Australia Marks Death Marches and War's End

Updated August 16, 2010 11:23:02

In Sandakan on the north east coast of Borneo, Australian Governor General Quentin Bryce has led hundreds in commemorating the 65th anniversary for Victory over Japan Day, marking the end of World War Two, and the sacrifices made by Australian and British Prisoners of War.

Presenter: Luke Hunt
Speakers: Lieutenant Russell Ewin, former Australian POW; Lieutenant Leslie "Bunny" Glover, former Australian POW; Quentin Bryce, Governor General of Australia


SFX: Fade in "Going Home"

HUNT: It was near here in what is now Sabah in East Malaysia that Australia led allied forces in the invasion of Borneo in early 1945, the last major offensive of the war that resulted in the liberation of the island from Japanese occupation.

And it was from this provincial town that the Japanese began their forced marches of allied PoWs to Ranau in the densely forested interior towards the end of the war that cost the lives of 2,400 Australian and British troops. Only six who escaped survived.

Lieutenant Russell Ewin was among 1,500 prisoners who arrived in Sandakan in 1941 and was immediately forced into joining a crew that was building an aerodrome in a swamp.

He says Sandakan deserves its place in Australian history alongside Gallipoli despite being hushed-up by successive post-World War Two governments because the crimes committed here were considered too barbaric for public consumption back home.

EWIN: Well it was always very important. But the Australian government made a positive decision to suppress most of the information about it and it wasn't until the 1960s before the first books were written and the whole story came out. But it is such a tragic story for Australia. People are linking it with our losses with Gallipoli as having the same importance in another war.

HUNT: Beatings were regular, food was scarce, illnesses like dysentery were common and despite this prisoners were forced to work felling trees and filling in the local swamp for the airfield. Those who did not work were denied their meager daily rations of rice.

Lieutenant Leslie Bunny Glover was imprisoned by the Japanese alongside Ewin and says the Australian character, sense of mate ship and sense of humor were most important for survival.

GLOVER: You live the best way you can with what's there and I found myself it was my mental approach to life was more important than my physical approach to life. I mean I was physically hurt a lot and I slaved a lot but I never let them beat me in the mind.

HUNT: Both men were transferred from Sandakan to another prison camp in Kuching on southern Borneo in 1943 and were spared the marches and almost certain death that would be inflicted upon their fellow PoWs in the latter stages of the war.

By the time the forced marches began starvation had already taken a heavy toll and those who could not keep up were killed by the retreating Japanese soldiers. Those who made it to Ranau would also be murdered, some many days after the final surrender.

Australia's Governor General Quentin Bryce led the morning ceremony at the Sandakan Memorial Park - on the site of the former PoW camp.

She paid tribute to the local indigenous and Chinese communities who ran an underground network which provided important support for the PoWs, worked closely with the escape committee and ran a guerilla campaign against Japanese occupation.

Many were seized by Japan's dreaded military police, the Kempeitai, tortured and killed.

BRYCE: They risked their lives, their livelihood, they cared for the escapees for the survivors in every way they humanly could. It's a remarkable story of a friendship, indeed a love, across nations and it's a story I feel passionately about Australians knowing more about.

HUNT: In leading the service Ms Bryce also requested a minute silence for Trooper Jason Brown of the elite Special Air Service Regiment who was killed while on duty in Afghanistan.

The 29-year-old died from multiple gunshot wounds sustained on Saturday during a fight with insurgents while conducting operations in Kandahar.

Luke Hunt for Radio Australia, Sandakan.