published as Six from Borneo (1948).Six from Borneo : documentary drama of the death marches by Colin Simpson, Australian Broadcasting Commission, 1948. Retrieved 24 March 2022.
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 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 Australian students participating in the Premier's ANZAC Student Tour visited Sandakan, 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 POWs in South-East Asia during WW2.
Sandakan was referred to by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in his speech to the Australian parliament on 8 July 2014. It was the first speech to the parliament by a Japanese leader.Prime Minister of Japan and his cabinet webpage Remarks By Prime Minister Abe to the Australian Parliament Tuesday, 8 July 2014 Retrieved 8 March 2015The Australian Shinzo Abe's 'Sincere condolences' for Kokoda and Sandakan 9 July 2015 Retrieved 8 March 2015Sydney Morning Herald Shinzo Abe's condolences for those lost at Sandakan: a horror from the past, a moment to stop time 9 July 2014 Retrieved 8 March 2015Hansard ADDRESS BY THE PRIME MINISTER OF JAPAN Tuesday 8 July 2014 Retrieved 8 March 2015
Delayed release of records and testimonies following the trials