Sandakan Memorial Park

Hello all,

After a good sleep last night, we felt refreshed and enjoyed breakfast this morning at our resort as well as a walk along the boardwalks. It was beautiful with the lake and jungle right there. 

Then we boarded our bus and stopped at the Sandakan Memorial Park. Formerly a British experimental farm on which crops were grown, this was the site of the Sandakan POW camp, the starting point of the death marches, and it is now looked after by the RSL and the Australian government - very well I should add. The park was very clean and well organised, with free wifi in the info centre so you could download an app the Australian government have made containing information, photos and interviews with survivors of the death marches. It was very emotive but extremely worthwhile downloading and visiting the park. 

The park is near/on the way to the airport because it is right near where the Japanese had the POWs constructing an airstrip. Throughout our walk we saw an old excavator and a boiler, and we learned of the little acts of sabotage many POWs committed to slow down the progress at the camp, such as filling the excavator with sand so that it stopped working, but pretending for weeks that it could be fixed. 

Then we entered a small building with information and displays, and followed a path past it to the memorial where services are held every Anzac Day. This memorial is on the site of the “big tree” and was part of the Australian section of the camp. The tree was huge, and survivors of the death march said it was a symbol of strength and resilience to those at the camp because it always stood tall even in terrible weather and conditions. While in the past it was surrounded by the different areas of the camp, aside from the memorial park it is now surrounded by housing blocks. 

As I mentioned the day we visited Kundasang War Memorial, due to the incoming threat of the encroaching allies, the Japanese decided to move all “healthy” POWs. Their intention was to move them to Jesselton (now Kota Kinabalu) and they got the local people to construct a path through the jungle that would be the death march route. The locals didn’t want to help the Japanese, and not knowing what the path was intended to be used for, they made it quite rough. The Japanese then set fire to the POW camp on 29th May 1945. Those unable to march were left behind to die. 

There were little acts of defiance by the Australians all the way through. Upon arriving at the camp, the camp commander Hoshijima gathered the prisoners and said the lieutenant needed to sign a contract saying they now served the Japanese army, no one would escape and that the soldiers would shoot anyone trying to escape. The lieutenant refused to sign on behalf of all the soldiers and instead, all soldiers were made to sign for themselves. Apparently there were many “Ned Kelly”, “Don Bradman” and “Bob Menzies” signatures. As well, an underground group had parts sent in to build a radio so they could listen to the BBC news and relay it to other prisoners. Eventually they were caught and some of these men were sent to prison in Singapore. Ironically, this saved their lives as they were spared the doomed fate of marching to Ranau. Some soldiers were sent in 1943 to a different camp where many died. In the app, a survivor of that camp said the last post was played every time someone died, and that it took him years to be able to even listen to the last post. 

As I mentioned in my post last week, Sandakan and the death marches were little known to me which I am embarrassed about. In the app, those interviewed suggested that the reason this part of Australia’s wartime history is not as widely known as the likes of Kokoda, Gallipoli could be for two reasons - 1) Kokoda, Gallipoli etc also had mass casualties, but many also came home to recount the horrors of war. Only six returned from Sandakan. 2) Incorrect information was sent to Australia stating that no one was left in the Sandakan POW camp, at a time when 1000 prisoners were still left. Due to this miscommunication, a planned rescue attempt never went ahead, and these men then either died at the camp or on the death marches. It could be that the government were embarrassed due to this mistake and perhaps didn’t speak of these events as much as others because they didn’t want to enrage the public. 

As the need by the Japanese for the airstrip became more and more urgent, the conditions these soldiers were subjected to worsened more and more. Many horrific torture methods that I won’t derail here were used. While over 8000 Australian prisoners of war of the Japanese were killed during the war, nearly 1/4 of them died just in Sandakan. Like I mentioned last week, these men will be in my thoughts every Anzac Day from now on as well as those involved in more widely known battles/events of Australia’s war history. I hope that in writing this blog I’ve made some more people aware of the atrocities that occurred here. 

After visiting the park, we headed to Sandakan airport and boarded our plane back to Kota Kinabalu as a group. The flight was so quick - only 45 minutes! It’s Stacey from our tour’s birthday today so we embarrassed her by singing happy birthday on the plane. Once back in KK, Mum and I went and swapped some money into Brunei dollars for tomorrow and now we are having a rest before our farewell dinner. 

Love to all

Claire

Xoxox