The Sandakan Death Marches

Lynette Ramsay Silver still remembers a woman who approached her in 1993 asking her to write about the tragic incident in Malaysia’s Sandakan, a port city on the east coast of North Kalimantan, known as the Sandakan Death Marches. The woman wanted someone to document the dreadful tragedy, which claimed thousands of lives, including her brother's.

The woman then introduced Lynette to Keith Botterill, a former Australian Army soldier captured by the Japanese in Sandakan and one of the very few fortunate survivors. "Our first meeting was very special," Lynette, whose research focuses on Sandakan's history, told Historia. Lynette had no trouble understanding Keith's story as she already knew the majority of it.

Lynette and Keith's meetings became more frequent, especially in the last 12 months before Keith's death in January 1997. The prisoners' daily lives in Japanese military camps and many other unusual topics always became the highlight of their discussions.

Lynette then trawled the archives and conducted a number of interviews. While there had been previous attention from Australia to Japanese atrocities, "I was the first to trace in detail the atrocities committed against Allied POWs and the local people in relation to Sandakan and the Death Marches, and the first to trace the life stories of the 2,500 internees," she said.

Lynette's research resulted in her book Sandakan: A Conspiracy of Silence in which she didn’t only reveal the prisoners' horrific daily lives due to torture, but also highlighted how thousands of lives had to be lost. The Japanese were not the only cause of the lost lives, as there was also an aborted operation by the Allied forces that failed to rescue the prisoners. "I actually investigated the reasons why the proposed secret mission to rescue prisoners in April 1945 was canceled," said Lynette. As a result of the cancellation, almost all prisoners died, and the Allies kept this fact a secret for years.

The Pacific War

After bombarding Pearl Harbor, Hawaii in late 1941, the Japanese military quickly took over various regions in the south, including Indonesia. They targeted regions with abundant natural resources, especially oil. In December 1941, from Davao, Philippines, Japan invaded and took over Tarakan in Kalimantan, with a plan in mind to make Kalimantan an oil source and transit point.

"The Japanese needed a base in Kalimantan to increase the range of their aircraft operating from Singapore. Also, as a refueling station, maintenance site, and other military tactical bases," said Lynette.

It was then decided that an airfield was to be built in Sandakan. To meet labor needs, the Japanese brought in thousands of forced laborers or romusha from Java. In addition, after taking control of Singapore in early 1942, the Japanese transferred more than 2,000 Allied prisoners, mainly from Australia and Britain. Keith Botterill was one of them. In Sandakan, prisoners and romusha were forced to work with their bare hands and with zero equipment. The medicine supply was also very insufficient. During the first year, however, Japan provided adequate food rations, which lasted until the end of 1943 when Kempeitai (Japanese military police) suspected an underground movement by the prisoners.

From searches, Japanese soldiers found communication radios and drugs. Severe punishments were then imposed; prisoners were either bayoneted or shot dead. They also moved prisoners on a large scale to camps in the interior, where the prisoners experienced constant torture. Some of them were even kept in a small cage for long periods of time.

"I was locked in a cage in Sandakan for 40 days and 40 nights, and during that time, I was beaten every day. I was also not allowed to wash or shave, and went seven days without food," Keith Botterill recalled in his testimony published in borneopow.info.

The Japanese also began cutting food rations. "The food in the camp wasn't enough to keep us in good health. Some died of starvation. In the end we only received 75 grams of rice per day," Keith continued. 

Australia had actually planned an attempt to free the prisoners. Its local intelligence agents supplied information in April 1945, reporting that the Japanese and all the prisoners had moved out and the Sandakan camp was empty. However, the information turned out to be wrong, and the rescue operation was ultimately canceled. 

One by one, the prisoners perished. However, despite the many atrocities committed by the Japanese soldiers, Lynette said, "The majority of Allied POWs died from malnutrition and illness."

The romusha also received equally deplorable treatment. They never received the promised pay, were unorganized, and had no medical supplies, while the prisoners still had an officer who was hierarchically recognized by Japan. "The condition of the romusha depended on the discretion of each Japanese army unit and the situation at the local location," Aiko Kurasawa, historian at Keio University, Japan told Historia.

The Deadly Death Marches

The Allies' advance in war, especially the United States under General Douglas MacArthur, made Japan gradually lose its occupied areas. Entering 1945, when the Allied bombarded Sandakan from the air and sea, Japan was already much weakened. As Sandakan became increasingly unsafe, the Japanese planned to move inland with their prisoners and romusha. 

