SANDAKAN HISTORY DOC - Department of Veterans' Affairs

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32 By 26 June, just under five months from when the 450-odd Australian and British POWs had set out from Sandakan, there were only six of them left alive at Ranau—five Australians and one British soldier. Over those months those who had stayed behind at the Sandakan camp fared little better than their comrades at Ranau and Paginatan. Malnutrition caused by the reduction in the rice ration to virtually starvation levels, disease and the failure of the Japanese to issue needed medicines brought inevitable results. From the beginning of February to the end of May, 885 Australian and British POWs died at the camp. One Australian who died in February was Private Ted Ings, 2/19th Battalion, of Binalong, New South Wales. The official cause of his death was given as malaria but certainly he was also suffering at that time from malnutrition and possibly also from one of the other diseases which by that time were endemic at Sandakan. Ted Ings’ death was typical of those hundreds of Australian and British POWs who between January and August 1945 expired at Sandakan camp from ill-treatment in a situation where their captors possessed locally enough medical and food supplies to adequately care for them. By mid-April the Japanese had decided to move the rest of the POWs away from Sandakan, an area where they expected an Allied landing. However, a final evacuation of the camp came about only after a large sea–air bombardment of Sandakan on 27 May. This attack severely damaged most of the town and convinced the Japanese that the foreshadowed invasion was imminent. They withdrew their defences inland beyond the POW camp that now stood between them and any Allied troops who might be landed at Sandakan. In these circumstances, the camp, which contained approximately 800 malnourished, ill and, in many cases, dying POWs was evacuated and burnt. Dick Braithwaite watched his home of three years go up in flames:
It was a strange, sad sort of feeling to see those huts going up. Knowing also, of course, that any records of our friends that had died, things that we’d made and cherished, the little pieces of wood that had become more or less like the family jewels, they were going up in smoke. It was a great loss. It must have been in the back of our minds all the time that this was it for us. Some 530 prisoners were gathered together in eleven groups for another march westwards to Ranau. The remainder, all too incapacitated to move, were left behind in the smouldering ruins. 33
Page 1 and 2: P190 Feb 1999
Page 5 and 6: Front cover: Wooden cross erected b
Page 7 and 8: Foreword The events surrounding the
Page 9: REMEMBERING SANDAKAN
Page 12 and 13: 4 The Ings brothers building a hays
Page 15: ‘FOUND OVER SIXTY PAYBOOKS AND VA
Page 18 and 19: 10 During October and November 1945
Page 20 and 21: 12 Volunteer Force, Royal Army Medi
Page 23: ‘WE ARE WELL. WE ARE HAPPY. WE AR
Page 26 and 27: 18 The POWs were brought to Sandaka
Page 28 and 29: 20 to sit in. Prisoners crawled int
Page 30 and 31: 22 Kuching, hundreds of kilometres
Page 33: ‘ONCE YOU STOPPED, YOU STOPPED FO
Page 36 and 37: 28 Keith Botterill was with the thi
Page 38 and 39: 30 Groups 6 to 9 remained at Pagina
Page 43: ‘IT WAS A ONE WAY TRIP’
Page 46 and 47: 38 Nelson Short was on the second m
Page 49 and 50: Last days at Sandakan Camp 29 May-1
Page 51 and 52: all those who could walk. There wer
Page 53: ‘THEY KILLED THE LOT OF THEM’
Page 56 and 57: 48 the Japanese, the POWs built the
Page 59: ‘IF YOU ESCAPE THE SAME THING WIL
Page 62 and 63: 54 his body by two guards. At times
Page 65: ‘SYDNEY WAS A LONG WAY FROM THERE
Page 68 and 69: 60 The only chance at life was esca
Page 70 and 71: 62 From here, Campbell was taken ou
Page 72 and 73: 64 down stream to Liberan Island wh
Page 74 and 75: 66 They had these stretchers, and t
Page 77: REMEMBERING SANDAKAN 1945-1999
Page 80 and 81: 72 eyewitness evidence given at the
Page 82 and 83: 74 over to Allied representatives o
Page 84 and 85: 76 of malnutrition and beriberi fro
Page 86 and 87: 78 mented in 1997 by a list of the
Page 88 and 89: 80 Sandakan Memorial in the Sandaka
Page 90 and 91:
82 lost at Sandakan. During a speci
Page 92 and 93:
84 and the anxiety they must suffer
Page 94 and 95:
86 Sandakan POWs—Australian and B
Page 96 and 97:
88 Books Athol Moffitt, Project Kin
Page 98:
90 Special thanks for their help in
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SANDAKAN HISTORY DOC - Department of Veterans' Affairs

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