SANDAKAN HISTORY DOC - Department of Veterans' Affairs

First death march to Ranau
January–March 1945
Approximately 455 POWs left Sandakan on the first march to
Ranau. They were issued with enough rations—rice, some
dried fish and salt—for just four days, and the men found that
they were also to be burdened with extra sacks of rice,
ammunition and other pieces of Japanese equipment.
Additional supplies supposedly were to be made available at
various Japanese food dumps along the way but the marchers
were often reduced to scrounging whatever the jungle could
provide or by trading their few possessions with the local
people. Most were forced to march in bare feet and the track
west soon became a barely passable pathway of mud, tree
roots and stones. Virtually every night it rained. Over sections
of low-lying swamp a bamboo walkway had been erected.
With the mud and rain, this proved impossible to walk on, so
the POWs were forced to wade through the swamp itself.
Japanese POWs filling in graves at Sandakan POW Camp. The graves have been
examined for relics that might have helped to identify the occupants. AWM 120451
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