Between late January and June 1945, more than 1000 emaciated allied prisoners of war set out under Japanese guard from Sandakan POW Camp, in British North Borneo, to walk 250 kilometres through the jungle to the village of Ranau. These forced marches became known as the Sandakan Death Marches, from which only six would survive after escaping. None of the 1400 POWs who remained at Sandakan was alive at war's end. Two of the men who died were Greenwich locals and friends.
Sandakan and the death marches were the worst single atrocity perpetrated against Australians in WWII. The six survivors testified at the war crimes trials of the Japanese officers and guards responsible, some of whom were executed in 1946. Following the war, accounts of what had happened at Sandakan and on the marches were supressed by the Australian military and government to spare the families the gruesome details of the men’s deaths.
Historian and researcher Lynette Ramsay Silver AM MBE will discuss Sandakan, the marches, and the events before, and after, these horrific incidents. Lynette, author of Sandakan: A Conspiracy of Silence and Blood Brothers, has established the route taken by the soldiers, through the jungle to Ranau.
Bookings essential.
Image caption: Carrying the rice [on one of the Sandakan Death Marches]. Artist unknown. (Courtesy L.Ramsay Silver/Kundasang War Memorial Gardens)