sandakan death marches

Sailing into Sandakan is a fairly peaceful journey. The sea is relatively calm and, aside from the occasional monsoon-like storm, the weather is often wonderful. The city itself is welcoming and provincially pleasant, so it is hard to imagine it was the sight of one of World War II’s many grotesque atrocities. 3,600 Indonesian civilian slave labourers and 2,400 allied POWs were forcibly marched from Sandakan to Ranau by the Japanese soldiers who held them captive. Six survived. Looking at the bush around me I cant begin to imagine what they went through. The forest is so dense I can only see the layer of trees in from of me, behind them is darkness, no light, nothing except layers of undifferentiated bush. Twice I see poisonous snakes on branches, in addition to several different kinds of monkeys. The ground is unsteady, the forest floor is made up of fallen, rotting branches, trunks, and other various plants I cannot begin to identify. It is hard to move without tripping or falling into the green darkness. There is an overpowering smell of rot everywhere. The jungle canopy is so thick it is hard to see ahead, and at times impossible to see what you are stepping on. Half the time when I lose my footing I reach out and gab a tree truck for support, only then to realize that it is covered in bugs who are now on my arms. It is 35 degrees and the humidity is very high. I am a healthy, fit, young person who was raised in this weather, and I am wearing ideal clothing and armed with extra water and other luxuries like knives and bug spray. The prisoners marched through here had already spent over a year in captivity and forced labour. Some of the allied soldiers had been in captivity already 3 years, since the fall of Singapore. Many were already starving. But in January 1945 the allies were approaching quickly and the Japanese needed to move fast, so they strapped the supplies for their battalions onto the 470 strongest prisoners and tried to march them to the west coast. Those who collapsed on route were shot or left to die where they lay. Those who survived and made it to Kota Kinabalu were then ordered on to Ranau. 183 made it to Renau. But by July 1945, only 38 were left alive….and they were all shot. The 6 survivors were all Australians who had escaped along the way and had been sheltered and hidden by locals. But only three were able to cope with the aftermath of what had happened to them, the other three died shortly after the end of the war. Their shocking testimony of the marches, the worst atrocity suffered by Australian servicemen during the war, at the war crimes tribunal in Tokyo, makes for appalling reading, and this isn’t ancient history, it happened in my father’s lifetime. Looking around, I am overwhelmed by what humans can do to other humans. We are all indeed animals