Lest we forget

We should never forget the suffering of so many during World War II. Of the millions who died (estimated at anywhere between fifty and one hundred million, depending on who’s doing the counting), the vast majority were civilians. Among the military casualties were many taken prisoner by the Axis powers, who were usually merciless to all whom they considered “sub-human” or “inferior” races. The Germans treated Russian and Slav prisoners just as barbarically as the Japanese treated US, British and European prisoners of war. (Of course, the Soviet Union treated its Axis prisoners-of-war just as badly.)

A very sad tale has just emerged after years of obscurity.

HERE, as the dirt was scraped away, lay the last, sad unspoken message from the soldiers who died on the Sandakan death marches: the brass buckles from their long-perished uniforms, the adjusters from their haversacks, neatly stacked together in the soil of Borneo.

Then there was the globular shape resting on top of the buckles, in pride of place. Lynette Silver rubbed away the dirt, spat on it and rubbed again. Now she could see an outline map of Australia and, now, a crown on top, and then the words “Australian Military Forces”. It was a brass tunic button from an Australian uniform.

“The button was most likely a treasured possession,” Ms Silver, the historian, said last week, “with the map of Australia a reminder of home. Its placement, on top of the buckles, appears to be an attempt to identify the nationality of those imprisoned there.”

By the time the button and other relics were buried 63 years ago, the burial party would have harboured no hopes of survival, or rescue, or of anyone in the outside world knowing where they were. They knew that people who came to this remote place were doomed to die. This place was the last camp.

So the dying soldiers buried these artefacts, the only non-perishable things they owned, in the hope that someone, one day, would know that Australians had been there, eight kilometres south of Ranau.

A few months earlier in 1945, the Japanese high command had ordered that no prisoners survive the war. With Allied forces nearing Sandakan, the Japanese ordered prisoners to march 265 kilometres to Ranau. Of 2434 Australian and British prisoners in Sandakan, only six survived – 1787 Australians and 641 British perished in the camp, along the track or at Ranau. The last were executed on August 27, 12 days after World War II ended.

Now the owner of the land on which the relics were discovered, with the help of Ms Silver, the foremost authority on the Sandakan tragedy, is planning to preserve the site. He will build a community facility with the artefacts in special pavilions.

Private Keith Botterill, one of the six survivors, had told Ms Silver before he died of conditions at the last camp. Botterill, who had been on the first of two death marches, saw a line of 183 shambling, emaciated figures from the second march enter the camp site on June 26, 1945. These men were the last of 536 who had left Sandakan a month before.

The men were dying by the dozen, from dysentery, malaria, beriberi, overwork and terrible beatings. At the end of July, only 32 were still alive; on August 1, 17 were carried or forced to crawl to the POW cemetery and murdered. The final 15 were all killed on August 27.

In 1995, Ms Silver located the POW sites along the route, and visited all but one in 1999.

Early this year, her trekking colleague, Tham Yau Kong, met the landowner where the last camp was situated, Dr Othman Minudin, who agreed with Ms Silver that the site was uncontaminated by modern-day living.

Ms Silver and her husband, Neil, spent two days there last month. They uncovered a large number of artefacts, from old nails used to build the POW hut, to the remains of the Japanese food store, kitchen knives, a wok support, an army mug, a heavy machine-gun bullet, and various knives that could be used as weapons.

They were preparing to leave when Mr Silver took their metal detector outside the general search area. He shouted for his wife and their helpers to come. They had unearthed the last desperately sad evidence in the Sandakan story.

Mr Silver cannot explain why he moved from the POW hut search area to where he found the artefacts.

Tham Yau Kong and Othman Minudin have no such problem: the spirits of the POW’s were at work.

A sad and sobering story. May the 2,428 dead soldiers of Sandakan rest in peace: and may their families – those who have families who remember them – be comforted in at least some measure by this discovery.

Peter