Sandakan Death Marches

Sandakan POW camp on 24 October 1945, a few months after the camp was destroyed by the retreating Japanese troops. In No. 1 compound (pictured), graves containing the bodies of 300 Australian and British prisoners were later discovered. It is believed they were the men left at the camp after the second series of marches. Each grave contained several bodies, in some cases as many as 10.

The Sandakan Death Marches were a series of forced marches in Borneo from Sandakan to Ranau which resulted in the deaths of 2,434 Allied prisoners of war held captive by the Empire of Japan during the Pacific campaign of World War II at the Sandakan POW Camp, North Borneo.[1] By the end of the war, of all the prisoners who had been incarcerated at Sandakan and Ranau, only six Australians survived, all of whom had escaped. It is widely considered to be the single worst atrocity suffered by Australian servicemen during the Second World War.[2]

  1. ^ Silver, Lynette Ramsay, 1945- (1999). Sandakan : a conspiracy of silence (3rd rev. ed.). Burra Creek, N.S.W.: Sally Milner Pub. ISBN 1863512454. OCLC 222609786.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  2. ^ Digger History Sandakan Death March: Japanese Inhumanity