The Japanese Garrison Headquarters in Borneo under General Yamawaki Masataka issued an order in mid-January 1945 to move and employ prisoners and romusha in Jesselton (present-day Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Sabah state), about 335 km away. The transfer had to be done immediately.

"US submarines had almost blockaded Borneo. The Allies intercepted and decoded Japan's signals, so the submarines knew exactly where to patrol. This is why the prisoners and Japanese soldiers had to walk, as sea and air travel were impossible," Lynette said.

The first batch of the marches, consisting of nine groups of about 50 prisoners each, set off in late January for Jesselton in just 17 days. Keith was in this batch. They traveled on foot through the rugged jungle of Borneo to avoid the enemy who were bombarding the west coast, Jesselton. Because of the Allied bombardment, the Japanese officer leading the group changed their destination to Ranau, a district located at the foot of Mount Kinabalu, where camps for the prisoners of war were being built.

On the way, several prisoners contracted malaria and couldn't continue the journey. They were either abandoned or killed so as not to cause trouble. As many as 75 percent of the group members finally reached a village in Ranau and Paginatan.

"Those who survived eventually died, mainly from the outbreak of dysentery, which was exacerbated by hunger and other diseases," said Lynette.  "It was more accurately called a march to death because of the horrific conditions in the destination camps."

The second group began leaving Sandakan on May 29, with a larger number of prisoners, 536. There were also more Japanese soldiers joining the march, who often asked the prisoners to forage for food along the way. The entire POW camp was burned, including the hospital and all records and equipment.

The fitness of the prisoners in the second group wasn't as good as the first one, and there was even less food rations. Malaria became the deadliest killer. Members of the group who were unable to continue the journey were killed ruthlessly, while those who managed to survive finally reached Ranau on June 26. Only a few made it, and they didn't arrive at the same time. "Around 70 percent died," Lynette said.

In mid-June, the remaining prisoners in Sandakan, around 75 people, began their journey. Lynette herself estimates that there were only 65 prisoners left, all with deteriorating health conditions. "All died before reaching 42 kilometers from Sandakan (or 34 miles from the camp)," Lynette said.

The surviving prisoners had to face a terrible life in Ranau. They were housed in cramped and dirty huts with inadequate medical treatment and medicine. The only medics there were an Australian doctor and a medical sergeant, but they soon died too. Food rations were very minimal and poor. Prisoners died like flies, and those who faintly survived were executed when the war was over.

Two prisoners tried to escape but were caught and tortured to death by the Japanese. However, it didn't stop Keith from escaping. Along with his comrades Anderson, Moxham, and Short, Keith escaped on July 7, 1945. "We had to leave before we became too weak," said Keith.

They entered and stayed in the forest for six weeks. Luckily, the first night on the run, they found a Japanese rice dump. The rations to live on during the escape were safe, at least for some time. Three weeks later, Anderson died. The three of them then continued the journey until they met local people who provided them food and huts as shelter. They all remained there until Major Ripley of the Australian Army came to pick them up.

After the War

According to Lynette, of the thousands of prisoners who took part in the Sandakan Death March, half died on the way while the rest died at the destination. At the end of the war, only six Australian prisoners survived because they escaped. Meanwhile, all British prisoners perished.

From the documents Lynette found, by the end of 1945 several hundred romusha survived because of a storehouse of tapioca and rice supplies they found on the road near the POW camp, 8 kilometers from town. "The document also shows that of the 1,700 Javanese romusha in Kudat in August 1944, only 300 were alive at the end of the war," Lynette explained, referring to the area in Sabah where an airfield was being built. 

After Japan's defeat in the Pacific War, information from the six Australian survivors became a key source for Japanese war crimes investigators. With other evidence, they brought the case to war crimes trials. "Most of the Japanese soldiers were tried and found guilty as charged. Eleven of them were executed for crimes committed in Sandakan, Ranau, or the Death Marches. Meanwhile, the rest were imprisoned," said Lynette.

In Sabah, at the former Sandakan internment camp, the Australian government erected a granite monument, which was unveiled in March 1999, to the memory of those who died. Various monuments also stand in most Australian states. In addition, there are regular ceremonies and tours along the Death Marches route.

"The story of Sandakan and the Death Marches is one of the most tragic of World War II," said Lynette.